The blog
Bike fitting, 1890s: “I am the scorcher”
Cycling has many health benefits, “of the rosy, romping, rollicking kind,” said Dr. Victor Neesen in an 1899 ‘how to cycle’ book. However, the good doctor – a gynaecologist – was a stickler for the proper position to be struck […]
Continue ReadingVictoria Pendleton, 1896
One of these two photographs was taken in the 1890s; the other is a photograph of Victoria Pendleton posing as an 1890s wearer of ‘rational dress.’
Continue ReadingMOTORISTS’ FRONT OF JUDEA: What Have The Cyclists Ever Done for Us?
REG: Cyclists have bled us white, the bastards. They don’t pay road tax, they run red lights. And what have they ever given us in return? XERXES: Pneumatic tyres. REG: What? XERXES: Pneumatic tyres. REG: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did […]
Continue ReadingOldest bike shops in the world survived challenge from ‘the internet’ of the 1890s
I’m writing a book about the US and UK cyclist organisations of the 1880s and 1890s which lobbied for good roads – and got them – before the motorcar came along and stole their thunder. ‘Roads Were Not Built For […]
Continue ReadingHanging from a railway bridge with one hand, carrying a heavy bicycle in the other
In the early years of the 20th Century, Sears Roebuck & Co. sold a device “popular with railroad and telegraph employees, both male and female.” The Harris 20th Century Railroad Attachment promised to make a “regular railroad velocipede out of […]
Continue ReadingBust food, opium, weak women pills and bicycle suits: Sears Roebuck catalogue, 1897
I’m working on a long and detailed posting on the impact of Sears Roebuck & Co on the bicycle retailers of the late 1890s and through until about 1905. I’ll be featuring one or two of the catalogue scans below. […]
Continue ReadingTarmac exec said cyclists were the first to push for improved roads
In his 1968 book Black Top: A History of the British Flexible Roads Industry J. B. F. Earle (a former commercial director of Tarmac Ltd., and first chairman of the Federation of Coated Macadam Industries) wrote: “The first concerted pressure […]
Continue ReadingFerrari, 1877
When high-wheel bicycles are seen at fêtes, or on telly, or on posters for TfL competitions, it’s ten to a penny (farthing) that the gents riding them will be prim, proper and of relatively advanced age. Top hat. Waistcoat. Long […]
Continue ReadingLesbians and Cycling: an Illustrated History
Last month I ran a posting featuring the group photograph below. I suggested that one of the men pictured looked rather feminine and, perhaps, was a woman impersonating a man. A 19th Century woman muscling in on a man’s world […]
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