Read the excerpt from Chapter 5 of Wheels of Change.Poets and writers also explored the impact of the wheel and the changing dynamics between the sexes that it helped bring about. Magazines and some newspapers regularly published poetry and short stories at that time, and cycling was a popular theme. In 1893, poet Madeline S. Bridges celebrated the female cyclist's new freedom by contrasting her with the maidens of the past who used wheels to spin thread.