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Early Tallbikes

06 Aug

I have found some fun information I wanted to share. While reading Click Clack Gorilla’s story about refurbishing a small trailer/wagon to live in over in Germany, she wrote a post about tallbikes. I have never really thought about these bikes before, and found the information intriguing. She also shared several websites you could get more information from, and she shared this website, Johnny Payphone. I really liked this information as well, and have asked the owner of that blog for permission to share this interesting and intriguing information with you. Enjoy!

In the days of the pennyfarthing, riding your bike six feet off the ground was considered quite ‘Ordinary’. Men and women had gotten around at that height for centuries, first on horseback and then on carriages. It was making a short bike that was unusual, and so these were called ‘dwarf safeties’. Originally it was the quest for speed that sent cyclists up into the air, as a larger wheel was the only way to increase the distance you traveled per pedal revolution. This page is dedicated to recording the history of bikes that are tall for height’s sake, because face it it’s damn fun and it gets attention. I’m trying to collect every picture I can find of tallbikes from the late 1800s until 1990 when the modern mutant bicycle culture began.

Most of these came from Victorian and Edwardian Cycling & Motoring From Old Photographs By A.B. Demaus or from the personal collections of The Wheelmen. Special thanks to Cigdem for her contributions.

When the safety was invented, the deadly pennyfarthings were frowned upon and even outlawed. (Lil Phil of the Wags has been prosecuted for tallbiking on ancient anti-pennyfarthing legislation in Minneapolis) But they’d come in quite handy for lighting gas lamps. Thus the invention of the lamplighter, the precursor to the modern tallbike.

Check out the torch attached to the frame on this one:

This picture makes me suspicious. That torch looks a little out of place. It’s not there on other pictures of this bike at the The Metz Bicycle Museum, where this bike currently resides. I wonder if somebody added the torch and that’s what led to Boneshaker Magazine declaring that the lamplighter was a hoax. However, I think there is enough photographic evidence here to show that tallbikes have been around for at least 110 years.

Eventually people began to make taller bikes for exhibition, promotion, or festivals:

[1899]

This photograph comes from Märkvärdigheter ur Naturen, Historien och Lifvet, published in Chicago in 1899 and edited by J.G. Princell. I would love it if somebody could translate the text:

“Sedan kommer Eiffeltornscykeln; visserligen ej så hög som tornet ifråga, men dock allt för hög att åkas af andra än våghalsar. Sådana finnas dock i mängd, och derför kan man understundom i större städer få se personer åka på en sådan bicykel. Vi ha sett den här i Chicago, och som de måste gå saktaoch försigtigt och alltid väck uppmärksamhet, äro de goda skyltar och vanligtvis försedda med plakat, som annonserar någon slags vara — oftast cigarrer, hvadan man kan antaga att det endast är förtjensten som lockar någon att åka på dem.”

Here’s another picture of it:

Here’s one of my favorite finds, an old ad from the Chicago Bicycle Directory. I’m interested in the fact that, 109 years ago, they were making tallbikes on 31st street in Bridgeport… six blocks away from the Rat Patrol chop shop on 37th street!

Paris tallbike plus an Ultimate Wheel.

Click on the picture below to see an astounding video of a 1915 ‘bunk bed’ vertical tandem:

Now here’s an old video of a bear riding a tallbike. And you think YOU’RE the shit. Bears aren’t exactly the most agile of creatures, and they can do it… [19??]

Hard to tell if there are pedals, but this is the only tall motorcycle I’ve ever come across.

Now here’s a very special treat. This article was published in Popular Mechanics in April 1964. Legend has it that this is the article that Jake took to Per to ask him for help in building the first Hard Times tallbike. CHVNK 666 was making flipped frame tallbikes around the same time, too, but Per is generally credited with coming up (or say popularizing) with the double-triangle design (given that it’s hard to ‘invent’ something that some lone wolf was doing 100 years ago) . I don’t know if Jon Brown invented the flipped-frame tallbike, but this article certainly spawned a lot of tallbiking in the 60s and 70s and is the reason old dudes will yell “Upside-down bike!” when they see you tallbiking, something that baffled me for years.

special thanks to Greg for finding this for me

Here’s some clown. This appears to be taken from a newspaper in the 80s at a local ‘Catfish Days’ festival. I hate clowns.

