Bizaro!

Bicycle Face!

A Dale Josey

The 1890s bicycle craze in America was especially popular with women enjoying a new freedom they didn’t have before such as unchaperoned travel. The popularity of cycling caused a moral panic.   According to late 19th century medical journals, doctors quickly diagnosed a new malady called ‘Bicycle Face’. This illness was discribed as 'leaving women with flushed faces, bulging eyes, clenched jaws, and overall expressions of weariness'.  In time, with the advent of the automobile in the 1900s, the public health fear of ‘Bicycle Face’ was replaced by ‘Horseless Carriage Face’.