This is a side trip, but an interesting one, I think.

Going back to Dicho's post of 15 Mar 02, I was raised in Northern Illinois, spent most of my life in Southern Illinois, and have been in Arkansas for about 8 years now. No matter where I have been, bicycle has ALWAYS been uniformly pronounced as bi-sickle. Tricycle followed the same pattern.

Now a motorcycle was usually pronounced motor-sycle, though a few might call it a motor-sickle. If shortened to cycle, I remember it as being sickle more often than not. Unicycles followed the motorcycle rule, though we only saw them on TV or in the rare circus.

When bicycles that didn't go anywhere became popular, well, they were exer-sycles. Not much of a rule there.