Thank you for that – it fills in the number of gaps for me. I'm particularly interested in the relationship between the railways and the late nineteenth century cyclist, and would offer the following quote as an indication of the popularity of the bicycle among the non-elite by the end of the nineteenth century.
G.A. Wade, 'What a bank holiday means to London railways', Railway Magazine, 7 (1900)
"But this was only one of the marvels performed by the railways on that wonderful Bank Holiday, only one amongst several others. I stood at Waterloo and watched what appeared to be a never-ending stream of cycles being wheeled hither and thither by owners and porters until I was fairly bewildered as to where they were all going. It seemed impossible that they should be all off by train, apart from the extraordinary passenger-crowds there were to be carried. But they were all the same. On asking afterwards I discovered that there were no less than 4,300 cycles sent off that holiday time. And the same number I also learned—or very nearly it, over 4,000—went from Paddington by the Great Western Railway. Good gracious, 8,500 cycles from two London stations! Wherever were they going to? Put in a line these 8,500 cycles would stretch from Waterloo to Paddington and back again, a distance of well on towards eight miles. A grand procession of cyclists that would be, wouldn't it? There was a time, and that not very long ago either, when the railway authorities treated the cyclists very cavalierly and offhandedly; but they have had to alter that system. An army that can muster 8,000 members at two stations on a given day is one not to be trifled with."
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