"The effect of the bicycle on daily life is now drastically

underestimated by many historians, who tend to see it as an 

instrument of self-inflicted torture. Simple truths have 

been forgotten. As almost everyone knew a hundred years ago,  

the secret to riding a bicycle as an adult is to pedal just hard enough to keep the machine upright,

then to increase the speed very gradually, but without becoming 

too breathless to hold a conversation or to hum a tune. 

In this way, with a regular intake of water and food, an uncompetitive, moderately fit person can cycle up an Alp,

with luggage, on a stern but steady gradient engineered for an eighteenth-century mule. Descending is more difficult but statistically much safer, to all concerned, than in a car."

Graham Robb, The Discovery of France, 2007