Sheldon wrote elegantly and crisply about the holdover of the flying mounting style from the ordinary to the safety. I'm trying to remember if it was H.H. England or Harold Moore who wrote about smaller, lower frames with lower bottom brackets coming in as more motor traffic came onto the roads. These permitted a rider to stop in traffic without "dismounting." Hmm. I was puzzled, then I realized that they meant complete dismounts, as in the old flying dismount, rather than simply standing astride the bike.
When was the lightweight revolution in England, anyway - mid-1920s?
Russ Fitzgerald, who just rode his fixed-gear Mercian over dirt roads while thinking about Wayfarer, in Greenwood, SC