Bicycle History is a Debatable Topic
Some history books will state that Pierre and Ernest Michaux, the French father and son team of carriage-makers, invented the first bicycle during the 1860s. Historians now disagree and there is evidence that the bicycle is older than that. However, historians do agree that Ernest Michaux did invent the modern bicycle pedal and cranks in 1861.
Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn - Early Bicycles and History
The German Baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn invented the "Laufmaschine" or "Running Machine", a type of pre-bicycle. The steerable Laufmaschine was made entirely of wood and had no pedals; a rider would push his/her feet against the ground to make the machine go forward. Sauerbronn's bicycle was first exhibited in Paris on April 6, 1818. The celerifere was another similar early bicycle precursor invented in 1790 by Frenchmen, Comte Mede de Sivrac, however, it had no steering.
The Penny Farthing is also referred to as the 'High' or 'Ordinary' bicycle, and the first one was invented in 1871 by British engineer, James Starley. The Penny Farthing came after the development of the 'Hobbyhorse', and the French 'Velocipede' or 'Boneshaker', all versions of early bikes. However, the Penny Farthing was the first really efficient bicycle, consisting of a small rear wheel and large front wheel pivoting on a simple tubular frame with tires of rubber.
African American inventor Jerry M. Certain patented a parcel carrier for bicycles, on December the 26th, 1899 (U.S. Patent #639,708 )
I recently ran across some Karbona Products that I thought LOOKED really NASTY. As you all know, my company, Marshall Taylor will be launching a line of HAND BUILT Performance Bikes under the name of the best Track Bicycle Racer of all time, Marshall Major Taylor. These bicycles will be built buy 'The Fabricator of Funk' over at CDS Components here in Denver, Colorado.
The first thing I checked out from Karbona was their performance Hubs, and well...ummm...excuse the expression, but I was thoroughly unimpressed with their offerings! Why? CDS Components hand builds Hubs and I will tell you what, the Hubs at Karbona are just average compared to what my guy is doing! Check out these HAND BUILT HUBS by CDS people;
With that said, I did see several things that were the FUNK SPOT..I am not into the plain black colors and I have always believed just because a bike is performance and not recreational doesn't mean that it shouldn't have flair! However, these items are NASTY because I can see past the bland colors that these come in;
Karbona...What if this wheel came in Powder Blue, Mustard Yellow or bright orange?
Not a new concept..But NICE! What if this was done in some sort of see through hard plastic with a LIME GREEN TINT? Come on man???!!!
"Complain if you want..BUT THIS BLOG IS MY PARTY AND I'LL WHINE IF I WANT TO"
Every once in awhile and even though I am a design genius, I give an opinion, which 99% of the time turns out to be fact. However, although you may not believe believe this, 1% of the time I am wrong! Keeping my term Provolution' in mind, I am VERY HARD on those clowns who design stupid looking bikes in the name of INNOVATION. 99% of the time, the only thing they are innovating is the tooling that it takes to make their wacked out designs. This tooling tends to be expensive, which wouldn't be a problem IF their designs had any hope of seeing the marketplace where they could recoup the investment in tooling.
In this case, IF isn't even relative! I thought about posting a few of these idiotic designs but I have determined that my blog space is to precious to put forth such stupidity. Well.....now that I have that off my chest, back to the subject at hand. I found a rendering of one of these designs (futuristic) which my dear readers falls into that 1% category described above....but the design....DANG! This blog is 2.5 years old and I do not remeber saying this about ANY futuristic looking design, but I have to say this about the above design: "I saw the funk, and it WUZ GOOD!"
Yeh, I know, me, your fearless Blogger has to eat CROW. Me, your fearless Blogger has to admit this thing. But as I always say "A brotha like me didn't know what he didn't know." To you Bicycle Design Innovators (or so you call yourself)- Please don't email me waxing philisophical again about the value of what you do! Cause...as that song says "This is MY PARTY and I'll cry if I want to!"
