================================================================================= FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ardis Willwerth 626.577.1660 ext. 15
"WHEELS OF CHANGE" AT PASADENA MUSEUM OF HISTORY EXPLORES BICYCLES AND THEIR IMPACT ON AMERICAN CULTURE
New Exhibit Opens Saturday, February 7.
It began as an amusement for European nobility, evolved into an important mode of individual transportation throughout the world, and is a favorite recreational activity for children and adults alike. What is it? Bicycling. Beginning Saturday, February 7, 2004, the Pasadena Museum of History will spotlight the bicycle and its impact on American culture in a new exhibit, "Wheels of Change."
The exhibit will be open Wednesdays through Sundays from 12:00 noon-5:00 p.m. through August 1, 2004 in the Museum's History Center Galleries. Admission is $5; children under 12 free.
Wheels of Change features a wide variety of period and contemporary bicycles, bicycle equipment, photographs, posters and prints, and period sports clothing gathered from the Museum's Archives and private collections. Highlights include the pedal-less "Draisine Running Machine," an extremely rare example of the first step in bicycle development (1817-1830); another rarity, the Schwinn-built "Triplet," which was made only for high volume dealers as an incentive and showpiece but never manufactured for the public; the original map that Horace Dobbin's drew (1896/97) of his proposed elevated wood cycleway from Pasadena to downtown Los Angeles; and one of Lance Armstrong's yellow jerseys from the Tour de France.
This exhibition examines the development of the bicycle as transportation and entertainment, as well as its role in the evolution of women's liberation and in the invention of the automobile and airplane.
Additionally, the importance of the bicycle in the Pasadena area is traced from early bike shops, clubs and Rose Parade history to the velodrome built in the Rose Bowl for the 1932 Olympics and the new bikeways in the Arroyo Seco. =================================================================================
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California
.