Illustration from Despite these claims, women jumped at the chance to ride these two-wheeled machines and enjoyed the independence offered of getting around without having men as escorts. To prevent women from becoming too independent and driving bicycles in the late 1800s, clergy and medical professionals came up with all kinds of tragic ailments that would befall these skin-baring she-daredevils.

Pin up posters warning of these hazards were tacked up in all the popular men’s gathering spots. These professionals also worried that the friction caused by the seat would result in their arousal.

In those days, clergy and medical professionals were against women riding bicycles, claiming the bouncing damaged their fragile insides. The advent of the pneumatic wheel on the newer safety bikes (lower center of gravity with equal size wheels), made it a popular choice with women. These safety bicycles had both tires of the same size and replaced the Penny-Farthing bicycles, the older bicycles that had one large solid front tire and a smaller rear tire. The Penny-Farthing bicycles were unbalanced and had hard wheels made of wood or metal, which were unsafe and uncomfortable to ride. The real origin of pin up girls modeling next to wheels is unknown but there are a lot of advertisements from the late 1800s of women posing next to safety bicycles. Adam Marmolejo of Lucky Devil Pin Ups volunteered to help us decipher the legacy and the future of these beautiful women. It’s one thing to do research in all the venues where these beauties have shown up in history, but we also reached out to a modern professional pin up photographer to get the rest of the story.

– Adam Marmolejo We decided to pull the sheets back and take a deep dive into the history of pin up girls. When you go to a vintage car show, you expect to see a pin up girl. If you go to a circus, you expect to see a girl on a trapeze.

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