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Ye olde bicycle thread

  • 29-09-2014 10:48pm
    #1
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭


    Hi all Heritage lovers, or those even slightly interested in the subject of old bicycles.
    As you can see, I'm new to Boards.ie and have an interest in old bicycles, the type our Grandmas & Granpas (Bless 'em all) used in their everyday lives back in the day.

    For years I've been restoring these old machines, and saving as many as I can from the ravages of time, rust, and Hammond Lane.

    Over time I've had many, many, interesting bikes pass through here, from a 1902 BSA Military Roadster (which, luckily, I've still got) old Sunbeams, and various Royal Enfield models from the 1920s, Raleighs by the dozen, Triumphs by the score, and almost every make and model in between.

    Each bike has it's own story, it's own individual history, and, like that 1902 BSA, some of these survivors have 'witnessed' and 'lived' through WW1, our Civil War, and WW2...and by heck, they even survived the Celtic Tiger years!

    There was a time when our Doctor, Public Health Nurse, Midwife, Vet, Parish Priest and travelling salesman, Chancer, Policeman, criminals, Nuns and Reverend Mothers traveled our roads by bicycle. It was not unusual for folks to cycle from Cork to Dublin for All Ireland day by bicycle, and home again.
    (Unfortunately, I'm old enough to remember it!)

    In case the Mods think I'm somehow touting for business, I'm not...I'm asking the reader to pause and think for a minute the next time he/she spots an old rusted bicycle in a Barn or ditch. These simple machines are so much part of our history, and played an enormous role by allowing people to expand their horizons and travel, albeit only outside their own Parish boundaries to Dances, Sporting events, etc.
    I often wonder how many of our grand-parents met, thanks to the wonders and freedom provided by the humble 'high nelly' bicycle?
    I know mine did around 1907, as did my Mam & Dad in the 1930s.

    Some of the slogans used by bicycle companies back in the 1930s would be banned today...
    ie;

    TRIUMPH Bicycles...'Go Gay on a Triumph'
    ROYAL ENFIELD....'Made like a gun...goes like a bullet.'
    RALEIGH...'The all steel bicycle...lasts for a hundred years'

    Thanks for reading.


Comments

  • #2
    MacCanann
    Registered Users Posts: 9 ✭MacCanann


    I'm from a small village and my house is the closet one to the church, I'm 28 now but can remember back to a time when I was a young kid and the old men from the outskirts of the parish would cycle three or four miles each way to mass. They used to all meet up just outside our big gate and park their bikes behind the shed. It was a sight to see on a Saturday night and Sunday morning! Sadly there hasn't been a bike parked up there in a long, long time. Funny how times change.


  • #3
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    Yes, I remember those times and further back.
    Bikes piled outside the Cinema, Dance Hall, Hurling field and 'Wake house.'
    These old machines were a very personal & life-long mode of transport for the owners and that makes the bike special to those left behind.
    Sometimes I'm given 'Dad's old bicycle' to restore after a lifetime of use, and stored in a shed (or worse, left lying in a drain) 30 years after he had passed away. It's a testament to those bikes, or at least the frames, that they can be restored after that length of time.
    It gives me great joy to see their faces when I resurrect a relatives old bike.

    Last year I had a bicycle with the original tires and tubes (1930s) still clinging to the rotted wheels. The inner tubes had over fifty patches on them, another testament to the austerity of those lean times.
    Another had cut-down and re-glued tubes to fit smaller wheels. I kept those as a reminder of Irish post WW2 austerity, patience, and ingenuity.

    As I said earlier, every bike has a story, and every day's a school-day when one fixes old bicycles !


  • #4
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    I remember the messenger boys zooming around Dublin on their bikes with the huge baskets on the front. Those show-offs used to cycle with their hands in their pockets, whistling as they went! Can't remember what they were carrying though.


  • #5
    whisky_galore
    Registered Users Posts: 15,710 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    dandyelevan wrote: »
    TRIUMPH Bicycles...'Go Gay on a Triumph'

    That'd never pass muster with today's advertising standards authority.

    Have you any info on Pierce's of Wexford's machines? When produced, etc., aware there's one or two in Johnstown Castle museum.


  • #6
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    Jellybaby1 wrote: »
    I remember the messenger boys zooming around Dublin on their bikes with the huge baskets on the front. Those show-offs used to cycle with their hands in their pockets, whistling as they went! Can't remember what they were carrying though.

    We used to call lads who rode bikes with their hands in their pockets 'look Ma no hands, look Ma no teeth' cyclists!


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  • #7
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    whisky_galore wrote: »
    That'd never pass muster with today's advertising standards authority.

    Have you any info on Pierce's of Wexford's machines? When produced, etc., aware there's one or two in Johnstown Castle museum.

