practical

Travelling shearer with bicycle, ca.1885

from State Library of Queensland

• Hart Noecker said:

  Amazing. Hollywood always forgets to include bicycles in period films of this era.

• valentino * said:

  Hi, I'm an admin for a group called El mundo en bicicletas, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

• Felipe Genuino said:

  interessante

• Vesna Verencevic said:

  Australian shearer's bicycles which came into use in the late 1890s were more than a form of efficient transportation. When it caned hard with rain and the sheep were too wet to shear, work-horse bicycles became racing bikes, on other days races for shearers were organised events at local race tracks. The rim of one dispirited shearer's bicycle became a place for him to scratch his epitaph. Traversing vast distances on dusty outback tracks over thousands of kilometers, sometimes across more than one state was the norm for many shearers. For others, the bicycle was the means to get to the shearing shed the nearest home, and back each day. Bicycle riding shearers drew the attention of the small town of Wanaaring's correspondent in northwestern New South Wales in 1899. Shearers choosing bikes as their chief mode of transport were becoming the majority over horse riding shearers, even in a town which is today considered "remote" - "I notice this season very few shearers with horses. The bicycle has superseded them. On a rough calculation, I should say that over £2000 in bikes have been spent in the district this shearing, and consignments arrive by every coach from Bourke." Source: veloaficionado.com/blog/australias-bicycle-riding-shearer...