One of my favorite non-bike blogs is Old Picture of the Day. Sometimes the images are worth looking at purely for aesthetic reasons; almost all of the others are interesting in some aspect of life, past or present, they reveal.
In each post, a (usually brief) comment accompanies the photo. Those are worth reading because they convey "PJM"'s deep appreciation--and, sometimes, personal connections--to the photographs he collects and displays.
His post today included this photo, along with a reminisce about his own childhood bike, which was very similar to the one in the picture:
One thing I found interesting about the responses he got to his post is how they described the handlebars. I have heard to bars like the ones in the photo referred to as "Longhorn" bars (even though I grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey!) and the bars on bikes like the Schwinn Sting Ray and Raleigh Chopper (the ones with "banana seats")as "Ape Hangers". But one commenter heard them referred to as "monkey" bars". What's really funny, to me, is that some of the adults I knew during the '70's "Bike Boom" referred to the those funny-looking dropped handlebars on those newfangled ten-speeds as "monkey bars"--meaning, I presume, that only a monkey could ride them.
In each post, a (usually brief) comment accompanies the photo. Those are worth reading because they convey "PJM"'s deep appreciation--and, sometimes, personal connections--to the photographs he collects and displays.
His post today included this photo, along with a reminisce about his own childhood bike, which was very similar to the one in the picture:
One thing I found interesting about the responses he got to his post is how they described the handlebars. I have heard to bars like the ones in the photo referred to as "Longhorn" bars (even though I grew up in Brooklyn and New Jersey!) and the bars on bikes like the Schwinn Sting Ray and Raleigh Chopper (the ones with "banana seats")as "Ape Hangers". But one commenter heard them referred to as "monkey" bars". What's really funny, to me, is that some of the adults I knew during the '70's "Bike Boom" referred to the those funny-looking dropped handlebars on those newfangled ten-speeds as "monkey bars"--meaning, I presume, that only a monkey could ride them.
