New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest with Bikes

The New Yorker has a cartoon each week that users can captions for - this week's shows two angels (with haloes), both holding bikes at their sides. One is talking to the other. They are standing in the clouds and in the background another angel can be seen riding on a cloud on his bicycle. These three angels are the only ones visible, so apparently in this heaven one has a bike.

Here's the link although next week it will change.

One has to suggest a caption by January 1 to compete. It seems like I should have some sort of idea, but nothing is coming to me.

Cartoon brawing by Mick Stevens - Contest #316, January 2, 2012.

Kickstarter Funded Bike Travel

Reading Kickstarter proposals and seeing what success they have is an interesting way of learning something about human nature. There aren't that many connected with cycling but the few I see are interesting. Most are seeking funding for products related to bicycles for which they believe there is a market; some are for projects that are for projects that use bicycles as the delivery system - vegan baked goods provided on a bicycle sales cart, for example. A few are proposals to fund bicycle travel of one sort or another.

I am puzzled why this fellow's proposal was approved by the Kickstarter folks - it doesn't seem a likely candidate. Kickstarter is mostly, in my observation, about fun and then secondarily some "feel good, do good-ism" but in more high level ways (like funding portaits of South Africans and their bicycles.

A mystery is how this fellow can have 245 Facebook friends and only raise a total of five (5!) dollars (from five people).

There is a long history of riding long trips around the United States or even around the world that started with the "ordinary" bicycles of the 1860s but grew with the development of the more modern "safety" bicycle that is much like today's bikes, funding the travel with ad hoc fundraising along the way. In the 1890s Annie Londonderry funded her travel around the world by raising the money as she went along, primarily by giving talks (for which she was paid) and selling various momentoes. At the end she supposedly received $10,000 from a wager that she couldn't complete the trip.


In 1904 two men used this route to win a $5,000 wager by visiting all 48 states in 18 months

Merry Christmas 2011

Columbia Bicycle Co. History

I have been reading Bruce Epperson's Peddling Bicycles to America: The Rise of an Industry - it is very good and I will write more about that later (as a book review).

Meanwhile, I found this article online about Colonel Albert Pope that provides a nice brief history of his life and Columbia Bicycles (although not so much about the bicycles . . . )

Pope was influential in the "good roads" movement that sought to improve the conditions for cycling (and thus the sales of bicycles, particularly Columbia bicycles) - this photo (from 1937) shows the one million signatures gathered in 1892 to support federal assistance for construction of better roads. (They apparently couldn't throw the thing away so were at a loss, it seems, to know what to do with it.)

National Archives to get 1892 petition for building of better roads. Washington, D.C., April 30. A petition containing over one million names submitted to the United States Senate in 1892 requesting legislation, "for the purpose of promoting knowledge in the art and construction and maintenance of roads" is to be removed from the Capitol and deposited in the National Archives building.

Pope started out by pricing his bikes under the competition, but by 1897 he was attempting to appeal to those who might understand that low price wasn't everything ~


An appeal to reason by Columbia

This ad, and the text below, both came from an 1897 issue of "Cycling Life".

On the same page as the Columbia ad is this "article" that one assumes was supplied by Columbia itself - this sort of thing seems fairly common in this publication, which was produced for bicycle resellers ("the trade") and not for consumers. The line between advertisements and journalism was blurred, to say the least.

Columbia Excel.

A comparison between the smooth running features of Columbia bicycles and those of other makes, reveals at once the superiority of the former. The entire concentrated energy of the army of mechanical experts at the great Hartford factories has been directed during the past year to the perfection of these qualities, and nothing has been omitted that could aid in keeping Columbia s in their universallv recognized position — the standard of the world. The famous crank shaft mechansm, which was the wonder of last year's running gear inventions, has been retained in its original form, having proved a triumph in the art of cycle building. The Columbia bearings are unequalled, and run with a smoothness hitherto unknown. The light, correctly shaped saddles will carry Columbia riders further with less fatigue than any others, and their perfect fitting qualities enable the rider to retain a firm seat and control of the wheel, giving the grace of personal carriage which distinguishes the Columbia rider above all others. Considered from an artistic, mechanical,useful, or any other standpoint, there is but one best bicycle—the Columbia.

The brief "news item" about how good Columbia bicycles remain in 1897

Young Bicycle Messengers From ~100 Years Ago

Lewis Hine took thousands of photographs that make up the National Child Labor Committee Collection that was used to document terrible conditions for working children - the photographs were used to support arguing that laws should protect children.

The photos below are from the Library of Congress collection and are just a few of 159 at the Library of Congress (although not all show bicycles . . . ) - they are quite amazing.


Group of Western Union Messengers in Norfolk, Va. 1911


Leo Day, Postal Telegraph Messenger, 12 years old, and a very knowing lad. Tampa, Florida. 1911


Isaac Boyett, "I'm de whole show." Waco, Texas. 1913

The caption continues: The twelve year old proprietor, manager and messenger of the Club Messenger Service, 402 Austin Street, Waco. The photo shows him in the heart of the Red Light district where he was delivering messages as he does several times a day. Said he knows the houses and some of the inmates. Has been doing this for one year, working until 9:30 P.M. Saturdays. Not so late on other nights. Makes from six to ten dollars a week.

Déesse 16, rue Halévy, Paris - Lovely Poster

Déesse 16, rue Halévy, Paris, Jean de Paleologue, born 1855, artist

One print (poster), lithograph, color ; 149.9 x 110.5 cm. (That is, about 60 inches on the long dimension.) From about 1898.

Permanent Link is http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011661494/.

As of December 22, 2011, not yet online but will be soon. I got an advance copy . . .

Bicycle Crime in Ukraine

I found this news item online, in Russian, about a bicycle theft in Ukraine. The following is my edited translation. (I started with the Google version . . . )

In Kharkiv two drunken women robbed a pensioner

December 16, 2011

According to the correspondent of the Kharkiv Press Service of the Main Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine (that is, the police) in the Kharkiv region, the incident happened in the village Kochetovka Zachepilovskii area.

That evening the two women were at a party. They eventually tried to go home when the buses were no longer running. They did not have money for a taxi. They decided to "borrow" the money or any transportation from a 72-year-old local resident.

Knowing that the pensioner lived alone, the women boldly opened the gate to his yard and began banging on the windows of the house. They called the man into the yard and asked him to give them money or a bike to ride home. The surprised man opened the gate and tried to drive the drunk women out of the yard, explaining that he did not know them and did not plan to give them anything. Then they pushed the owner, went into the hallway and found the keys to the shed where there was a bicycle, and left. The man called the police - the suspects were arrested for the the crime and spent a few days in jail. The women again came to the pensioner's home and they took metal materials from his yard in order to sell them for scrap. "They have been detained [again] as criminals," - the press service says.

This is now a criminal case under Article 186 (robbery) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

A bicycle in this part of the world

Incidentally, the main factory for sports bicycles in the former Soviet Union was not far away, the Khar'kov Bicycle Factory - here is one of their catalogs.