You have got to be kidding me! Check out this trick rider named Aaron Frost. His name is Aaron Frost and he and the man you only know as 'The Fabricator of Funk' used to ride together back in the day. I posted about the 3 trick practices so far;
1) Ghostin- Gained popularity in the Bay Area and basically consists of a person running along side their Adult Trike while it peddles itself...BORING!
2) Drifting- This practice is hot and consists of a number of tricks like prolonged skidding when coming down a hill, and peddling faster than the tire can get it's grip which produces a cool looking-controlled skid! HOOOOTTTTT!
3) Aaron Frost- I don't know what he is doing but for the first time in a LOONNNGGG time people I will give Aaron my "I saw the FUNK, and it was good" Award which is the top honor given to anyone on this site.
These are the types of niche and bicycle sub-cultures which we at Major Taylor will latch onto and bring into the main stream. To all of you bicycle tricj riders and enthusiasts, keep on doin your thang, I am coming to get ya and make you STARS!
I agree Sameer....I agree!
Article courtesy of: Sameer Kumar
There have been ample instances when I have been really hard on those who have created concept bikes and designed amazingly improbable concept cars. The reason for that is simple and it is the fact that I really do not see how many of these actually ever making it on to the road and in 99% of the cases they indeed are relegated to the drawing board. But this cool new concept bike design from Eric Zhang is an absolute novelty and something I strongly feel has a great future if taken up and fine-tuned by one of the big boys of biking world.
The ‘Modulated Bike’ is practically the best design one can get in terms of a modern city bicycle that acts both as a green, pollution free bike and a transporter which has a wonderful module to stay connected when you are on the move. The bike has basically three modules which can be easily inter-changed for our convenience. We have the communication mode in which you cans stay connected with all your wireless gadgets, you have the transportation mode which allows you to carry stuff in a custom made box which even comes with a freezer and then you have the engine-propelled mode which allows you to attach a fuel-cell powered engine for faster transport.
The modulated is one concept bike which has its wheels in reality and hence I fully expect it to hit the roads some time in the future. Eric Zhang has done an incredibly good job with a fundamentally sound design by adding great improvisation to it.
Designer:Eric Zhang
QUIT PLAYIN! The FABRICATOR OF FUNK sent me the link to these Wood Rims by Ghisallo classic wood rims (tubular and clincher). I am sittin here TRIPPIN right now because these things are just so bomb! I have been to Bike Swaps and shows and have seen rims that look like wood, and they look good but these wood rims are the real deal! You see, awhile ago I came to the conclusion that I didn't have to design EVERY component on my bikes and because of this conclusion I have come across a whole lot of 'Specialists' all across the world who focus on one component of bicycle and leave the rest to others. 
I must say that I can most certainly imagine some luxury wood rims on some of my designs. Here are just a few of the specialists I have come across during my journey to discover THE FUNK in bicycle designs:
- CDS Components: This is the company of the man you all know as 'The Fabricator of Funk' and the one who is set to build the hottest bicycles on the planet! Sorry I can't give his name right now but a brotha like me gotta keep him under wraps for now.
- Sweet Skinz: Maker of the HOTTESSSTTT tire patterns on the planet today. DANG, the name is even hot.
- Bike Dubz: Maker of urban style spinners and rims for bicycles.
- Scraper Bikes: Simply put, bicycle wheel ARTIST who believe in and promote the individuality of each rider. They have a design called 'Peaches & Creme'...come on man....QUIT PLAYIN! Youtube video with over 2.5 million hits...they got me saying, as on the video "I'm cruising on my Scraper Bike..I'm cruising on my Scraper Bike."
- Wil Min: This is SUPER UNDERCOVER because this person has the MOST AWESOME color coordinating mind on the planet, has kicked out over 100 original tire color coordinated patterns, and does it with CRAYONS and MARKERS! You won't find anyone in the world with the gift this person has.
