Bicycle Postcards collected while tandem touring

When touring by bicycle there is every incentive to keep the weight of one's luggage down as far as possible. We have not become so fanatical that we cut toothbrushes in half (but on a tandem it is possible to share), nor do we drill holes in our credit cards to make them lighter. But when Sheila sneaks a hairdryer into a pannier, if spotted it is removed again by John.

It follows that stocking up on bulky or heavy souvenirs is also not a good idea. When abroad we try only to buy the duty free wine on the final day just before cycling back to the ferry terminal.

So, from our first tour abroad we have collected postcards. Some with views of places we visit, but mostly "Bicycle Postcards". For many years these were remarkably easy to find in France, the only dilemma when spinning the card rack was trying to remember, "Did we buy this one on a previous trip?" Unfortunately fashions change in postcards as in everything and finding bicycle postcards is now quite a challenge and our collection rate has been greatly reduced.

Below are a selection to show the variety we have collected while tandem touring. Some are one-off cards and some were produced as a small series.

Click on photo to enlarge and scroll through gallery

Some postcards recall a more elegant cycling era before lycra

OLD BICYCLES

BASED ON OLD BICYCLE ADVERTS

BASED ON EVEN OLDER BICYCLE ADVERTS

BICYCLES BY THE SEASIDE - PAINTINGS

BICYCLES IN FIELDS AND IN THE GARDEN

BICYCLE ART THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN and SOME SCULPTURE

BICYCLES IN IRELAND

BICYCLES IN THE STREET

COMIC AND CARTOON BICYCLES

BICYCLES ON POSTCARDS FROM PLACES

BICYCLISTS IN PAINTINGS AND PHOTOS

MISCELLANEOUS

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'I do not want to be insidious,' he said, 'but would you inform me about your arrival in the parish? 'Surely you had a three-speed gear for the hills?'

The Third Policeman written by Flann O'Brien in 1939 and and published after his death in 1967
Even with Ullysses and Finnegan's Wake behind him, James Joyce might have been envious
More cycling quotes on other pages - Find out about bicycles and the atomic theory and who is the 3rd policeman?

.....MORE (and less)

' I had no three-speed gear,' I responded rather sharply, ' and no two-speed gear and it is also true that I had no bicycle and little or no pump and if I had a lamp itself it would not be necessary if I had no bicycle and there would be no bracket to hang it on.'
' That may be,' said MacCruiskeen,' but likely you were laughed at on the tricycle?'
' I had neither bicycle nor tricycle and I am not a dentist,' I said with severe categorical thoroughness, ' and I do not believe in the penny-farthing or the scooter, the velocipede or the tandem-tourer.'
MacCruiskeen got white and shaky and gripped my arm and looked at me intensely.
' In my natural puff,' he said at last, in a strained voice,' I have never encountered a more fantastic epilogue or a queerer story. Surely you are a queer far-fetched man.
.........
When I penetrated back to the day-room I encountered two gentlemen called Sergeant Pluck and Mr Gilhaney and they were holding a meeting about the question of bicycles.
' I do not believe in the three-speed gear at all,' the Sergeant was saying, ' it is a new-fangled instrument, it crucifies the legs, the half of the accidents are due to it'
' It is a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney, as good as a second pair of pins or a diminutive petrol motor.'
' It is a hard thing to tune,' said the Sergeant, ' you can screw the iron lace that hangs out of it till you get no catch at all on the pedals. It never stops the way you want it, it would remind you of bad jaw-plates.'
' That is all lies,' said Gilhaney.
' Or like the pegs of a fairy-day fiddle,' said the Sergeant,
' Do you hold with rat-trap pedals?' asked Gilhaney.
Not be minded,' replied the Sergeant, ' but I do not mind telling you that the high saddle is all right if you happen to have a brass fork.'
' A high saddle is a power for the hills,' said Gilhaney.
' The high saddle,' said the Sergeant, ' was invented by a party called Peters that spent his life in foreign parts riding on camels and other lofty animals: giraffes, elephants and birds that can run like hares and lay eggs the size of the bowl you see in a steam laundry where they keep the chemical water for taking the tar out of men's pants. When he came home from the wars he thought hard of sitting on a low saddle and one night accidentally when he was in bed he invented the high saddle as the outcome of his perpetual cerebration and mental researches. His Christian name I do not remember. The high saddle was the father of the low handlebars. It crucifies the fork and gives you a blood rush in the head, it is very sore on the internal organs.'
'Which of the organs?' I inquired.
' Both of them,' said the Sergeant.
' Before I ride away,' he said to the Sergeant, ' what is your true opinion of the timber rim?'
' It is a very commendable invention,' the Sergeant said. ' It gives you more of a bounce, it is extremely easy on your white pneumatics.'
' The wooden rim,' said Gilhaney slowly, ' is a death-trap in itself, it swells on a wet day and I know a man that owes his bad wet death to nothing else but the wooden rim.

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