Originally Posted by
momsonherbike
About this so called "slippery slope"? Really?? <major eyeroll> Give me a break. There is no such animal. Electric bikes have been around since Viscount Bury and G.Lacy Hiller wrote a whole freak'n chapter on this bike technology in 1887 (The Badminton Library - published in 1887), and even they said that cycling had only really begun 10 years prior (in Great Britain) and electrical assist bikes were already on the ground. <NOTE: I happen to be researching material at a highly regarded sporting library on a different subject matter (a certain woman British sporting artist active from 1910-1938), and happened to notice this 1887 tome entitled "Cycling" so had to have a look inside and ...lo and behold...there was the electric bicycle, among other interesting cycling apparatus. Some of those bikes (especially the three wheelers with the passenger seat up front) were really ingenious.> Sorry, I digress. Back to the subject at hand....
I think you're slightly mistaken. I have a small library of antiquarian books on cycling (particularly on cycling in Ireland) but not this one, however I have found a download of it on line and it certainly doesn't have 'a whole freak'n chapter' on electric bikes. I've had a look through it and think I've found what caught your attention. There are about four pages in the introduction (p44-48)where the authors discuss the practicalities of using electricity but dismiss it.
https://www.forgottenbooks.com/en/re...ing_10036548#6
I do have a copy of R J McCready & A J Wilson's revised 1891 edition of 'The Art & Pastime of Cycling' which has a history of the bicycle with many illustrations and a chapter on bicycle touring but it doesn't make any reference to any type of machine other than 'human powered'.
Edit: There was undoubtedly interest in electricity as a possible source of power in the early days of 'proper cycling' as McCready referred to it. This is hardly surprising as the Victorians were nothing if not inventive.