When Velocipedeans Travelled Our Roads

Sometimes I go searching for old stuff left behind by history, maybe because a lot of the things I grew up with, and am comfortable with, are becoming part of that ‘stuff’ left behind by history.

Newspaper reports casting cycling in a less favourable light than we might like are perhaps a recent occurrence. Now, stay with me here because this tale eventually gets around to things cycling related.  Anyway, this all started when I read a book called “Pig Bites Baby” - a book about various items published in Australia’s first newspapers Some amazing cycling related ‘six-degrees-of-separation’ type events here too, because I lent my copy of the book to someone and never got it back (you should never lend books if you really want to keep them). The book, it seems, is not in print, so I searched for used copies and found some on Amazon AND at the bottom of the page, under “Customers also bought” was a “Shimano Nexus-RevoShifter” for an 8-speed internal hub. I have one of those on bike I commute on. Strange combination - the book and the “Nexus RevoShifter”. I have it in my mind that you could make a very uncluttered 8-speed bike using a Nexus Inter-8 hub with a coaster brake, swap the “RevoShifter” for a downtube mounted shifter and run the cable through the frame - but I digress too much now.  

So, get the book if you want, but since it’s ‘out of print’, you may as well go to a web site kept by the National Library of Australia called Trove Australia on which are digitised newspapers (some published around the time of the first British settlement in Australia) and read the original stories about pigs biting babies if you want, but this blog is about cycling.

It came into my mind that I might be able to find out when cycling related news items were first published in this country and when certain newspapers first started publishing more  negative cycling-related stories than positive ones. So I searched the digitised newspapers for ‘velocipede’, ‘dandy horse’ and ‘bicycl’ and got a big surprise.

The earliest mention about anything cycling related that I could find that was published in Australia was from the Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser of Saturday 20.... That story was not about a bicycle so much as a velocipede-like contraption. There is a mention of a “Dandy Horse” by the good folk of Hobart in the  Colonial Times of Friday 1 January 1830 page4 Article. 

Dandy Horse (?)

Lot’s of advertisements for and talk about ‘Dandy Horses’ and ‘pedestrianism’ during the 1840’s to around the end of the 1860’s when it seems we all became velocipedeans.

Interestingly, an advertisement in the Launceston Examiner of Saturday 6 January 1866 page7 Advertisement for a “Mental and Physical Recreational Establishment” (scandalously for both sexes it seems) suggest that a four turns around the garden on a ‘Dandy Horse’ would be good for whatever ails you - probably true, but  perhaps Doc Martin might comment on the worthiness of such treatments.

The first bicycle race mentioned is in Bell’s Life in Sydney and Sporting Reviewer of  Saturday 6 December... where it is mentioned that a ‘Dandy Horse’ match occurred 

For some (as yet undiscovered by me) reason, 1869 was a watershed year for things cycling in this country. I can find comments elsewhere that in the 1860s rods, cranks and pedals were attached to a Dandy Horse and so it evolved into a velocipede bicycle. In any case by 1869 it seems that we have had enough of ‘Dandy Horses’ and consigned them to history, and now, in Europe and the Americas, there were on new contraptions such as “... the velocipede, which strongly resembles the dandy horse” as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of Monday 14 June 1869 page3 article SOCIAL AFFAIRS IN ENGLAND. (Written expressly for the Sydney Mornin...,BUT, the author goes on to state, “the most popular are the the ‘bi-cycles,’ or two wheeled velocipedes”. In the Empire (Sydney, NSW) Monday 5 July 1869 page 3 article A CHAPTER ON VELOCIPEDES there are, it seems, "occasional exhibitions of velocipedes in the streets of Sydney". More advertisements in the The Australian Thursday 15 April 1847 (page2) extolling the virtue of a "Mechanical Velocipede Horse which will travel at the rate of eight ..." 

It seems that in the days before the advent of motorised transport, newspapers saw no need to ‘bag’ cyclists, even from the early days of colonial settlement in this country, until recently. So why now? Is our good name being sacrificed to popularism just to sell newspapers, or is it that when you are an advertiser, you become invisible to the attention of journalists and editors? Or are we just ‘collateral damage’ in a political debate? 

