A high-rider, or penny farthing portrait Photo: supplied
Anyone who thinks controversy around cycle lanes is anything new, should pick up a copy of Michael Toohey’s just published account of the bicycle’s beginnings in Aotearoa New Zealand, The Cycling Pioneers.
Mania for 'velocipedism' was decried as needing to stop in newspapers way back in 1870.
That same year came the first recorded incident of road rage in Pōneke Wellington: a man waving a horse pistol at a cyclist.
Even dating back to the 'dandyhorse' craze of 1819, Toohey writes, cyclists had taken to footpaths because of the state of roads and were consequently being treated as a scourge.
Toohey follows the mania and the innovations in colonial Aotearoa, from the early wooden and iron "heavy boneshaking machines' - the velocipede - to touring theatre shows and the evolution of the high-riders, or penny farthings.
High-riders saw cycle racing and national touring take off, with cycling clubs around the country.
Michael Toohey Photo: supplied
Yet, dangerously high and uncomfortable, until the development of the 'safety bike' and pneumatic tires, early cycling was the preserve of younger and wealthier Pākehā men.
Finally in 1893 bicycles were turning up everywhere.
Michael Toohey's book follows the hi-jinks and technological innovations of the decades prior.
In 2010 he completed a PhD exploring the late 19th century evolution of bicycle racing, with attention to the tensions of class, race and gender
Based in the cycling city of Ōtautahi Christchurch, Michael Toohey is surrounded by bicycles, running bike shop New Brighton Cycles.
He told Culture 101 Christchurch was referred to the second cycling city after Amsterdam, even in the 1950s and 1960s.
Toohey began his career working at the Cycle Trading Company before going on to get a bachelor's degree in history.
"I was always fascinated by old technology, and Christchurch history, and New Zealand history," he said.
Toohey said the controversy around cyclists, and cycle ways, dates all the way back to the first introduction of the draisine or the hobby horse.
A hobby horse was the first two-wheeled bicycle, invented in Germany around about 1816, he added.
"And bicycles have been pushed off the road, or pushed onto the road off the footpath, ever since.
"Always controversial, always little run-ins, kids throwing hats and sticks into spokes to try and throw cyclists off, which when you're thinking that they're riding a penny-farthing is pretty funny."
The penny-farthing, high wheeler or ordinary bicycle was a huge leap forward, Toohey added.
He said it came around about 1870 or 1871, but didn't really arrive in New Zealand until the mid 1870s.
"They were the boy racers of the day.
"These elegant, high, fast bicycles that young men could race around on."
