Mike wrote:
"David Herlihy's book, BICYCLE, is a must-have. It is intended to be the most complete treatise on the early history of the bicycle yet written. It also does an accurate, although brief, job of taking the history into the 20th century and beyond.
What seperates Dave's work is that he is extremely detail oriented and driven to get the information right. It is truly a scholarly work in an area where picture books with weak accuracy are the norm."
I agree that there are few truly scholarly works. The one that I find to be among the most scholarly is a 1968 Dutch paperback book called: Fietsend door de Eeuwen. (translation: Cycling through the ages). It was brought out to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Dutch Catholic Cycling association. I received it from my grandfather back in the 70's when I started to ride penny farthings. Together with the book, he also gave me a photo of my great-grandmother and her brother riding bikes over one hundred years ago (I always feel proud to be able to say and show that my forebears, both male and female were riding bikes in the 1800's.)
Mike goes on to say:
"I've been trying to get David Herlihy to attend the Cirque, and he has quite a bit of interest - maybe this could be the year.
David is one of the only people I know who has personally interviewed Cino Cinelli - very cool indeed!"
Last year when Andrea Cinelli was digging up the photos that I brought with me to le cirque, he also leant me some old magazines with David's interview. Andrea specifically said that his father was impressed by David's knowledge and was very pleased with the meeting. Speaking of the the material that Andrea leant me, you can see most of the photos here: http://www.wooljersey.com/
--
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