There were too many items to read and describe. A few follow here (bear in mind that they were written in 1869).

South Australian Register Monday 31 May 1869

VELOCIPEDES.

From the Evening Journal. I

Within the past few months a fresh era in the history of carriage manufacture has. been inaugurated. A new branch of industry has been established, which bids fair to create a revolution in the science of locomotion. Only the other day the news was circulated that Paris had gone mad about velocipedes, and already the mania has spread through the greater part of the civilised world. The Americans — ever ready to hear and to tell of novelty — caught the infection with be coming facility. Slowly but surely it has made progress on the Continent, and England, after allowing the orthodox interval of distrust' and incredulity to elapse, has got the better of her prejudices, and taken to the idea quite kindly. The colonies, as in duty bound, have followed her example, and Adelaide among the rest will doubtless soon give herself over to velocipedes. The singular spectacle of a man trundling himself along at the rate of six or eight miles an hour on a skeleton-like vehicle consisting of two wheels and little or nothing else may now be witnessed everyday in our streets. Seldom has there been a sensation which has so thoroughly captivated the fancy of the public. It chimes in exactly with the fast spirit of the age, and emanating as it does from the very stronghold of 'fastness, 'it has spread with all the rapidity of the newest fashions in dress. The fact that it has a fashionable origin would ensure attention for it apart altogether from intrinsic merit ; but, at the same time, it is no disparagement that it has merits of its own to recommend it. There is something peculiarly fascinating in the notion of a person being able to spin along at double or triple the ordinary walking rate with very little extra exertion, and altogether independent of horse power. It revives recollections of the enchanted pot in the 'Arabian Nights,' by aid of which the fortunate Favourite of the genii could travel out of the reach of his enemies with amazing swiftness. Those who have been in the habit of patronising stables and paying grooms will look upon the mechanical horse as a great relief to the purse, and even poverty stricken pedestrians will invoke its friendly assistance to spare them the fatigue and foot-soreness with which they have become familiar. An enthusiast could very easily find a score of weighty reasons for sounding its praises as one of the greatest triumphs of modern ingenuity. And yet the velocipede is by no means a new invention. Ninety years ago a rude vehicle was constructed with sitting-room for one or two persons, and consisting of a fore-and-aft wheel connected by a pole. The operator occupied a position somewhere on this pole, and communicated motion to the machine by striking his feet upon the ground. This was a nine-days' wonder, but it had vanished from public Anew long enough before the great Revolution obliterated the trace of much that was valuable in science and art. For nearly thirty years the subject seems to have remained in abeyance, but by-and-by there appeared another machine consisting of two wheels five or six feet in diameter, between which the rider was mounted. Not long afterwards this gave place to a perambulator with three wheels — one in front, and two behind. The rider sat upon an axle board connecting the two hinder wheels, his feet supported by stirrups, to which were attached stilts so made that by striking them on the ground motion was given to the machine. The method of locomotion must have been nearly as unsatisfactory as that of the Irishman, who, after being hustled along for several miles in a sedan-chair minus the bottom, declared that but for the honour of the thing he would just as soon have walked. Ten years later, or about 1818, we find one William Clarkson, jun., seeking the protection of the English patent laws on account of his having hit upon a plan for constructing velocipedes ; but through the destruction by fire of the Patent Office in 1836, the model upon Which he founded his claim to the admiration of posterity was unfortunately lost to the world. In 1822, a stove maker of Nottinghamshire was frequently seen taking an airing outside a bicycle of his own manufacture, the motive power being levers worked by handles, and attached to the wheels. The speed attained averaged six miles an hour, and the rider thoughtfully provided for his own comfort a neat saddle with stirrup straps and irons complete. Eight years afterwards a bold attempt was made in France to turn the velocipedes to practical account. Mounted upon them, country postmen were able to transact expeditiously the letter carrying part of their business, but through the occurrence of a severe winter and un usually heavy snowstorms, it was found necessary to lay them up in- ordinary, and there they were allowed to remain. Since that date there have been no end of experiments with bicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles, but these have not, as a rule, contributed to the reputation of those conducting the experiments, or given satisfaction to customers. The fatal error was committed throughout of constructing clumsy unwieldy machines, which no one with any respect for his limits would think of handling. The consequence was that the carriages were, in many instances, condemned untested, and in others were found to be utterly unsuited for common use. It has been the special mission of the Americans to demonstrate the fallacy of making heavy vehicles. Every pound of weight added increases the draught, and where the labour of propulsion is borne by a man this becomes a very serious consideration. To the fact that more attention has latterly been paid to the absolute necessity for combining ease of working and lightness of construction with the needful strength of material must be attributed