Bicycle Messenger 1896

Nice photo of a bike messenger in New York in 1896 from the Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog.



Item's record with details. This was taken by Alice Austen, a photographer who did the photographs of a woman rider for Bicycling for Ladies also published in 1896.

More about her photography is available at the "Friends of Alice Austen House" site.

Wheels of Change - Women Cycling 1890s

Wheels of Change is a brand new book about the liberating influence of bicycles on the lives of American (mostly) women in the 1880s and 1890s.

The bicycle craze swept the nation and allowed women to ride into a new world full of all sorts of freedoms.

Dust jacket blurbs often resort to hyberbole, but this volume really does include "an astonishing number of primary source research gems" that I have been enjoying.



The author, Sue Macy, has her own author site where she uses as part of her web design the picture I have above, so I know we have been looking at some of the same stuff that is out there!

I suppose this is intended for a teenage audience, but I find it excellent.

To be a Russian Wheelwoman . . .

(Scroll down the above image if you wish to see text in original - lower right of page). Under "Wheelwomen in Europe" in the February 1901 issue of L.A.W. Magazine we read ~

In Russia everything is managed "by order of the czar," and cycling is no exception to the rule. Before a woman can possess a wheel she must obtain royal consent, and as this is granted quite sparingly there are but few wheelwomen in Russia.

Can this have really been true???

Self Defense for the Cyclist (1901 article)

Self-Protection on a Cycle is an article in a 1901 issue of Pearson's Magazine, a British magazine. I found reference to it (albeit a bit obscure) in a Russian web site (where some of the illustrations have been posted).



The article covers the following~

How you may Best Defend Yourself when Attacked by Modern Highwaymen, Showing how you should Act when Menaced by Foot-pads, when Chased by another Cyclist, and when Attacked under various other Circumstances ; Showing, also, how the Cycle may be used as a Weapon.

explaining that

Self-protection awheel is an art full of possibilities. The cyclist who is a skilful rider, who possesses pluck and dash, who has mastered the elementary rules of defence on a bicycle, and who is armed with a knowledge of how to use a machine to the best advantage as a weapon, may rest content that he is able to defend himself perfectly when attacked under the majority of likely conditions.

The article then goes into considerable detail, with photographs of the "tactics," on how to achieve the best defensive results.

Rocket Scientists Think Cycling is Safe (Enough)

NASA pulls injured shuttle astronaut off flight (Associated Press item)

An astronaut who crashed his bicycle last weekend won't be taking part in space shuttle Discovery's final voyage next month.

. . . . .

To cut down on preflight injuries, NASA has a whole list of prohibited activities for astronauts assigned to space missions. Among the banned high-risk sports: motorcycle riding, skiing, parachuting and acrobatic flying. Bicycling is not on the list.

More Ice on Bike Trails

Taken this morning, on the way to work - looking south although I was heading north - I just liked the sign (note icicles) and it was a place to prop the bike for the photo. Near Route 1 around the south end of Nation Airport. Entire trail covered in ice.

Trails were covered in bumpy ice with temp hovering around freezing. As far as I am concerned, impossible conditions if you don't have studded tires (which this bike does). However I did ride along briefly with a guy who was managing without studded tires - but I was able to go quite a bit faster so I left him behind.

At the overpasses I simply walked the bike for 100 yards or so - the ice was too much on the downhill sides even with the studs.

The trick (with the studded tires) is to ride at a measured pace - no sudden braking, no quick acceleration. Gentle . . . . . easy does it. Where there is trail with grass on both sides, one can get up to 10-12 mph and ride off onto the grass if problems arise. Some of the way I simply road on the icy grass, since then falling is no longer an issue - but it is more exertion but requires less focused attention.

Wouldn't want to ride like this all the time!!

It has certain fun aspects - near Shirlington several people walking their dogs simply gawped - "if I'm falling down with my boots, how can he ride . . . a bike?" is clearly what they are thinking. Well - it's (stud) magic! Ya just gotta be careful not to push the boundaries.

1982 Sirius Bridgestone

As I mentioned in my preceding post I have bought a frame (+ headset + fork + bottom bracket) on Ebay.


The 1982 Bridgestone Sirius as shown in the 1982 Bridgestone bicycle catalog

I am apparently a terrible librarian - I should have done various research before I bought the thing, but instead am doing most of it after. So far, no particularly surprising (unpleasant or otherwise) discoveries.

The bike is double-butted 4130 Chromoly (CrMo) with Tange lugs and Tange headset. The 23 inch (or 56 cm using today's usual metric) size was listed at 23 pounds, which is fairly good. Made in Japan. . . it is the same "Bridgestone" that makes tires for Toyota etc. It was the top of the line for Bridgestone at that time, but that doesn't really mean too much - they were not yet a very serious builder.

Apparently some time not long after Bridgestone made the Sirius (and other spacey-named bike models) a fellow named Grant Petersen started running the Bridgestone bike division and the Bridgestone road bikes produced under his leadership are considered rather special - "Bridgestone bicycles are something of a cult item now" per Sheldon Brown. However he means ones made after the one I just bought. Still, this is a classic Japanese-built steel road frame and should be very nice to ride.

Research on such things is interesting. Sheldon Brown has an entire separate page on the subject of Bridgestone bikes (again, focusing on 1985 forward) as well as digitized Bridgestone bicycle catalogs from 1985 through the 1990s. These digitized catalogs are quite interesting (well, it depends on what turns you on) to look at, but of course the selection generally via the Internet is completely random depending on someone having them and then decided to digitize them. (Many such catalogs, particularly from 1989 on, are in violation of copyright, but one can assume the relevant company wouldn't care, up to a point. The catalogs before 1989 for the US market that aren't marked with (c) or the word "copyright" with a date are probably in the public domain. Maybe.)

At any rate, a simple Google search on "1982 Bridgestone bicycle catalog" brought up a site where someone has the full 1982 catalog in PDF - I'm not going to link to it since it is slow to load; it is over three megs. Very nice to have that, if only to confirm that what I bought in fact is an '82. There is another article about Bridgestone bikes that gives some further background.



The above beautiful randonneering bike was built up on the same frame I purchased (which is available in two color schemes - this is the less gaudy one). It is from a Flickr group devoted to Bridgestone bikes. The randonneering approach with fenders and so on is not the direction I am planning to go in but it is nice to see someone investing that kind of money into this frame.