Funny bicycle stuff from the Internet

Recently my friend Dave sent me this link to this Kate Beaton comic which lets be honest is awesome; "see me rollin up pops you step aside". I then proceeded to spend the rest of my day looking at all her other comics, which retrospectively was a well spent afternoon.
It's really interesting to see a modern take on the history of girls on bicycles and its not the first time I've talked about this, as last June in Paris I visited the "Voyages a Velo" exhibition which chronicled (all be it not as funnily) the history of the bicycle and its influence on the development of the modern woman.

Otherwise as long as we are on the topic of funny bicycle stuff I have seen or been sent on-line, check out this gem from the great David Thorne poking fun at the cycling fanatic, again potentially another day wasted, but his stuff is laugh out loud funny.

A Ride through Cycling History

Postponing this exhibition until my fellow bicycle fanatic friend Helen arrived, I was not disappointed.

This exhibition called Voyages a Vélo, is located in the heart of the Marais and is not very obvious to the public being located up a small side street in a generally unremarkable building.

After a quick snack of excellent falafel and a coffee, we felt the time was right to go for a spin into check out these bicycles. The exhibition costs €3-€6, and after asking for the “tariff reduit” we quickly viewed the small section upstairs before making our way down to the main exhibition space downstairs.

I took one photo without any flash before being told that all photography was forbidden. However you can still take more in secret without the flash as there are not too many security people.

The exhibition chronicles the development of the bicycle through time, and starts out appropriately enough with the “hobby horse” style bicycle before starting to explain the popularity of this type of transport as well as its development. While the exhibition is all in French some of the funniest parts were the posters and articles in English from England which clearly demonstrates the type of stuffy upper middle class people that would have been able to afford a bicycle at the time.

The exhibition is overall interesting enough and has a great selection of bicycles as well as bicycle paraphernalia from different eras. Having read up a little on the history of the bicycle before going I especially enjoyed seeing the development of ladies and cycling. Originally the ladies bicycle was a giant cumbersome beast of a contraption kinda like a giant 3 wheeled tricycle, the ladies eventually  saw how pointless these were and instead of developing the bicycle decided to develop their clothing to be more suited to riding “men's” bicycles. Hence ladies trousers or “bloomers” were born and women started to develop “rational dress” . All joking aside the bicycle was credited to have greatly effected the women's rights movement and this can clearly be seen in the fact that most of the posters in the exhibition have a woman in the foreground. Including the poster for the exhibition itself.

What was also really impressive to see was how organised cyclists were back then and you could view old cycle lane maps for around the greater Paris area as well as leaflets telling you how to defend your rights on the road as a cyclist.

Overall the exhibition takes a look at the development of bicycles and bicycles as a hobby and I really enjoyed it. The Exhibition also has a great book that accompanies it but it sadly costs €20 and is only in French. If you have any interest in bicycles get on your bicycle and head over to this before it ends. Ironically though its central location on a small street in the Marais means that bicycle parking is not easily available and you will have to walk a bit to get there.

The Flea Market, take 2 and 3

Bringing my friend Tom to the market at Porte Montreuil on Friday in search of a bike and just general browsing was not as fruit full as I had hoped but it was still enjoyable.

tom trying to run away

For those of you that haven’t read my section on buying a bike, this is where I bought my orange bike. The thing to understand about the flea market is that there are many stalls where they sell the bikes. The best one has a random selection of about 12 bikes in no particular category or style and will be completely different from one week to the other.

The bikes at this stall do work however and the guy who runs the stall will adjust it for your height ect. There are other bikes available at the market but they tend to be few and far between, and ranging from brand new to scrap metal.

How ever how could you not enjoy a trip to a place where things like this chair are available for purchase.

Completely contrasting the somewhat down and dirty style of the flea market is the sterile racks of identical bikes located at the nearby decathlon. Seriously last time I saw a lighting grid this square was when I went to see Tron Legacy in the cinema.

Before I go any further I must correct my previous quote of saying that the trip was not fruit full. The trip to decathlon led me to discover this. An advertisement of sheer brilliance.

