A few weeks ago I had the chance to ride one of these buggers so I'd figured some the gist of it would be interesting.
It's easy to learn if you know how to ride a conventional bicycle, took me about 2 mins of nearly falling over, then another 5 minutes of white knuckling the handlebars until I relaxed and could ride it
The turning circle is atrocious on account of your legs being in the way
it's surprisingly more comfortable than you'd think given looking at it.
It is very hard to resist the urge to throw mock 20th century phrases about while sitting on one. My mind was screaming at me to ask people the directions to the General Post Consulate as I needed to contact the Governmental Juror of Prussian-Siam while sitting on it - I think it is a cognitohazard
The ride's nice enough, even on the tiny back wheel, to the point that I thought "man I get why people back then were all about this" about the OG version considering it was like the first individual transport option bar walking. This honestly beats walking by a mile.
When I was a drama student, I had a friend who's dad was a stage manager at the local theater. He would throw together costumes out of stuff he borrowed and he would go out and interact with people in character.
One time he found these old-fashioned sunglasses that made his eyes look like they were too close together, so he put together this outrageous character of a horribly inbred late 19th century nobleman. This bike is the only piece that was missing from that costume.
I do I say I keep hearing the plebeians may also afford a velocipede these days, harumph
Should be 19th actually, I had my dates wrong, this fell out of use before the 20th one. I placed it like until 1905 or so, that would be old to anyone
I can't look at this without associating it with early 21st century hipsters. I vote
Never much considered what the ride quality of a modernized PF would be like, but that long curved steel down tube looks like it would offer a good bit of shock-absorption despite the small wheel. That 36in wheel is awesome.
The history of these 36 inch tires is interesting too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coker_Tire
I keep thinking a micro e-car / velomobile with 36s would be pretty cool to see.
