The author hypothesizes that the reason bicycles went out of fashion between 1817 and the 1860s after a period of brief acceptance in 1817 is that a change in values must have taken place between 1817 and the 1860s. Why? Because in order for new technologies to be accepted, they must cohere with the values of society.

The argument mistakes a sufficient condition for a necessary one.

Although a new technology's acceptance would be sufficient to know that the technology coheres with the values of a society, this doesn't imply that the failure of a new technology to be accepted allows us to conclude that the technology doesn't cohere with the values of society. A new technology can cohere with the values of society even if it's rejected by society. So it's possible that the bicycle went out of fashion until the 1860s even if it cohered with the values of society and there was no change in values from when the bicycle was initially accepted. Another way to describe the flaw is that the argument overlooks other explanations for the disappearance of the bicycles between 1817 and 1860. The author assumes the explanation must be a change in values, but there are other reasons the bicycle might have been rejected.