An Emblem of Bicycle History

 Believe or not, bicycle manufacturers were major, or at least significant, employers in the US until World War II.

I’m not talking only about Schwinn.  A few years ago, I wrote about the Shelby Bicycle Company, which took its name from the Ohio community in which it was based.

Another example of such a relationship between a town and a bike-maker is that of Emblem Bicycles and Angola, a New York Stare village 3.3 kilometers (2 miles) from Lake Erie and 50 kilometers (22 miles) from downtown Buffalo.

Unless you are even deeper than I am into pre-War bikes, you probably haven’t heard of Emblem bicycles.  Apparently, they began making bikes during the first Bike Boom in the late 19th Century and continued until the eve of World War II. During the 1910s, Emblwm, like some other bike-makers, began to make motorcycles, which hadn’t evolved into their own category. As a matter of fact, Emblem, like other fabricators of two-wheeled vehicles, were identified—and identified by the public—as a bicycle company even when their production of motorized bikes exceeded that of traditional pedaled bicycles.

So, yesterday, when a fire burned in the historical building that the company called home, local media reports identified it as the “historic Emblem Bicycle building “—even  though Emblem bicycles haven’t been made there, or anywhere, in about 80 years.

Two dozen fire companies fought and contained the blaze.  Fortunately, no one was hurt.

A Memorial On The Labor Day Tour

Every year from 1940 until 1942 and 1947 until 2019, the Tour of Sommerville--"the Kentucky Derby of cycling"--was held on Memorial Day.  That day, on the fourth Monday of May, is called "the unofficial beginning of Summer in the United States.

For many, today--Labor Day--is the unofficial end of the season.  The following day, most people have returned to work. (Grim but interesting fact:  Mohammed Atta, the "mastermind" of 9/11, chose that date because it fell on the Tuesday following Labor Day, when he figured almost everybody would be on their jobs--and thus provide more potential victims.)  So, I suppose it's appropriate that the Tour of Somerville, after being cancelled altogether last year, was re-scheduled to this date.  

Near the race course stands a monument to Furman Kugler, who won the event's first two editions.  Encased in Plexiglas is a photo of him next to the bike he rode--a Shelby Classic.  Interestingly, it bears more semblance to a track than a criterium bike of its time, with its wooden rims and fixed gear.  According to Tom Avenia, it was de rigeur at the time.  I'd take his word on that:  He rode in several editions of the Tour--on a fixed gear, during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Perhaps more to the point, neither Kugler nor Carl Anderson, who won in 1942, would return when the Tour resumed:  Both lost their lives while fighting in World War II.

Perhaps the monument to Kugler would be more fitting on Memorial Day.  But at least it's there, and the Tour is running again this year.

Shelby Cycle Museum

More than two years ago, I wrote about a municipality that was best known for its epomymous bicycle company.

From 1925 until 1953, Shelby Bicycles were manufactured in the Ohio city for which they were named.  While most of their wares were sold under other names, such as Goodyear, Firestone and AMF, others bore the company's name and are prized by collectors for their stylishness.  One was even ridden to a transcontinental record.

While some manufacturers, such as Schwinn, Raleigh and Peugeot, were major employers, it can be argued that none was as integral to its community as the Shelby Cycle Company was to its town.

Restored 1938 Shelby. Photo by Aaron W. Legand

At the time I wrote my earlier post, the Shelby Cycle Historical Society, a tax-exempt organization, was forming and seeking members.  On Tuesday (perhaps appropriately, the day after Labor Day), it received a grant to create the Shelby Bicycle Museum on the grounds of the original Shelby Cycle factory.

I can't help but to wonder how many other bicycle "company towns" existed late in the 19th, and early in the 20th, Centuries. In those days, bike manufacturers were smaller and their markets were mainly local: No giant (with a capital or small "g") manufacturer or conglomerate dominated the industry.

Keep Moving--On A Divvy, Manta-Ray or Featherstone

Some motorists see us as invaders, or as over-indulged, when we "take" "their" roadway and parking spaces simply by exercising the rights we have--let alone when bike lanes are built. 

Others, though, simply are baffled by us.  They are unaccustomed to seeing us, mainly because few, if any, Americans living today can recall a time when bicycles and cyclists were major presences in their cities or towns.  They certainly can't recall a time when bicycles were important parts of their community's culture and economy.

In some places, such a time really wasn't so long ago.  Detroit, Boston, New York and a few other cities had vibrant, if small, cycling communities during the "Dark Ages" of US bicycling:  roughly the two decades or so following World War II.  Also, a few colleges and universities, including Princeton and the US Military Academy (West Point) had very competitive cycling teams.

