Penny Farthings and Tandems

Harrybelafonte

Modern Penny Farthing:

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/store/assets/images/product-images/penny-farthing/penny-farthing_main.jpg

Seeing this has reminded me of how little I know of the history or general use of bikes in Ireland. There's plenty of photos and background for the UK, but bar High Nellies I never see much about bike history here, can't ever remember a photo of a Penny Fathing in Dublin for example.

Can't remember seeing pics of tandems anywhere either, not sure how popular they were, trying to find a classic old one to restore or whatever seems nigh impossible. This is the only one for sale second hand, and it's not exactly classic:

Tandem

Highway_To_Hell

That is what I call a fixed gear.

Doctor Bob

Harrybelafonte wrote: »

Seeing this has reminded me of how little I know of the history or general use of bikes in Ireland. There's plenty of photos and background for the UK, but bar High Nellies I never see much about bike history here, can't ever remember a photo of a Penny Fathing in Dublin for example.

Via a recent post on the copenhagenize.com blog I've just discovered that one of the foremost bicycle historians in the world is Irish- Iain Boal, who's now based in the US. As luck would have it, he recently lectured in Copenhagen and the videos are available here (that's part 1 of 5- links to the rest in the sidebar). In addition, he has a book coming out later this year on the history of the bike. It's not Irish-specific, but I imagine it will fill lots of gaps in your our knowledge.

On the subject of penny farthings, there's always the home-made option:





(From BSNYC last Friday.)

rflynnr

Brian Griffin (who's based in Bath) has written a far bit on cycling in Victorian Ireland. This includes a book (imaginatively titled "Cycling in Victorian Ireland") plus a couple of journal articles. Diligently researched and accessibly written even if primarily conceived with an academic audience in mind.

CheGuedara

Tandems? Rare enough alright - we (the Chain Gang CC) had a project recently to fund the purchase of tandems to take V.I. riders into the club on and were initially considering good second hand ones if they were available. Short story - they weren't - so we fundraised and ended up getting these



Not cheap but wicked fast so expect to see them or pictures of them in use at some of this years sportives

rflynnr

Actually, which I'm at it (and in my default pedantic mode), the suggestion in the link that the featured item is an accurate replica of a penny farthing is hugely problematic. First off there was no agreed definition of such a bike (indeed even the moniker "penny farthing" only came into use years after the bikes had fallen out of favour - in their heyday they were simply called "Ordinaries"). But the whole point about them was that they were regarded as spectacularly fast and dangerous - this was their attraction to strapping young men. Adding safety features like modern brakes and limiting the front wheel to 32'' (Ordinaries went up to 54'') seems to negate this. Even the riding position in the featured replica is wrong. As the attached image demonstrates, on a "real" ordinary the rider was positioned almost vertically above the pedals, thus guaranteeing a spectacular parting of man and machine whenever a bump was hit.

cdaly_

Oooh! The concentric spokes are cool!...

Harrybelafonte

CheGuedara wrote: »

Tandems? Rare enough alright - we (the Chain Gang CC) had a project recently to fund the purchase of tandems to take V.I. riders into the club on and were initially considering good second hand ones if they were available. Short story - they weren't - so we fundraised and ended up getting these



Not cheap but wicked fast so expect to see them or pictures of them in use at some of this years sportives

Great move. Dolans, mmmmmm. I was reading somewhere about these being used by paraolympians???

Weird thing is older tandems are all over ebay etc in UK, just not here.

I think the link I posted is more for gadgettery and gimmicks so not to be taken too seriously.