Bicyclists riding en masse through a city. Bicycle advocates demanding safer streets. Bike messengers racing around with documents. Cheap imports. Is it the 2000s or the 1890s?
An interesting story printed Monday in the Akron Beacon Journal about the bicycle craze in that city in the late 1800s reads like it could have been written about the bicycle issues of today.
Cyclists were the first to seek better roads, according to author Mark Price.
Cyclists were early promoters of street improvements. They argued that bad weather made Akron roads nearly impassable for six months a year.
To avoid the streets, many cyclists took to zooming along on the sidewalk; downtown merchants countered by putting out broken glass and other debris.
To publicize the benefits of good roads, bicycle clubs in Akron and Cleveland raced between the two cities carrying a message with a time stamp. The relay bike ride took nearly 6 hours.
Price also describes what sounds like an early Critical Mass rally:
The bicycle parade of 1891 proved the mass appeal of two-wheelers. Glowing lanterns were attached to the wheels of virtually every bike in town. Riders rolled downtown after dusk in an eerie display that lured most of Akron's 27,000 residents.
Another parallel was the scare about cheap foreign imports flooding the US bicycle market.
Bicycle manufacturers batted down rumors that Japanese companies were planning to flood the U.S. market with $13 bicycles. Meanwhile, the price of U.S. brands — so expensive a decade earlier — fell below $30.
I wonder if better roads and respect for bicyclists will still be an issue when an enterprising reporter writes about the bicycle craze of the early 2000s.
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