the astonishing impulse which has recently been given to velocipede manufacture. The machine of forty years ago, although resembling that of to-day in general form, and outline, differs widely from it in other respects. To propel that was a terrible labour ; to keep this in motion, is no more difficult than walking, and is, besides, far less fatiguing. The application of simple mechanical principles in the arrangement of the apparatus, by which the wheels are made to revolve, has had a wonderful influence in bringing about this altered state of things. Where at first motion had to be given by ' impact of the feet with the ground,' and afterwards by elaborate levers, the pressure of the feet on eccentric rods connected with cranks is now all that is needful to bring into play the principle of the oscillating fulcrum. ' In a bicycle the coachman is perched upon a saddle raised upon a rod connecting the two wheels, which are placed one after the other. The steering 13 accomplished by means of a regulator raised above the front wheel, and terminating in a pair of handles. The momentum is given by the feet acting alternately upon the propellors or cranks projecting from the axle of the same wheeL In a tricycle the seat is between the two hinder wheels; the steering-gear is over the third, which goes in front, and is similar to the steering-wheel in a reaping-machine. The feet rest upon pedals branching out from below the axle uniting the back pair of wheels, and by a very simple contrivance these can be made to act as a Drake. Already great variety has been introduced in the character of velocipedes, and a keen competition is carried on between the French and American builders. As yet England has scarcely entered the field as a manufacturer, but when she has once made up her mind to do so she will prove a formidable rival. The insatiable public will be by no means convinced that ingenuity has done its best to provide an article to suit their requirements until the inventive skill of Long Acre has exhausted itself in introducing improvements upon the present modeL To gratify their wishes, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, ladies' vehicles, steam-power velocipedes, marine velocipedes fitted with sails as well as paddles, and even monster velocipedes, are being turned out for the market. Is it going too far to anticipate the speedy advent of the time when a family of half a dozen will be seen sitting comfortably side by side upon one of these 'mechanical horses,' wending their way from the country into the metropolis literally by 'their own motion ?' Surely not, seeing that vehicles have already been built to accommodate 'parties of half a dozen or more athletes' at one time. Alas for horse breeders ! Is there not ground for apprehension that one branch of their occupation at least will soon be gone? When descriptions of 'the most striking feature in out-door Parisian life at this time represents 'Princes, Dukes, and civilians mounted on these iron steeds; amateurs Hashing alongside the kerbstones of the steep banks of the Seine, or impetuously wheeling over the one hundred and one steps of the Trocadero ; Government employes going to their offices, and collecting clerks of the Bank of France taking their rounds on these vehicles, hundreds of which pass and repass and cross and recross each other on the route to the Bois de Boulogne, and on the drives to Si Cloud, Vincennes, Enghien, and Pantin, with races, and prizes established both for those adepts who go swiftest and those who go slowest— the latter the most difficult' — when it is borne in mind that velocipedes are 'coming into use in France amongst all classes of suburban dwellers as a means of economising time in reaching Paris;' that 'extensive foundries have been established' in that city 'for the purpose of supplying the iron work,' and 'one of the largest carriage builders of New York, after applying the whole of his resources to the construction of these machines, is yet unable to meet the supply ;' when it is remembered that £40,000 per annum is the estimated value of velocipedes exported from France; that vehicles to meet 'the special requirements of artists, commercial travellers, invalids, and amateur tourists' are being constructed; that ladies are playing truant to the time honoured carriage to propel themselves in these new-fangled bicycles and tricycles, and that Clubs and. Associations are being formed in different countries and capitals with a view to the study of velocipedal motion — it is surely not straining a point to say that a great revolution has been introduced into the science of locomotion. There are scores in Adelaide who will not rest satisfied until they are in a position to paddle their own velocipede. The temptation to spend a few Bounds — at the most ten or twelve— to provide themselves with the means of travelling at the rate of eight or ten miles an hour will be too strong to be resisted. We may therefore shortly expect to see the streets all alive with these strange-shaped carriages. At first they will sorely puzzle and affright the horses; but, as in Paris, horses will soon become accustomed to the novel spectacle. The time may not be distant when livery stables will recognise velocipedes as part of their stock-in-trade, and when velocipede practice will form part of the physical training of youth in the colony. In the meantime we are only reiterating the advice given in the Iron monger — a paper to which we are indebted for most of the facts contained in this sketch — when we suggest to intending purchasers to be careful to select an article combining lightness with strength. They will find very little pleasure in velocipede travelling if they become possessed of a stiff heavy machine of the ancient pattern. We are glad to notice that a carriage-builder in the city has taken the matter in hand, and we believe that refoce-making will soon assume a prominent place among our local industries.”

