Moving away from the diffusionist model of technology that tends to privilege the narrative of Euro-American innovation and domination, recent scholarship has explored technological consumption to understand how ordinary people incorporated the new into their everyday lives. This approach has been fruitful in examining colonial and semi-colonial societies (especially in the historiographies of East Asia and South Asia) that appropriated imported foreign technology and produced local uses and meanings. In particular, small-scale technologies that individuals with limited capital could own with relative ease offer a unique window to study differentiated experiences of modernity among ordinary people. To contribute to this growing body of literature on the consumption of small-scale technologies, this paper examines Iranian encounters with the bicycle. How were bicycles introduced to Iran? What role did bicycles play in shaping diverging ideals of masculinity and femininity? Given Iran’s geography, urban structures, and the historical context of authoritarian modernization during the Pahlavi period (1925-79), how did Iranian encounters with the bicycle fit in the global trends? To address these questions, I use Persian memoirs and periodicals as well as visual sources to study how men and women from various socioeconomic, provincial backgrounds used the bicycle. In addition, I rely on missionary accounts as well as travelogues in European languages to understand what Iranian urban streets looked like. I will argue that the bicycle was incorporated into everyday life as one of the markers of one’s sociocultural orientation, as Iranian men and women of different backgrounds assigned diverging meanings to the new technology. In particular, I will look closely at three groups: new middle-class young men (who used the bicycle to travel across provinces, and even abroad for adventures); women (who associated cycling in the context of emerging female physical culture); and the lutis, the “neighborhood ruffians” who were vilified in the official discourse but continued to hold influence in urban societies (they developed hazardous cycling techniques as well as distinct aesthetics in lavishly decorating their bicycles).