fixedgear

Fred (Jumbo) Wells of New Zealand. He's mentioned in this December 10, 1911 article where he raced at Madison Square Garden. He's mentioned near the end. The article has several pictures of other racers.

Thanks for the information and citation to the article! We'll add to the title in the source data and reload the description.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called The Bicycle, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

Fred Wells was still racing in New Zealand in April 1909, when he won the 3 and 5 mile national championships. (Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12742, 13 April 1909, Page 6). By 3 August, 1909, He'd won the Mile Professional Handicap Race at the Salt Palace track in Salt Lake City, UT. (Wellington Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 73, 23 September 1909, Page 8). Despite being a champion cyclist, Fred may not have been the brightest of lads: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=s... He's described as coming from Havelock, which is at the top of NZ's South Island. He may have been racing into the 20s: paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=s...

this almost looks like it's been colorized. The men look so washed out, and the planes look so vivid.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Maine Photography, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Aircraft of the Civil Air Patrol, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Reliants, Sentinels, and 108s: Classic Stinson Aircraft, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

See

I love those old white rubber tyres.

Bikes!

Fred J. Scherer and Walter Wiley. The first team in, the bicycle race from New York to San Francisco started at 1 P.M. yesterday from the City Hall. Source: New York Times; May 4, 1913 Website: query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9807E5D8173FE6...

An early bike tour... Later... www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/

What does "Exposed to Red Light dangers" mean?

Exposure to the red-light district in his messenger job.

Makes sense, but an odd sounding euphemism.

The interesting thing about his bike is that it wouldn't look out of place for a modern bicycle delivery worker, except the angle of the seat.

The present fashionable aspect of single speed bicycles with a steel frame and no brakes comes from present-day (ie, last 30 years, lets say) bicycle messengers who wanted something that is simple to maintain, reliable, strong, and also (one assumes) different than what regular folks ride. In the last five or so years these same bikes have become popular with so-called "hipsters" and others. Mechanically this bicycle is much more like a modern "fixie" (fixed-gear bike) than either one is like a bike used today for road racing or mountain biking, etc. So yes, if you could get an unused bike like this kid has from the early 1900s and a new fixie side by side, they would look very much the same. The elegance of a bicycle is in this basic design, not in the application of certain modern technologies to that design.