Plus, there were no sidewalks to begin with, the road in my grandma's village close to the Carpathians Mountains still hasn't got one (they've only paved over w

Plus, there were no sidewalks to begin with, the road in my grandma's village close to the Carpathians Mountains still hasn't got one (they've only paved over what it used to be the village road about 10 years ago). And people tend to forget rain and hence mud when it comes to the state of pre-modern roads, there's no way one could have ridden a bicycle through a lot of mud and rain puddles. Being high up there in a horse-driven coach meant that you were also avoiding all that mud hassle.