THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605100628
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GEORGE TUCKER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Since we are now in the middle of National Bicycle Month, I'd like to celebrate it on a local level by sharing an episode dating from the early 1890s in which my father and Berkley's first two-wheeler were the hilarious principals. Before doing this, however, perhaps a brief history of the pedaled machine that is now an integral part of the health, recreational and utilities worldwide scene is in order.
Age-wise the bicycle only goes back around two and a quarter centuries. Around 1790, a wooden scooter-like vehicle called a celerifere was invented by Comte Mede De Sivrac of France. Fifteen years later Baron Karl von Drais of Germany came up with an improved model called a draisine. It had a steering bar connected to the front wheel, but, like the Sivrac model, the rider merely used the two wheels to accelerate his ordinary walking pace.
Then, about 1839, a Scottish blacksmith named Kirkpatrick Macmillan added foot pedals to the 1816 draisine model and the modern bicycle was born. Since then the two-wheeler has been constantly improved to the point where it is now a very sophisticated machine.
Bicycle history in this country began in 1866, when Pierre Lallement, a French carriage maker took out the first U.S. patent for a pedal bicycle. Then, in the 1870s, a new type of bicycle called the high-wheeler or penny-farthing appeared. It had a huge front wheel and a small rear one, many of the front wheels begin five feet tall. Each turn of the pedals propelled the big wheel around once, so the bike traveled a long distance on each turn.
It was this type of precariously risky vehicle that made its debut on the streets of Berkley during the early 1890s.
So much for prologue. Now for the Berkley yarn.
My father had every reason to recall Berkley's first high-wheeler, for until his death he blamed a chronic ``misery'' in his back to the time he was yanked from its seat by a Good Samaritan when he was a boy. The bicycle was the proud possession of a son of the richest man in town - a massive iron affair with an enormous front wheel and a tiny rear one and was equipped with curving handlebars and a horsehide seat almost as big as a saddle.
The owner was a generous chap, so each of his friends eventually got a chance to commandeer the pedals, much to the consternation of the town's horse-drawn traffic. Finally, when my father's time came, he was so excited he could hardly contain himself. Added to that, his small size made his management of the bike almost impossible, but his desire to cavort in public easily overcame that drawback.
The bicycle was so high it was necessary to prop it against a porch railing in order to mount it, but that didn't dampen my father's enthusiasm. Climbing over the railing against which the bicycle was resting, he mounted the seat, placed his feet precariously on the pedals, grasped the handlebars and started uneasily down Berkley Avenue. At first the going was pretty unsteady, but once he got the hang of the thing, he was soon careening around corners as though he had been bicycling all his life.
His enthusiasm was his undoing, for just as he sped into Chestnut Street he disturbed a pack of curs snoozing in the dust near the curbing. In no time they were up and snarling at his heels, and he was pedaling furiously in the direction of the town's ferry dock to escape them.
Fortunately a quick thinking deck hand was on duty, and just as the big brakeless two-wheeler was about to go overboard into the Elizabeth River, he reached out and yanked my father from the seat.
``We finally fished the damned contraption out of the ferry dock,'' my father would say with a grimace as he reached for a bottle of Sloane's liniment, ``but that consarned deck hand gave my back such a wrench I've never gotten over it.'' by CNB