Bicycles

Photos Old & New from Boston & New England, U.S.A.

Tareen Richter  · 1d  ·

Boston was home to the first bicycle club, first bike race, and first mass-produced bicycle shop in the US.

Big wheelers (velocipedes, penny-farthings, boneshakers) dominated Boston streets in the 1880s- early 1990s, and bicycle clubs became all the rage.

Bicycle clubs and amateur racing were incorporated in collegiate athletics (i.e., Amherst College) and the first recorded US bike race (by Harvard students, CA Parker/FE Cabot) was held Boston in 1878.

Albert August Pope was one of the founders of the first US bicycle club(@ 152 Newbury St), who also mass-produced bicycles through his company, Columbia Manufacturing, (est. in Boston but later moved to Hartford, CT). He organized the largest 2nd annual meeting of the League of American Wheelmen and a pioneer in lobbying for constructing better roads.