Something here had me rolling on the floor in fits of laughter - “It has been the special mission of the Americans to demonstrate the fallacy of making heavy vehicles” :))

The following is an exchange in "letters to the editor" in the South Australian Register Thursday 10 June 1869 page3 Article

VELOCIPEDES.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir — I was amused and interested by your article of velocipedes this morning, and hope it will be the means of drawing public attention to the novelty.. I suppose there will soon be a literature of velocipedal science and a half a score new words will be added to our already copious language. Velocipedestrianism (awful word) will be the name of the art of working the machine. Then are we to have bicycle, tricycle, &c., as the names of machines going upon two, three, or more wheels! Well and good; but please don't let the people call them bicycles, rhyming with icicles, as I heard a man the other day ; but bicycles. Now for the working. Doubtless we have admirable physical features in and around Adelaide for their easy use. From the Flagstaff on the South-road to Kapunda, from the hills to the Gulf, we have a clear sweep. And more, we could run round the head of the Gulf to Wallaroo without any great natural obstacle. Another favour able feature is the dryness of our climate, which for nine months in the twelve permits us to enjoy a hard natural pavement, where not broken by dray-wheels, and I suppose a skilled operator on the two-wheeler would run from Adelaide to Wallaroo in the rut of the off-wheels of the mail as a kind of ready-made tram way. After all, will the two-wheeler be the best? I am not contemplating the invention in its athletic or amusing aspect, but as a sober reality— one to be utilised to the utmost. Now, suppose doctors run about to their patients, post men with their letters, butcher boys with their chops and joints, I want to know how, with a bicyralar machine, it is to be done. With a three wheeler, I know all about it I place my machine at the door, where it stands by itself, all alone; I quietly step into it, sit on the seat, put my feet in the slipper straps of the treadles, and when quite ready I depress the treadle that is higher, produce an immediate forward motion, and by the continued alternate action of the feet propel myself at such speed as may be convenient. Take the case of the bicycle, and I understand nothing at all about it. Your machine won't stand by itself, so yon must lean it against the wall or a post. Next, I suppose, when the perilous feat of mounting is accomplished, you get somebody to give you a shove, perhaps to run along with you for 20 or 30 yards, and then, I can imagine, if a practised hand, you can trundle yourself along gaily enough; and if you were going to the Bay or to Mitcham, you would have a fine bowl along the hard roads. But suppose you want to call at 20 places in an hour. What then? How do you stop the two- wheeled machine? Do you run it obliquely against a wall at the risk of ruining your pants, to say nothing of your knees or do you bring it to a stand in the middle of the road, when of course it falls over on one side or the other, and you and your velocipede are sadly mixed up together; then getting up, do you transact your business, leave the joint or the letter, and getting on again, ask some passing stranger to give you a shove, and so you repeat the process ad infinitum. To my view the bicycle may be grand for a journey, but disgusting for morning calls

 I am, Sir, &c,

 May 31. 1869. ARGO.

