I do remember reading about cyclist units being ready to resist an enemy invasion by quickly cycling to the coast and then ... well, shooting at them I suppose.

I wasn't aware of any cyclists actually going into battle on the Continent but that was before I checked Wikipedia. Apparently "on the occasions that cyclists were employed in combat, they were generally found to be ineffective." Hmm. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Cyclist_Corps.