On 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 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 […]
Continue ReadingThe Times is running an eight-point cyclesafe campaign to highlight the need for safer streets for cyclists. In 1898 the newspaper had had enough of cyclists – it was at the end of the Bicycle Boom – and a leader […]
Continue ReadingAs well as being pioneers in roads, ball bearings, cars, and aeroplanes – see ‘What have the cyclists ever done for us?’ – cyclists were also responsible for the first published study in the field of social psychology. This was […]
Continue ReadingPantene, the shampoo brand, has started an advertising campaign using the flowing locks of champion cyclist Victoria Pendleton. However, she’s wearing a UCI-compliant sparkly go-faster jersey. Clothes? Who needs clothes? The flowing locks on the nude Cycles Gladiator woman from […]
Continue ReadingThis is a puzzle. In more ways than one. It was published in a puzzle-book from 1914 but the dress and the subject matter don’t ring true for such a date. The League of American Wheelmen had morphed into the […]
Continue ReadingNetherlands schmetherlands, the country with the best riding conditions for cyclists used to be America. Difficult to imagine, but in the 1890s a number of American cities could boast the world’s best bicycle-infrastructure. Part paid for by pushy, influential cyclists, […]
Continue ReadingThe famous Emanicipation Run of 1896, the drive from London to Brighton, now reenacted each year as one of the key events in British motoring history, was organised by a bicycle designer and bicycle company owner. Harry Lawson was the […]
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