The trip to decathlon was unsuccessful though in respect to actually buying a bicycle. The few bikes that were in the category that Tom was looking for were far too expensive, being in the €300 – €400 category.
Verdict: Thinking about it

We left the market at the same time and decided to have a race. The finishing point was Cafe Oz and the objective was to see if cycling was faster than the metro on longer distances.
Result: I arrived 6 minutes before Tom to cafe oz, and en route saw a protest at Bastille, and a festival thing on Rue de Rivioli. Tom saw nothing.

Saturday however saw me return to the flea market with another friend Katie. With no particular agenda apart from having a general look around, we ended up leaving with a bike for her and a double duvet for me. Katie picked up a vintage Dilecta Le Blanc from the 40s/50s for €60 euro. The bike is in pretty amazing shape considering its age and has its original front light which is still in working condition, an awesome leather saddle and 3 working gears.

Verdict: success

After a quick trip to the ATM and a hardware stall to pick up a lock, we were rock and rolling literally.

Also if anyone was wondering how I managed to get my double duvet home, 2 bungee cords and this picture should explain everything.

After a quick spin by my apartment to drop off the duvet the city was ours for the taking.

Old time bikes at Musée des Arts et Métiers.

Once again my plans on Wednesday seemed to have matched those on Monday by not going strictly to plan (due mainly to my somewhat inability to read a text message), but yet somehow managing to be salvaged into a moderate success.

After rushing to show up one and a half hours early to my lunch appointment with friends in the Etienne Marcel area I had the following options

• Sit on my arse in McBrides and drink a bad coffee
• Walk around les halles and look at €5 shoes – and spend money I don’t have, on things I don’t really want. 
• Cut my losses and high tail it over to a museum before lunch.

As you can tell there was not much hesitating involved and after a quick scan of the ever handy Paris Museum Pass Guide I assessed that my best option would be to go to the nearest by Musée des Arts et Metiers. While I have been to this museum on more than several occasions I will confess that most of those visits were limited to the temporary “Games” exhibition. Which was essentially just a glorified Arcade with the a great selection of games consoles chronicling the start of the movement (pong) to its current pinnacle (the Xbox 360?).

So with no temporary exhibition and a quick flash of my passport I was in. Now for those of you who don't speak “le Francais” this museum is dedicated to Mechanics and Trades, often showing the first version of things that we use and take for granted now.

For example:

TVs - apparently they were round.

Telephones

 

Batteries

Ryanair

And my personal favourite.....Bicycles and even a Velib’ (I'm not going to picture it).

mmmm. lots of bikes

wooden bike - don't get this wet

oldtimey big wheel small wheel bike

early suspension bikes

 As well as lots of cool models and machines and other science and engineering things. Is it a bat? Or is it a plane? Wait, its.... a Batplane.

eat your heart out Tim Burton

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this visit and managed to discover an entire new wing I had never visited before, as well as finally managing to go to the top most platform in the very impressive church part of the museum which houses the planes and cars. 

This museum is not as frequented as some of the other more main stream museums and not only did I not have to queue for my ticket but I often found myself peacefully alone in most of the exhibition rooms. With 1 hour and 15 minutes I managed to visit most of the museum and happily left for lunch with a picture of me and Miss liberty.

Also worth a mention is the limited, but always available bicycle parking on the right hand side of the entrance to the museum.

My Orange Bike

My obsession with vintage bikes continues and this is my most recent purchase, while I have to admit that it was well over a month ago since I bought this bike I have neglected to take photos of it until now.
So you might all be wondering why would buy a second bike?
Well without pointing out the obvious beauty of the bike, the second bike allows my family, visiting and local friends to join me on cycles without having the pressure of having 150 Euro in their account for a velib'.
Also my new bike was in very good working order with even the dynamo in operation for the lights and at 70 euro at the Flea Market (half of which were my tips from the previous night) you can't exactly say that I was going "mad" with my money.

A couple of quick things to note about this bike, after a bit of spurning from more knowledgeable friends I did some research and found out its a vintage 1976 Peugeot, the style is a "cyclotourisme femme". It has 5 rear wheel gears and 2 front wheel gears (only one of the front gears operated), so it has a wider range of speeds and can go much faster than my 3 geared town bike. The saddle is also thinner and harder. The ride is much smoother but the seating position is more forward than on the town bike.

  Here is the original catalogue picture from 1976, my bike has a few subtle differences but I'm pretty sure this is it.