They may have called themselves athletes, but I daresay these male models were well aware that their photos would serve more than a purely artistic purpose. What's especially interesting is that it seems the Victorian age created a felicitous environment for men and women who, previously, would seldom see a strange men without his clothes on. More than a few Victorian ladies never even saw their husbands fully undressed. But then three wonderful things happened: the invention of photography, a passionate public obsession with health and athleticism, and a renewed fascination with Greco-Roman culture. Combine those three and you end up with a rich photographic history of magnificently muscled male specimens, naked as Greek athletes.
Since this type of bicycle didn't appear until the late 1880s, this photo was probably shot around 1889.
1880 - 1910:
Ca. 1920 - 1930s:
Male photography got naughtier in the 1940s. These are by "Bruce of Los Angeles":
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