Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. It has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.
Those words were uttered by Susan B. Anthony. It's no coincidence, I think, that the women's suffrage moment gained momentum during America's first "Bike Boom," in the 1890s and early 1900s. Both developments followed the development of the "safety bicycle," with two wheels of equal or nearly-equal size and the rear propelled by a chain-and-sprocket drive.
OK, I'll try to say this without sounding sexist. I think that the safety bicycle encouraged women to take up riding for two reasons. One is that is that it's easier to ride a "safety" in the clothes women wore in those days. (I'm not sure how they could mount 60-inch wheels in hoopskirts.) The other is that women are, on average, smaller than men and would--even if they were wearing lycra tights (which, of course, weren't available at the time) thus have more difficulty in getting aboard a high-wheeler.
Plus, "safeties" just make more sense--like letting people vote, regardless of their gender.