There are, however, a few more communities in which bicycles as well as bicycling were an important part of the history and culture, and even the economy.  One such place was Shelby, Ohio.  So was a much larger city about 500 kilometers west:  Chicago.

Mention the "Windy City" and, in regards to cycling, a certain name enters people's minds.  Hint: It starts with an "S".  If you grew up in the US, there's a good chance you rode--or had--one of their bikes. And, if you became an active rider or simply an enthusiast, you might have bought one of their top-of-the line bikes.

I'm talking, of course, about Schwinn, which manufactured bikes on the city's West Side for nearly a century.  But in 1900, it was just one of 30 bicycle manufacturers making its wares along Lake Street!  Perhaps not surprisingly, the "Second City" was also home to one of the most intense racing scenes, and vibrant cycle cultures, to be found anywhere in the US, or even the world.

While much of the current bicycle culture in American cities began with young, educated and affluent people--and is frankly consumeristic--Chicago's cycling culture thrived, then survived to the degree that it did, largely because of its industrial, working-class roots and immigrant (particularly German) communities.  This story is  one that the Chicago Design Museum tells with "Keep Moving:  Designing Chicago's Bicycle Culture," an exhibit it recently opened.

The Museum places a Divvy (from the city's bike-share program) alongside a Schwinn Manta-Ray and an 1891 Featherstone-- believed to be the first US bike offered with pneumatic tires--and other bikes that were made, or had some other significant connection to, Chicago.  There is also memorabilia related to the bikes, including material from Carter Harrison's successful campaign to become the city's mayor.

So why is Carter Harrison's important in the story of cycling in Chicago?  Well, to demonstrate his athletic bona fides, he wore his Century pin--signifying that he'd done a 100-mile bike ride--on his chest while riding his single-speed bike.  

And to think that a certain presidential candidate ridiculed a Secretary of State for falling off his bicycle! Hmm...Would El Cheeto Grande have won Harrison's election?

Oregon Handmade Show Cancelled: Will Portland Remain "Bicycle City?"

In January, I wrote about an Ohio town that was best known for the bicycle company that, from 1925 to 1953, manufactured its wares right in its center.  The Shelby Bicycle Historical Society was recently formed to commemorate the role bicycle-manufacturing played in Shelby, about 150 kilometers southwest of Cleveland.

Other communities have been defined by bicycle manufacturing.  Although Raleigh is associated with Nottingham, the center of the British bicycle industry was Birmingham, where a company bearing its name--Birmingham Small Arms, or BSA--made the most sought-after componentry in the peloton, as well as some fine racing bikes.  

Likewise, for most of the 20th Century, the nexus of France's bicycle industry was St. Etienne, a gritty industrial city about 50 kilometers from Lyon.  Many editions of the Tour de France have included a stage that began, ended or passed through the city, and a French rider winning such a stage is a point of pride for the nation.

For much of the time Birmingham and St. Etienne dominated their respective country's bicycle industries, a certain bike-maker was a major employer on the South Side of Chicago.  I am referring to Schwinn which, as Sheldon Brown pointed out, was the only American brand with even a pretense of quality during the "Dark Ages" of cycling in the US.

Chicago, Birmingham, Saint Etienne and Shelby all had their heydays as centers of bicycle (and, in the cases of Birmingham and Saint Etienne, component) making.  But, like empires, those enterprises fell.  Cheaper imports, mainly from Asia, are often blamed (less so for Shelby than the others).  But the biggest reasons for their demise are their failures to keep up with changes in demand as well as innovations.  Schwinn, like other companies, sponsored racing teams, but limited their efforts almost entirely to the US, until it was too late.  So, the Paramount line, begun in 1938, was, by the 1960s, a dinosaur (its fine craftsmanship notwithstanding) compared to racing bikes from Europe.

More recently, the US city most commonly associated with bike-making has been Portland, Oregon.  One difference, however, is that in the Rosebud City's bike-building scene has more closely paralleled its "craft" beer milieu than it has reflected trends and practices in mass-production bicycles.  During Portland's frame-building heyday, from about 2005 to 2010, it was claimed that over a hundred builders practiced their craft in a city of about 600,000 residents.  

It was during that time that the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show began as an annual event in 2007.  Builders enthusiastically set up booths to show their creations to ever-appreciative audiences.  How much those exhibits translate into orders is, however, a topic of debate:  Many people go to "ooh" and "aah" at frames they will never be able to afford, or simply don't feel a need to order, their fine artistry not withstanding.  