COMPARATIVE MERITS OF VELOCIPEDES.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir— The question asked by 'Argo' in Tuesday's Register, which is the better velocipede — the two-wheeler or three-wheeler — is one that will occur to the minds of all who take any interest in them. Argo describes the many advantages of the tricycle, and decides in favour of it, while at the same time he says that he understands nothing at all about the bicycle— a statement fully borne out by the question he asks concerning themounting, starting, and stopping it. I propose, with your leave, to answer some of the questions as briefly as possible. First, let us select a bicycle just high enough to allow the rider to touch the ground on each with his toes when he strides over the saddle, then put the pedal on the off side in an upright position, the rider Sitting on the saddle, his left foot on the ground, and his right foot on the off side pedal. He then starts off with the right foot ; as soon as the machine is in motion he places his left foot on the other pedal, and thus the so-called perilous feat of mounting and starting is accomplished without the aid of a passing stranger to shove off. When he wants to stop, by reversing the pressure of the feet, or by applying the brake, the velocipede is immediately brought to a stop, and the rider puts his feet on the ground without damage either to his pants or his knees. He can then get off and take his machine to the nearest post or fence, let it lie until wanted again, and need not fasten it up, as it wont run away. The great advantage of the bicycle is that it is much easier propelled; you can guide it with greater ease and describe sharper curves, and you can drive it into many places where there would not be room for a three-wheeled one. Having once acquired the art of balancing you can drive it atany pace you please, the same as the others. The difficulty of balancing is greatly magnified. It is very much like learning to skate. Those who remember the sensations experienced oh making the first attempt at skating can easily understand the feeling of insecurity when mounted for the first time on a bicycle, butit is said by those who have tried both that skating is more difficult to learn, and that it requires more skill and courage to become an accomplished skater than to acquire proficiency in the use of velocipedes. I think the fact that three and four wheeled velocipedes having been for many years before the public without coming very extensively into use is sufficient proof that there must be very great advantages in favour of the bycicle to produce such a rush on them as has lately been experienced in France, America, and England. I believe, Sir, the velocipede is destined to do good in many ways. It will be an excellent substitute for 'rowing until we get the dam again; it provides for tha young or those following sedentary employments a healthy and invigorating exercise, and will enable many to live at greater distances from their employment than at present, thus getting the benefit of a purer atmosphere for themselves and families without losing time in travelling.

 lam, Sir, &c.,

BICYCLE

VELOCIPEDES

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir-Some men's guesses may be worth as much as other men's experience. Anent velocipedes, I read in the current numbers of the scientific journals that the two-wheeler has by no means distanced its three-wheeled competitor; that the advantages of the three-wheeler are so manifest in some points as to lead manufacturers to use all effort to make it perfect. One maker says the difficulties of stopping the French bicycle to speak to a friend or to transact business are so treat as to lead to preference for the three-wheeled machine, to say nothing of the greater ease with which the art of riding it is acquired. Another expert gives minute directions for starting a bicycle with the help of a 'judicious friend' behind you. Another speaks of the three-wheeler having treadles immediately under the rider as giving him much greater power by the use of his weight on them than he can ever employ on the arm-cranks of the two-wheeler, which are a good way in front of him, by confining the rider to mere muscular force instead of the addition of his own weight And really The 'buster' a bicycular expert got this morning in Fiinders-Btreet would make one prefer the safest machine he can get, and the fastest only so far as consistent with safety. It appears from the Engineer that 10 and 12 miles an hour is obtained with the French two wheeler, and the saving is explained by the fact that a large amount of the force employed in walking is expended in merely bearing the weight of the body, which is saved by the velocipede. I think, then, 'Argo's' former 'guesses' are strongly verified by this mail's news, and that we old and gouty velocipedestrians will stick to the tricycle, and leave the two-wheelers to such young dogs as don't mind a capsize now and then, or are willing to run the risk of poor Hans Breitman's hero. He was going at a fearful rate on a bicycle, and slipped forward from the saddle on to the rapidly rotating front wheel, and the consequence (as your young men, Mr. Editor, are in the habit of saying) may be more easily imagined than described. The wheel acted as a circular saw, and 'divided him symmetrically from fork to pate, the two halves falling one on each side, and the machine rushing madly to destruction. I am. Sir, &c,

