Orville and Wilbur Wright, Oh yeah, the inventors of the airplane! Well of course that is what most people think when those names are mentioned. So, first of all, they didn’t invent the airplane. What the Wright brothers did was make it possible to “control” a flying machine which made it possible for them to be the first to really fly after decades of inventers before them trying and crashing and even dying.
For me though, I think of a totally different pair of brothers. In 1892 the Wrights bought 2 safety bicycles, so called because they had 2 equal sized wheels smaller than the Ordinarys or High Wheelers that were the “norm” just before, in fact Wilbur had spent some time riding one of those challenging and dangerous High wheelers.
The Wrights really got into wheeling as it was called back then. Wheeling had become very popular across the country at this point in time as the new safety bikes were more friendly to the average person and were faster and far more convenient than using a horse to go short distances around town. The brothers were enjoying wheeling so much that they joined the local YMCA Wheelmen with whom they did a bunch of long country rides and entered many races of which Orville won several.
Being around this environment for, well, not very long actually, and having a penchant for tinkering, inventing, fixing things, they already had a successful print shop running and using several printing machines they had created themselves, it didn’t take long before other riders were coming to them for repair work on bicycles. You know what was next right? The Wright Cycle Exchange opened in 1892 in Dayton Ohio. While a friend ran the print shop across the street for them, the brothers repaired and sold bikes at their shop. They sold good brands of bikes like Envoy, Halladay-Temple, Fleetwing, Coventry Cross, Reading, Duchess, Smalley and Warwick. Prices ranged from $40 to $100. The Wrights also rented bicycles and sold parts and accessories.
It only took another four years for the brothers to build their own bike knowing what others were doing and wanting better, a very Wright way of doing things! It was April 24th 1896 when we were introduced to the Van Cleve, The Wright’s own custom bicycle.
Dayton Ohio was about to celebrate it’s centennial so historical sentiment was high, the Van Cleves were some of the earliest settlers in Dayton and relatives of the Wright family so the name was perfect for the time. Soon after, the second and less expensive model, the St Clair was introduced and again the name came from local history as Author St Clair was the first president of the Northwest Territory.
The Van Cleve was a beautify bike, at least in my opinion, with wooden rims, solid rubber tires that measured 28 inches in diameter, The seat was hand stitched leather stuffed with horse hair sitting atop two large springs, the handle bars were carved out of ash wood instead of steel, and the grips were cork, all of the above to help absorb the roughness of the terrible dirt roads of Dayton.
Every Van Cleve was custom outfitted to the customer depending on riding style, personal taste and of course budget. One feature you could get was wheel hubs invented by the Wrights. The dirt roads of the day were tough on bearings in normal hubs causing them to need cleaning and rebuilding frequently as the bearings and necessary grease were exposed to the elements. The brothers invented a system of felt “seals and an internal reservoir of oil that would keep dirt out and the bearings clean and lubed, their claim was you could go for two years without having to service your hubs! And we think our sealed hubs today are so modern and cool.
Another invention they came up with a few years later was a coaster brake hub. Most bikes if they had a brake at all was very crude. All the rider had to do on a Van Cleve was pedal backwards to stop. Brilliant. Several other manufacturers had also applied for a patent on the coaster brake hub like the New Departure Manufacturing company who went on to really make it big in the bicycle hub business.
It is always amazing to me how many design elements that came about during this period are still in use today. The bicycle industry was very good to the Wright brothers but around the turn of the century large manufacturers began to buy up and squash the boutique style businesses so by 1908 the brothers were pretty much done with their bike venture but they had already begun to dabble in aeronautics which their very successful bicycle business had made possible.
It is thought that the Wright brothers manufactured several hundred bicycles between 1896 and 1904. Of those only five are known to exist today, all of course in museums with the oldest Van Cleve from 1897 at the Henry Ford Museum in Greenfield Village in Dearborn Michigan.
I sure would love to pedal a Wright Brothers bicycle down the street, guess I had better head over to Dayton and start poking around in old barns, there is probably some dusty old Van Cleve just sittin’ there in a corner full of old farm machinery, yeah, I think I will just go ride my 5 inch travel carbon bike down Mr. Toads instead.
Let’s play