Despite the clear evidence of height in the last century, Guiness for the longest time considered Frankencycle to be the World’s Tallest Bike at 11’6″. I think he held that record for 20 years. Then Atomic Zombie got the record at 12 feet, even though the six-high WTB that the BLBC had in the 90s was six inches higher. Right after AZ got the record, some Scallywag in Canada built Closer My God To Thee at 18 feet. I think the inevitable escalation of museum pieces that ride once a year is pretty boring, given that the World’s Tallest Unicycle is over 110 feet and must be held up with a crane (although I’ll give AZ credit for inventing the Skywalker method of breaking the generally-acknowledged ceiling that you can’t freemount on anything higher than a four-high). Still, I’d be much more interested in seeing the World’s Most Ridden Tallbike.

This page is dedicated to Amber, who died on a tallbike; and Lil Bob, the inventor of the Mountain Tallbike. Ride in Peace.

Check out more old-timey wacky bikes at A Speculative History of the Rat Patrol and at chicago freak bike. Hope you are having a wonderful weekend! Angela

Acknowledgements: http://www.johnnypayphone.net/

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Posted in Adventures, History, Recycle

April 22, Earth Day

22 Apr

Odd personal note about Earth Day: I know about 7 people that this is also their birthday. Go figure. I’m a New Year’s Eve birthday girl myself, so I know that sometimes holiday birthdays can be tricky…but so far the folks I know with an Earth Day birthday are older than the actual holiday itself. How many of you remember the first Earth Day? It was April 22, 1970. I was 11 years old. I don’t remember much about it until I was a teenager, and by the time I was in high school it was a well known day. I love to recycle and re-purpose/reuse things so this is one of my favorite holidays. One of the strangest suggestions came from an aunt of mine, she told me how to use toilet paper twice. Easy. You blow your nose on it before you wipe your tushie. Lol! Not a practice most of us would use, but very practical if you think about it.

Do a Google search and you will find thousands of Green Websites. I have rounded up a few here (some that I use, some I have just found) for your surfing enjoyment. I think we will go for my standard list of 10.

1. Terracycle: Outsmart Waste – Tom Szaky wrote the book on this, literally: Revolution In A Bottle. A very interesting read and a website and philosophy dedicated to taking problem waste and recreating it into useful items. I heart Terracycle.

2. Greenopolis: Get rewarded for recycling. Check out the website and look for them on Facebook. They have some interesting green discussions going on too.

3. BigGreenHead: Green blogs, green info, and green fun! An interesting website to surf and have fun with. Also has info on their local activities, which those of us not in the area would not be able to participate in, but still has some great info for green fans.

4. New Dress A Day : This started out as one woman’s idea to save on her wardrobe budget for a year. How did she do this? By re-purposing lots and lots of things from thrift stores and yard sales on the cheap. One day at a time. Some very neat ideas for any of us that can hold a pair of scissors and some needles and thread. Wonder if the mom who made her daughter’s prom dress out of starburst wrappers got the idea here or from Terracycle? Hmmmmmm…

5. Green Top Sites: The ranking comes from most visits to individual sites, not best ideas per se. Lots and lots of sites are suggested, so you should be able to satiate a large amount of green searches here.

6. Time Magazine: Surprise! Time magazine has a large selection of green articles and information. Somewhere out there is also a list of the top 15 green websites they recommend. I found that information through:

7. Treehugger: Wow! Lots and lots of information, articles, suggestions, polls, you name it! Too much to list here, go check ‘em out already!

8. Daily Fuel Economy Tip: Practical tips to save you money at the pump and increase your mileage. Who can’t use help with that right now? Found them via number 9:

9. A Lighter Footstep: Per their about page: “A healthier family. A cleaner planet. Making the most of your weekly budget. That’s greener living. Welcome to Lighter Footstep, where we believe that big changes happen a step at a time. And no matter where you are on the journey toward a lighter, more Earth-friendly lifestyle, we’re here to help along the way.”

10. Grist: Looks like another “Wow!” I think. Per Time magazine: the Colbert Report of climate change, the Daily Show of deforestation, the Oprah of oil dependency — except with real reporting and analytical journalism. Also, Grist staffers have never had a dust-up with David Letterman. (Not yet.) The e-zine delivers news and news-you-can-use on pivotal topics — with…sometimes corny headlines…. Sounds like fun, looks like an awesome environmental website.

Hope you find some interesting topics, tips and facts in all these suggestions. I will be pouring over a few of them myself. Happy Earth Day everyone! Go recycle something already! Angela

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Posted in Environment, Recycle