31 January 2011

Canadian Cyclists

The Coles sisters on a bicycle trip from Montreal to Ottawa, QC-ON, 1916 1916, 20th century
The Coles sisters on a bicycle trip from Montreal to Ottawa, 1916.
Members Of The Chinook Bicycle Club
Members of the Chinook Bicycle Club, between 1894-1900

11 comments:

  1. Damn fixie hipsters are everywhere. Inappropriate clothes for riding, no brakes, no helmets. Bet they're all dead now.

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  2. Bully for the Coles sisters! There are some 250 km in between Montreal and Ottawa, and if they're measuring from the urban limits, there would have been a good 50 more back then before urban sprawl.

    By the way, those are some massive lamps on their bikes! (If that's what they are...)

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  3. "those are some massive lamps on their bikes!"

    Calcium carbide "miner's" lamps. State of the art for the time. Calcium carbide is reacted with water in that lump under the reflector, producing acetylene gas which can then be set on fire.

    I like fire.

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  4. it's always impressive to see how people travelled on bikes without much philosophy over high-tech gadgets and materials in the old days

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  5. matija - You are looking at history through the wrong end of the telescope.

    Instead of looking back from now, you need to look forward from 1850. Ball bearings, tensioned wire spokes, pneumatic tires, roller chains, high tensile steel, all the cutting edge of high tech gadgets (like the safety bicycle) and materials and these are club cyclists who could argue and rhapsodize over these items just as today's club riders can go on about carbon fiber and power taps.

    And everyone has always gone on about the "perfect" saddle.

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  6. Back when only rich people rode bicycles!

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  7. I thought they were bicycle kerosene lamps,
    and found one on youtube. It's like a lantern
    from a ship, with a little window on each side:
    Red & green for port & starboard.
    Then a bike must be like a boat,
    floating down rivers of lanes,
    or pedal-paddling upstream.
    "I'd like to get you on a slow bike to China"

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  8. Ditlev - You are certainly correct on that, at least for the one in the foreground.

    I've had carbide lamps on the brain lately as I used one myself as late as the 60's, found it hanging out in my basement a few years ago, but can't seem to refind it now that the subject was brought up on another blog.

    Time to clean the basement I guess. I hate when that happens.

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  9. kfg - it's funny,
    a subject brought up on another blog
    and the talk here about saddles, fire and lamps
    made me hear the song from Blazing Saddles:

    "He made his blazing saddle a torch to light the way"

    After the movie "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me"
    it may be time for "Twin Wheels: Fire Bike with Me".

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  10. I have found the best saddle, well for me anyway A Lepper Primus, purchased on e-bay 20 Euro. Broken in and slightly distressed. It matches my brand new old fashioned Batavus perfectly. and dont they all look stylish

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  11. Thank you for sharing these photographs. They are lovely.

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