One point this article misses is the size of the cities. Until mid-1800 cities were at most 1-1.5 km long, usually just 2-3 streets. Just look at old maps of Manchester. The only exceptions were the capitals like London, which were an order of magnitude more populous, but still only 2-5 times bigger in distance.<p>The primary means of transportation was not horse, but feet. You could walk to a destination on the other side of an average city of those times in 15 minutes, so a bike wouldn't bring big gains in time.<p>Only in 2nd half of 19th century, cities began growing, and transportation became a problem.