Early bicycle hackers...

  Whereas skiing began as a way of getting about and evolved into a sport,
  bicycling began as a sport activity and evolved into a means of
  transport.  Even when the rider of a high-wheeled bicycle was not
  actually racing, he viewed his activity primarily as an athletic pastime.
  It was not easy to mount the high-wheeled bicycle....  Uwe Timm ... gives
  a convincing and colorful description of his uncle Franz Schr\:oder's
  efforts to learn how to ride a high-wheeled bicycle: ``Schr\:oder
  experienced this afternoon the large and fundamental difference between
  theory and practice.  He mounted and fell down.  The crowd of spectators
  was standing there and kept silent.  He stood up again and fell off
  again.''  He repeated this motion several times, to increasing
  enthusiastic clapping and cheering: ``Hopf, hopf, hopf, immer aufem
  Kopf!''  By the end of the afternoon he had learned how to mount and ride
  in a straight line; making a curve and dismounting were not yet in his
  repertoire, so each little ride ended in a fall.  However, after another
  week of trying (in which he lost two finger tips between the spokes of
  the front wheel), he had mastered the art of riding a high-wheeled
  bicycle.  No wonder bicyclists wore an anxious air.  ``Bicyclist's
  face,'' this expression was called, and newspapers predicted a generation
  with hunchbacks and tortured faces as a result of the bicycle craze.

	-- Wiebe E. Bijker, in "Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs:
		Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change" (MIT Press)
		[ As excerpted in the 15 Dec 95 issue of "Science" ]