Read this excerpt from Chapter 1 of Wheels of Change by Sue Macy.The crash caused his horses to run away, Hough said, flipping over the buggy and killing one of the animals. "I consider the bicycle to be the most dangerous thing to life and property ever invented," exclaimed Hough, who suffered a broken arm and finger in the accident. "The gentlest of horses are afraid of it." In the end, the judge upheld the right of New York's parks commissioners to ban bicycles and fined the cyclists five dollars each. Pope was not alone in his determination to fight for the rights of American cyclists. In the spring of 1880, he had joined author Charles Pratt and others in forming the League of American Wheelmen ("the L.A.W."), an organization that pledged to "promote the general interests of bicycling, to ascertain, defend, and protect the rights of wheelmen, and to encourage and facilitate touring."