Mensajeros, correos y bicicletas Book

The world of communications has evolved rapidly in the last twenty-five years. Young people today could not imagine what instruments or what means were used just two centuries ago to communicate news or an event that could be vital for the economy or government of a country.

For a long time messaging systems barely evolved and a Roman nuntius could have done the same job and just as effectively as a Pony Express rider almost two thousand years later. The discovery of the electromagnetic effect at the dawn of the 19th century was the beginning of the telegraph and the telephone, inventions that defeated the two enemies that until then jeopardized communications, distance and speed of propagation, and the railway became the means most suitable land transport for sending large volumes of parcels or correspondence.

But until the networks reached private homes, it was the couriers, postmen and delivery people who finished the process. Their work would be made easier with the introduction of the velocipede into society, an invention that after hesitant beginnings 150 years ago, definitely stayed with us and decisively helped these hardworking workers.

This book tries to relate in an entertaining way a brief history of the distribution of messages, letters and merchandise, its evolution, the role that the bicycle had in this area and the competitions that surrounded these activities.