Date: Fri 25-Sep-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: KAAREN

Quick Words:

Wheelmen-bicycles-Spillane

Full Text:

Riding High On The Bicycles Of Yesteryear

(with photos)

BY KAAREN VALENTA

Bill Spillane propped his legs across the handlebars of his five-foot-tall

bicycle and rode "no hands, no feet" across the empty lot of the former Yankee

Drover Inn on Main Street.

The adults and children who gathered to watch the exhibition held their breath

as they watched the Cheshire resident on his high-wheel bicycle bounce across

the rough terrain of the parking lot on Sunday afternoon and stop without a

spill.

Mr Spillane and JoAnn Teadtke, who has been riding for only four years,

performed their feats while wearing knickers -- short pants gathered at just

below the knees -- typical of the clothing worn by men when bicycling became

popular in the late 1880s. Both are members of The Wheelmen, the Connecticut

chapter of a nonprofit organization dedicated to the enjoyment and

preservation of bicycling heritage of the early 1880s and 1890s. The Wheelmen

dress in period costumes and use and display a variety of pre-1922 cycles:

boneshakers, highwheels, tricycles and safeties. The machines are either

carefully restored originals or reproductions.

The Wheelmen came to Newtown for an exhibition held in conjunction with an

open house at the Matthew Curtiss House, the Newtown Historical Society's 18th

Century house-museum.

Bicycles had their origin in a pedal-less machine created in Europe about 1816

by Baron von Drais, who attached two wheels to a crossbar, added a saddle and

steering bar, and used his feet to push against the ground and propel it. By

1861 the design had evolved into the first true bicycle, called the

boneshaker, a hand-built machine with a foot-propelled crankshaft.

Wheelman Dave Pooler of Stony Creek, who brought his 1866 boneshaker to

Newtown on Sunday, said the bicycle was aptly named, due both to its

construction -- an iron frame attached to steel-clad wooden wheels -- and the

unpaved roads of the day. Impractical as transportation, the boneshaker was a

rich man's toy; indoor riding academies were established to teach men how to

ride the new machine. Townspeople snickered at the riders in their top hats

and tails, calling them "Dandies."

Mr Pooler said the first bicycle style to be patented in the United States was

produced in New Haven by a French immigrant who lived in Ansonia in 1866.

Little more than 10 years later, Colonel Albert A. Pope founded the Pope

Bicycle company in Hartford.

"Connecticut played a big part in bicycle invention and manufacturing," Mr

Spillane said. "The bicycles were expensive -- $500 to $1,500 in today's

dollars -- so only the well-to-do had them. They came together to fight for

better roads and to write rules of the road. When they went out in groups to

ride, they had a bugler go out ahead to call signals."

Dave Pooler read passages from Ten Thousand Miles On A Bicycle, a book by Karl

Rosenblat about his personal experiences traveling by bicycle in the 1870s and

1880s. In one, Mr Rosenblat described how he travelled in Connecticut from

Gaylordsville to Newtown on the "wretched roads" with "tame scenery," in a

"painfully desolate country."

Bicycling reached its heyday in the 1890s -- the "gay 90s" -- when there were

600 bicycle manufacturers, Mr Pooler said. With the introduction of mass

production, prices came down to $12. But the invention of the automobile

effectively ended the craze. By 1916 there were only 14 bicycle manufacturers

left.

Bill Spillane's father, Jim Spillane of Madison, has been building and

restoring antique bikes since 1971. He and his sons are members of the

Connecticut Wheelman contingent. The most popular bikes among the members are

the high-wheelers like the Ordinary, which has a big wheel in front like those

manufactured by Col Pope in Hartford, and the Eagle, a more stable design with

a small wheel in front, originally built in Stamford. By lowering the riding

through the use of gears (sprockets) and a chain, John Starley in 1885 created

the basic frame design still used today. In 1889 John B. Dunlop developed the

pneumantic tire which, combined the new frame design, created a safer and more

comfortable bicycle, appropriately named the "Safety."

The Wheelmen provided activity sheets featuring Connecticut made Columbia

bicycles for the children who attended the exhibition.

The Historical Society is planning an open hearth cooking demonstration on

October 25 when the Curtiss House will again be open from 2 to 5 pm. Costumed

docents will be available to guide visitors through the house and answer

questions about life in 18th Century Newtown.