By Daniel Arimborgo
Kids — and adults — can find out how their favorite of transportation started out and has changed over the years at the New York Hall of Science exhibit, “The Bicycle Takes Off 1865 -1900 — From Boneshaker to Boom.”
The exhibit, which features 20 vintage bikes, was organized by the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, Conn., and is curated by renowned bicycle historian David Herlihy. It also highlights themes on safety and innovation.
An excerpt from an 1895 American Machinist magazine proclaims: “Rarely has any product worked so rapid a revolution or exerted so decided an influence upon our manner of life.”
Old posters adorn the walls of the exhibit area and photos, videos and recordings surround individual displays. An adult tricycle, the American Challenge Tricycle made in Chicago in 1887, has little resemblance to a child’s tricycle — its front wheel is off-center, and it has odd half-inch-wide, square, belt-like chain links.
A hands-on display shows sections of old, solid tires that can be compared with latter-day air-filled ones which we have all grown accustomed to.
An old boneshaker called the Tubular Velocipede resembles a medieval torture device, with its stark, black iron frame and metal seat. The wheels, lacking any tires, look like smaller versions of an oxcart’s!
Nearby, the real boneshaker, the Draisine, looks almost comfortable by comparison. The model on exhibit, a child’s, has an upholstered leather seat. The Draisine, invented by a German, Baron Karl Von Drais around 1818, does not have any pedals or handlebar steering — it was propelled with the feet directly on the ground (something like the vehicles the old “Flinstones” would drive) Because it lacks pedals it is not a true bicycle, but is its direct predecessor. A nearby engraving shows one of the special rinks that were constructed for adults to enjoy these wooden, “hobby horses.” The scene resembles a merry-go-round for grownups.
The “Safety Concerns” exhibit features a framed pamphlet from 1886 called “Family Doctor,” detailing bicycling’s “Casualties and Remedies.” An illustration in the center of the cover shows a rider falling off a high wheeler — it is almost comical. Other illustrations on the cover detailing various traction devices for sprained and broken fingers are not so funny.
Indeed, there must have been plenty of accidents on high-wheelers, bikes with 52-inch-diameter front wheels — twice today’s size for a standard adult bike — propping its rider nearly five feet in the air. The reproduction model can be mounted by the curious and-or brave — with the help of a convenient, specially constructed staircase.
A high-wheeler that was owned by Mark Twain is also on view, on loan from the Connecticut Historical Society. A nearby plaque says he paid $142 for it — about three months wages for a typical worker in those days. Its original crumbling, hard-rubber tires show a lot of wear.
The exhibit runs through March 3.
Reach Qguide writer Daniel Arimborgo by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 139.