    Had to Google that!


    Never knew Pierce's produce bikes. Next time I'm down there I must call in and see them.

    Yes, the bicycle advertising in the early years of the last Century could be hilarious!
    Triumph were attempting to break into the American market in the '30s and had came up with the 'Go Gay with a Triumph' slogan.

    (Even repeating this slogan on a Forum could get me in bother with the PC Brigade.)

    In the late '60s, in an attempt to break into the newly rich Nigerian market, Raleigh, in their wisdom, brought out a fine gentleman's bike with a double cross-bar for added sturdiness and named it 'The Black Man's Bicycle.'
    Nobody raised an eyebrow for a few years, then the names was changed to 'The Man's Black bicycle' and later to 'The Constable's Bicycle' when it became popular with the British Police.


  • #8
    whisky_galore
    Registered Users Posts: 15,710 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Raleigh had an assembly plant in Dublin until it burnt down in the 70's, think they got in trouble with the Trade Descriptions people when they turned out Irish bikes badged 'Nottingham, England' and were forced to amend the badge with a blank area where the offending words were located.


  • #9
    pat25c
    Registered Users Posts: 129 ✭✭pat25c


    i have a rudge bicycle that i want to restore & i'm having trouble finding parts , any idea where i can find some?


  • #10
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    pat25c wrote: »
    i have a rudge bicycle that i want to restore & i'm having trouble finding parts , any idea where i can find some?

    PM me with the wheel size, ladies or gents model bike - what parts you need - new or second-hand.

    I probably have what you need.


  • #11
    Redskins
    Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭Redskins


    Where are you based Dandyeleven? I have a project bike you might be interested in.


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  • #12
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    I'm in the badlands (midlands)
    Why not send me a PM and a pic of the bike.


  • #13
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    If you ever come across an Elswick Ludlow uppy, let me know, @dandyelevan; one was stolen from a friend some years ago and he's still pining for it.

    The lads on the Cycling threads may also be interested in your old bikes. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=410

    Pierce's made a big marketing blooper when they locked out their staff during the 1911 lockout. I don't know if they did in 1913, but it may be as a result of their 1911 action that people of advanced national opinions didn't ride their bicycles, and instead rode English ones.

    The Irish cyclists who competed in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics rode Lucania bikes, made in Dublin http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/cycling-spokes-and-political-strokes/ - the two brothers later fought in 1916.

    I remember those messenger boys, who worked for butchers, bakers and department stores. It was required to whistle as one cycled along with hands in pockets and cap dragged down at an angle, on a way to deliver newsprint-wrapped packages to housewives.


  • #14
    whisky_galore
    Registered Users Posts: 15,710 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Qualitymark wrote: »

    Pierce's made a big marketing blooper when they locked out their staff during the 1911 lockout. I don't know if they did in 1913, but it may be as a result of their 1911 action that people of advanced national opinions didn't ride their bicycles, and instead rode English ones.

    The Indo is still around to this day, likewise I doubt if it did much damage to the DUTC's receipts, apart from the disruption around the Lockout itself, despite both being business interests of a certain W.M. Murphy.

    Pierce's continued making agri gear for donkey's years afterwards and sold quite well.

    Your last sentence is rather amusing.


  • #15
    Qualitymark
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    MacCanann wrote: »
    Sadly there hasn't been a bike parked up there in a long, long time. Funny how times change.

    Times change, and they change again. In Dublin, thanks partly to the Cycle to Work scheme, bicycle trips have ballooned by 80% in the last year.

    One of the great things about the bicycle boom of the 1900s was the flocks of teachers flying 50 miles back and forth to teach Irish and attend meetings. Cycling was especially freeing for women, and the Irish Women's Franchise League were keen cyclists. As the American suffragist Susan B Anthony said: "Let me tell you what I think of bicycling: I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything in the world."


  • #16
    dandyelevan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 257 ✭✭dandyelevan


    I've got a Phillips Ladies Roadster bicycle (made from BSA parts as was the practice at the time) dating from 1908.
    It was a 'barn find' and soon as I saw it I just had to buy it.
    I decided not to restore this old lady, so she resides in all her glory (not a pick of rust, but not a lick of paint either, just patina)
    All I did was replace the tubes and one tire.
    I have no idea of the bikes history, but it's been through WW 1, Easter Week 1916, the Civil War, the Roaring Twenties, the 'Hungry Thirties, WW 11, the Swinging Sixties and all the rest...and still works!

    It's a huge framed bike, built for endurance rather than speed (or comfort)
    Interestingly, the rear all-weather mudguard was never 'holed' to take a reflector, which is an odd feature.
    Pity I didn't master the art of putting up pics on this site because this bike is an education on endurance and long-levity.
    There's not many left of her vintage which is too bad.


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