Hi,
It's been a couple of years, but I think this is what they told me at the Carillion Park, Wright Brothers, Cycle shop in Dayton, Ohio: The Wright Brothers only built 100 bicycles (Same number as Mario Confente!). There are about 5 in public museums. I don't think they know of any in private collections. The Dayton, Carillion Park has two; The Bicycle Museum of America has one; and the Smithsonian has one. This is from memory, so someone should check all my facts.
The Bicycle Museum of America was very interested in the Wright Brothers circus bike that was for sale on Ebay, May 2001. They checked on the bike and decided that it was a fake and did not try and buy it.
The Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village, in DearBorn, Michigan (Detroit) has one of the three, Wright Brothers bicycle shops .
http://www.hfmgv.org/
The Carillion Park in Dayton--near it's original location--has a reproduction of one of the bike shops:
http://carillonpark.org/
Off like a flock of turtles,
Stratton Hammon Louisville, KY, USA
>From: CBKNYC@aol.com
>Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2002 22:57:41 EDT
>To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
>Subject: [CR]Wright Brothers Van Cleve
>As all here know, the Wright Brothers --- of flying fame, the first=20
>heavier-than-air controlled flight -- started in the bicycle biz.
>Anybody know if any of their bikes survived? I'd figure they were,
you kno=
>w=20
>-- light. Here's a site about 'em, with pictures:
http://www.first-to-fly.com/
>- Charles