In rural Finland, the bicycle was an important means of transportation in the first half of the twentieth century. The number of bicycle owners grew steadily, and in the 1930s cyclists became, in many places, the most numerous participants in road traffic. Bicycles offered the only alternative to walking for many people, but remained also a possession of high status, as their prices were relatively high, even in the 1920s and 1930s. This paper studies the material reality of cycling in Finland from 1900 to 1939, as remembered in a folklore survey conducted in 1971. Altogether, 656 Finns submitted their personal memories about bicycle and cycling. These written accounts often contain very concrete memories of bicycle trips, accidents, maintenance, purchases, and cycling practices. Through them we can grasp something that is often difficult for a historian to study: the dialogue between people and their material world. Questions that the paper will examine include: How did the very materiality of the bicycle and other material objects used while cycling, such as clothing, affect bicycle use and the appropriation of bicycle? How did they, along with the built and natural environments, influence the mobility of rural people? What kinds of material practices, other than cycling, were connected to the bicycle? What was the bodily experience of cycling like, and what influenced it?