Not only are radical political views and ideas associated with the New Woman, but also certain stereotypical emblems, accessories or motifs through which the figure potentially questions established notions of gender. The specific technology most commonly associated with the New Woman and her ‘unsexing’ potential is the bicycle, with the loosening of social restrictions and the geographic mobility that it allowed. The 1897 jocular poem ‘The New Woman to Her Steed’, published in Cycling: An Illustrated Weekly (1891–1900), ridicules this connection by having the New Woman of the poem's title exclaim:

By 1897, then, women's rights and the bicycle were firmly bound together in the popular imagination. While different kinds of cycles had existed before the introduction of the modern ‘safety’ bicycle, neither the high-wheeler (commonly called the ‘penny-farthing’) with its large front wheel nor the more expensive tricycle was widely adopted, as they were reserved for men and women of a certain wealth. The ‘bicycle craze’ started to take shape in the late 1880s, reaching its highest point in the mid-1890s. It was John Kemp Stanley's low-wheel Rover safety design of 1884, with a chain drive to the rear wheel and a year later featuring a diamond frame, which made the bicycle available across classes and genders. Coupled with John Dunlop's pneumatic tires, which were added in 1887, the safety bicycle became standard, leading to the stabilisation of bicycle design. Not only were the wheels of the chain-driven safety bicycle nearly equivalent in size, which made it far easier to ride than the high-wheeler and other earlier bicycle models, but the safety bicycle was also democratic in that it was adjustable to suit riders of various body types: handlebar and seat positions could be altered to fit different physiques. Easier and safer to ride than earlier models, the bicycle was now – very importantly – also affordable.