 June 9, 1869. ARGO.

And finally some items from our own Brisbane Courier

The Brisbane Courier, Saturday, May 22, 1869

Velocipedes THE RAGE.

The introduction of the velocipede into Liverpool is rapidly developing itself, and on Saturday, March 6, a very exciting eight mile race, for a prize of a silver cup, came off, the competitors being members of the Liverpool Velocipede Club. About 3 o'clock, five velocipedeans came up to the starting-post and mounted their vehicles. Just as the vehicles got under way, one of them knocked down a little boy, but the rider kept his seat. The pace was rather slow, owing to the crowded state of the streets, but as the bicycles gained the open country, the velocipedeans began to work in earnest. The rate at which they got over the ground was astonishing, and several horsemen and carriages who followed the racers found it a most difficult task to keep up with them, although the roads were rather rough for the bicycles. At sixteen minutes to 4 o'clock the Mariner Parade at Waterloo was reached by Mr. Browne, who rode a much larger velocipede than the other competitors. The distance traversed was a little over eight miles, which was got over in forty-four minutes. Beyond the mishap mentioned above, the bicycles ran clear of everything.

AND FINALLY

The Brisbane Courier, Friday, July 9, 1869

THE Melbourne papers have several announcements concerning the rage for velocipedes, which has commenced in Victoria. We select one from the Australasian —- The threatened  curricular crisis has arrived. The velocipedal outbreak has commenced. As yet the veloci-pedestrians have seldom ventured from their hiding places before the moon has appeared in the sky, but we hear of such numbers of them gyrating about in out of the way directions that in a few days more they are sure to be flaunting forth in the thoroughfares in full daylight. Some of the bicycular adventurers have become thorough experts on their flimsy carriages and spin along at a rate which turns the spectator dizzy to witness. In Brunswick street, Fitzroy, on Tuesday evening, trial trips were extemporised in the presence of a number of gentlemen interested in the formation of a velocipede club, and the success achieved by some half-a-dozen riders set at rest the question as to the workable character of the articles turned out in the local manufactories. There were bicycles, tricycles, and four wheelers on the ground, the swiftest and prettiest being a two wheeler made by Mr Finlay, of Fitzroy, called the ' Rob Roy '. Seated on this fairy-like conveyance, Mr Finlay seemed thoroughly at his ease, twisting and turning about within a narrow circle, and then shooting off into space like a graceful skater on ice. The Rob Roy is little more than a diminutive saddle on springs perched between two wheels, the larger in front of and the smaller behind it. A break can be brought to bear on the hind wheel, the lever working it terminating in a padded blade behind the rider's back. The cranks for the feet are attached to the front wheel, to which is also affixed the cross bar for the hands used in steer ing the apparatus. The weight of the entire machine is forty pounds, and it can easily be carried in one hand by the saddle support. The great difficulty for learners is the balancing them- selves on the slender vehicles which retain their equilibrium when in motion in the same way as a boy's hoop. The slower they go the more liable are they to topple over, so with them it is unmistakeably 'le premier pas qui coute'. As with the skater so with the bicycularian, — the proficient is a swan-like object of envy, the neophyte a mirth-provoking fumbler. There may   possibly be specimens of both varieties at the   athletic sports committee's gathering on Thursday next when the first velocipede race ever held in the colony is to take place.