Bicycles were perfect by the 90s. The 1890s. While refinements such as the quick-release binder bolt and derailleur gears were the work of the early 20th Century, most of the key bicycle innovations had been invented by 1899. (Even plastic […]
Continue ReadingJust as Oakley-style plastic lenses for cycling were around in the 1890s, so were MTB-style knobby tyres. Most solid tyres of the period – as fitted to high-wheelers, which didn’t need the suspension offered by pneumatics – were smooth. Most […]
Continue ReadingNo, not David Cameron; the Prime Minister who said the above was William Gladstone, in 1892. The elder statesmen was on his fourth premiership in 1892 and was reflecting the sentiment of an age when he praised cycling. He did […]
Continue ReadingOakley, the sportshade-to-softwear brand, was started in 1975 by Jim Jannard. He made handlebar grips for MX motorbikes. Five years later he created a pair of goggles which he called the O-frame. In 1984 the company’s fortunes were transformed by […]
Continue ReadingInflator. Check. Spare tube. Check. Pistol. Check. Bicycle magazines of the 1890s carried adverts for guns “designed especially for cyclists.” Sears Roebuck sold mail-order “bicycle rifles”. Round-the-world bicycle tourists carried guns for obvious reasons, ditto for members of the City […]
Continue ReadingOn September 20th, 1893, the Duryea Brothers road-tested the first gasoline-powered American-built automobile. Most people assume it was early cars such as these – and later ones from the likes of Ford and Buick – which paved America. In fact, […]
Continue ReadingThe twelfth census of the United States was taken on June 1st, 1900, and the published version was a mammoth tome. A full 16 pages of this tub-thumper of a publication were devoted to bicycles and bicycling; just five pages […]
Continue ReadingThe War of the Worlds, the pretty Dibble sisters, Occam’s Razor, women’s liberation, and the London Olympics: all are linked by the “most famous cycling highway in the world.” On Saturday, July 29th, 2012, a fast-moving peloton of professional cyclists […]
Continue ReadingAristocrats who wished to take up a sport in the 1880s purchased how-to guides penned by peers. The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes was founded in 1885 by Henry Somerset, 8th Duke of Beaufort, owner of Badminton House, a […]
Continue ReadingThe Sprockettes mini-bike women’s group of Portland, Oregon, fuses cycling and street dance and has been entertaining the eclectic Portland bicycle scene since 2004. The San Francisco Bicycle Ballet is older, first performing in 1996. Rewind one hundred years and […]
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