I have found him! Who you ask? Someone I have come to know as ‘The Fabricator of Funk’. Over the last 7 weeks or so, I hinted at the fact and posted a raw frame picture, concerning the fact that I was working on one of (the 1st) of my prototype designs. I posted on craigslist in an attempt to find someone who could fabricate some of my designs. I got a response from 2 people and both of them referred me to the same person (one gave me his email address) who I only knew as ‘Casey’. I contacted Casey and the rest (when our launch comes) you will be able to say is history! I will not give you details, contact information and such about him because he is launching his own machine shop dedicated to building and creating original works of art (you may know them as custom designs) to remind the world that originality is king! Although I love design and talking about bicycle design, where aesthetics is concerned), there is much I don’t know and Casey my friends, IS the ‘Missing Link’.
We are closing in on completion of my 1st design in a few weeks. This design is called; ‘Illuminati’ which means; Someone possessing or claiming to possess a higher level of enlightenment. This name is very appropriate although I know that I do not have a higher level of enlightenment, but I certainly do claim so, do I not?! I think where bicycle design is concerned, enlightenment is ‘Relative’ to what you like and think is HOOOOOOTTTT! I saw some heavy weight ‘TREK’ Beach Cruisers in a shop not long ago, and I must say that I thought they were VERY NICE. Not HOOOTTTT (ala the Nuvinci by Ellsworth) but nice all the same. Someone else may look at that same ‘TREK’ and be like ‘YUK!’ Anyway, Casey has viewed a few of my designs and saw fit to refer to me as ‘Eccentric’. The purpose of the 1st design, Illuminate, was to not only build but for me to get a feel for Casey’s fabrication\alteration style and for him to feel where I was coming from. In my opinion, I couldn’t have found a better Fabricator-Machinist than he! Standby my dear readers for the roll-out of the 1st Signature Line of ‘RYDZ’ by Marshall Taylor in the spring of 2009….. REMEMBER THIS TERM… PROVOLUTION; Bringing the best of the past, forward to the present, and carrying that ideal into the future.
Due to the many responses concerning my last post entitled 'Cruisin on my Scraper Bike' and my assertion that it wasn't rappers or hip-hop artists who 1st did the 'Bling-Thing' but rather, it was in fact Liberace, I need to deal with this issue further by way of this post. One reader asked "What is the definition of Bling-Bling? How is it one person who has on some jewelry isn't considered to be blingin', while others are?" Let me make this as simple as I can, when someone is blingin', this simply means "One who wears excess and\or expensive jewelry". There you have it! In the 1980's when Run-DMC was the thing, they didn't called it bling, they simple used the phrase "Trucked down excessive".
Another question from a reader was "Do you think there should be a bling-bling bicycle?" I will start from the beginning on that question. Did any of you know that the jewelry company Tiffany's actually took a shot at blingin' a bicycle out back in the 1890's?(See above picture) This bicycle, built by Tiffany's Jewelry Company, was built for Lillian Russell who was an actress and singer WAY back in the day. The detail in this design, especially for this era, was INCREDIBLE. Some things that were added for 'The Look' were; sterling silver, carved ivory hand grips, and jewelry type attachments. The color is, as Austin Powers would say 'Simply Smashing!'
I marvel that bicycle design during this period was in its' infancy and someone came up with not only this FUNK BALL, as it concerns aesthetics (the look), but guess what people...This bicycle was also a FIXED GEAR that a few of you have fallen prey to as the latest 'New Big Thing'. This bicycle is absolutely gorgeous and my heart is truly heavy that very few designs on the market today have this level of aesthetic detail and originality! When any of you get a minute, take a look at some of the designs in Europe, particularly the 'Cruisers' and compare what they say (and many of you bicycle bloggers) is new, as compared to THIS design. You may be shocked.
Back to the fella in the picture below. Hmmm? Those rims POP and the fenders are freak shows! The steering wheel is tacky, the frame color is bland, the seat looks to be black and ordinary but even with all of that, changes I would make to this design to take it to another level are as follows:
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