First, thanks to all who responded with ideas for my Sacramento visit this week. I had a couple of very nice rides, and a visit to the wonderful California Railroad museum. But, that's not what I write about.
Thanks to listmembers Dan Kehew and Robert St. Cyr, Tuesday evening I spent drowning in the collections at Davis. Part is on temporary display, and the rest is in "The Vault" in an undisclosed secure location (take that, R. Cheney!). So, there are two things to chat about briefly.
First, the collection. They have a truly impressive collection that documents the invention of the bicycle and (as important to me) the invention of manufacturing as we know it - at least as seen through the products. There is perhaps the best collection I've heard about of "pre-industrial" vehicles. Conestoga wagon and farm equipment craft, not production lines as we know them. Predominantly wood, with bits of wrought iron or steel where needed (bands on the wood wheels, joints of the wood frames). Draisiennes ("hobby horses") up through some amazingly wacky 3- and 4-wheeled pedal contraptions of similar construction. And this transitions to objectively "modern" manufactured bikes of the end of the 10th and beginning of the 20th Century. Ordinaries and Star high wheelers, early multi-gear, tubular steel, solid and pneumatic tires, the whole works. Up to a fully-lugged septet, eh? This stuff is the parentage of the bikes we love, and it is really neat. Up to and including the fully-suspended Pierce (?) of about 1911. We'll ignore it's AO Smith donkey-engine and third wheel.
Sure, the collection has gaps now. Very little from the 1920s to 1960, for example. Not much in balloon tires, sting-rays, BMX, or mountain bikes. Tears me up. Because what they miss is relatively easy to find; I suspect that some CR members will eventually decide that their own gems are better off in a museum than consigned to eBay.
And that brings one to the second point. Davis is a bicycle city, and our friends Dan and Robert, with many unindicted co-conspiritors in the populace and government, are determined to cap Davis's reputation (a high wheeler is the city symbol; it is flat, etc) with a proper bike complex, with museum, velodrome(s) and the whole nine yards. They're courting the Bicycle Hall of Fame, to become part of the complex. Who said, "Dream no small dreams?" That's where these folks are, and I suspect they will make it!
So, I had a wonderful evening, and still owe them some brainstorming on various things, but I did want to share the pleasure of being there with Dan and Robert. dan said he enjoyed it: always fun to watch a grown man giggle when he sees something really cool. I didn't just giggle, I laughed as my eyes popped out of their sockets.
harvey sachs
mcLean va usa.