Framebuilder Joseph Ahearne at the 2017 Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show

The phenomena I've described are being blamed for the cancellation of this year's show.  Some builders said it simply wasn't worth the time and money it took to, not only create and set up an exhibit, but to actually get to the show.  Portland and Oregon are more spread out than, say, San Francisco or any number of East Coast cities one can name. That means it's harder to entice people to attend when an event is scheduled to be  held in an out-of-the-way place, as this year's show was.

But other factors were chipping away at enthusiasm for the show.  One is that more people are buying bikes and equipment online.  Another, though, is the builders themselves:  Some have had to scale down their operations, move or simply leave the business altogether.  While the bicycle industry is trending larger--think bigger conglomerates selling more and more merchandise at lower prices--builders who make their frames by hand work in the opposite direction:  They sell less, and for higher prices.

What that means is that in spite of the high price tags for such frames, most builders don't get rich.  In fact, many barely make a living at all.  All it takes is a major rent increase in their workspace to put them out of business:  Building bikes requires a lot of space, and if builders are forced out of their loft or wherever they're working, they have can have a very difficult time finding a comparable amount of space for a rent they can afford.  

Especially if the city is gentrifying, as Portland is.  The things that made it so appealing--its roots as a blue-collar town, its scenery and its edgy arts and social scene--are attracting trust fund kids and other people with money.  It's more or less what happened to places like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which is now just as expensive as Manhattan but now manages to be as much a theme park as Las Vegas but with all of the character of Davenport, Iowa.

Now, I've never been to Portland, so I can't say whether it's becoming as dispiriting as Williamsburg is to me now.  (A few years ago, I felt differently.)  But from what I'm reading, the city sorts of folks depicted in "Portlandia" are changing their careers or lifestyles, or moving out.  So are the kinds of unique and unusual businesses--including custom frame building--associated with the city?

Could it be that Portland is ceding its place as the bicycle capital of the United States?  If it is, perhaps the change was inevitable: Small, labor-intensive enterprises with niche audiences generally don't last when the real estate becomes expensive.  How many bike shops, craft beer breweries, fabric weavers or tatoo artists are on 57th Street in Manhattan?

Bicycles And Sundown: History In An Ohio Town

Some cities are, or were, synonymous with certain industries.  The best-known examples in the US are automobile manufacturing in Detroit and steel-making in Pittsburgh. 

Some smaller cities and towns are linked to a particular company or another.  The Hartford insurance company comes to mind:  It's been a part of the Connecticut state capital that shares its name for over 200 years. 

Believe it or not, even during the "Dark Ages" of US cycling, a town in Ohio was best known for the bicycle company that bore its name.

I am talking about Shelby, a community about 150 kilometers southwest of Cleveland.  From 1925 to 1953, the Shelby Bicycle company fabricated its wares in the heart of town.  

Like most American bikes of that period, most Shelbys  were baloon-tired "cruisers".  Although the majority of  Shelby bikes  bore the names of retailers such as Montgomery-Ward, Spiegel, Firestone and Goodyear, and some were sold by AMF, a number of Shelbys were sold under their own name.  And, while Shelby made "theme" bikes--such as a "Lindy" bike honoring Charles Lindbergh and Donald Duck bikes--some were very stylish, even elegant.  Those bikes are prized by collectors.  

Now some folks in the town have formed a society dedicated to Shelby bicycles.  The Shelby Bicycle Historical Society, recently approved as an IRS 501(3)c tax-exempt organization, is looking for members. You don't have to own a Shelby in order to join; you need only to be interested in the bikes or the town's history. It's not there only to celebrate the company's "Whippet" bike Clarence Wagner rode to a cross-country record in 1927; it also exists to commemorate what was once a significant part of the town's economy and history.

There is another part of the town's history that nobody is trying to commemorate.  It was said to be a "sundown" town; according to some former residents, it even had a sign at its border telling black people they had better be out of town when the sun set.  Even after the sign was taken down, some people ran black folks out of town; others wondered aloud whether an African exchange student should be allowed to swim in the local pool.

(Levittown, on Long Island, is only 55 kilometers from my apartment. It, too, was a "sundown" town.  So was nearby Roosevelt--which, ironically, is now almost entirely nonwhite as a result of "blockbusting".)

While I hope that the good folks of Shelby (and America) will face up to their (and our) racist history, I am happy that they are commemorating something that, while it doesn't make up for that history (what can?), is at least an interesting and sometimes even delightful part of the cycling landscape.