Editing Cycling (section)

==History==
{{Main|History of cycling}}

Cycling became popularized in Europe and North America in the latter part and especially the last decade of the 19th century.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Oosterhuis |first=Harry |date=2016-07-02 |title=Cycling, modernity and national culture |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03071022.2016.1180897 |journal=Social History |language=en |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=233–248 |doi=10.1080/03071022.2016.1180897 |issn=0307-1022}}</ref> Today, over 50 percent of the human population knows how to ride a bike.<ref>{{cite book |last=Reid |first=Carlton |chapter=How Cyclists Became Invisible (1905–1939) |date=2017 |title=Bike Boom |pages=19–50 |publisher=Island Press |doi=10.5822/978-1-61091-817-6_2 |isbn=978-1-61091-872-5}}</ref><ref>SIBILSKI, LESZEK J. [https://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/cycling-everyone-s-business/ "Cycling Is Everyone's Business"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612142147/https://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/cycling-everyone-s-business/ |date=12 June 2018 }}, ''[[The World Bank]]'', 2 April 2015</ref>

===War===
{{Main|Bicycle infantry}}

The bicycle has been used as a method of reconnaissance as well as transporting soldiers and supplies to combat zones. In this it has taken over many of the functions of [[horses in warfare]]. In the [[Second Boer War]], both sides used bicycles for scouting. In World War I, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand used bicycles to move troops. In its 1937 invasion of China, Japan employed some 50,000 bicycle troops, and similar forces were instrumental in Japan's [[Malayan Campaign|march or "roll" through Malaya]] in [[World War II]]. Germany used bicycles again in World War II, while the British employed airborne "Cycle-commandos" with [[folding bike]]s.

In the [[Vietnam War]], communist forces used bicycles extensively as cargo carriers along the [[Ho Chi Minh Trail]].

The last country known to maintain a regiment of bicycle troops was Switzerland, which disbanded its last unit in 2003.