Last updated 21:21, Thursday, 29 May 2008

TWENTY seven bicycles were to be “sold by public auction, in the Rampant Bull Sale Room, Cockermouth on Thursday, February 23, 1899.”

The advert, inserted by auctioneer James Pollock from High Street, Maryport, gave more details of the sale.

On offer were 16 gents' Roadsters and Racers; two Path Racers and nine ladies’ Pneumatics.

Pollock assured future purchasers that they were all in good running order.

It was, he suggested, a “splendid opportunity for anyone desirous of changing their machine.”

And so it was. Britain in the 1890s was in the grip of cycling fever and cyclists were ever eager to upgrade their machines. Bicycles were selling like hot cakes. So who was selling these bikes? The paper doesn’t say.

Had one of the dealers gone bust? Unlikely, because cycle manufacturers were working flat out to keep up with demand. It’s true the area had gone through a period of recession and great hardship.

But that wouldn’t have affected trade because the “labouring classes” didn’t have the money to buy bicycles. But they might have been able to scrape together enough cash to buy second hand or during dealer’s “clear out” time.

Like JH Hodgson (ironmonger and cycle agents) of Bridge Street, Workington.

They were, in 1898, selling cycles at “cost price to clear out.” A new lady’s Raleigh Roadster, with ‘Westwood rims and Dunlop tyres, could have been yours for a mere £14 10s – reduced from £16.

I was given a Raleigh bicycle back in the early fifties. As I remember, it cost £12. It was a middle of the range machine. One with fancy gears would have cost £16 – the same price as in 1898.

The must-have bike then was the Swift. Its racing model was favoured by top international riders. The exploits of CF Barden were splashed over the papers, especially when he’d beaten foreign cyclists.

The main Swift dealers in West Cumbria were William Wilson, of King Street, Whitehaven and T & H Wilson, Station Road, Workington.

William Wilson went in for advertising in a big way. I rather like his newspaper advert from 1897, headed “Which is the Best Bicycle?”

Telling his punters that all cycle agents will try to make out their bikes are the best, claiming that: “His firm have made Bicycles since the Deluge; the tyres on HIS bicycles never puncture – no NEVER; his bicycles are 6 to 8 pounds lighter than any other. etc, etc.”

He asks his readers to ignore the fairy stories and look at the facts – the list of racing events won on a “Swift.”

The star performance of 1897 was Barden beating France’s Huret, for a prize of £400. Big money in 1897.

He also sold machines made by the Star Cycle Co., a well established firm, which, he assured potential customers, didn’t have “boy managers,” adding that “the managers are men who have arrived at years of discretion and who are cyclists as well as practical engineers.”

A “Star” bike with pneumatics, and he had one in his window, cost £8 10s. Still expensive, but available on HP - then called a “Gradual Payment System.”

Then there was bike rental! Especially attractive to holidaymakers travelling by rail, as the railway companies were charging for bicycle carriage, a charge much resented by both holidaymakers and commuters.

Up in Silloth, James Sharp was operating such a scheme, renting new, reliable machines by the hour, day, week or month.

Renting bicycles was a risky business. In 1898 some renters were caught out by a plausible con merchant.

Wigton’s James Payne was taken in by a smart young man who needed a bike to get to Mealsgate. He never returned.

Payne eventually got his bike back from a Mealsgate tradesman, who’d paid the rogue rider for the machine. From other local reports, it was a con he’d got away with before and the police were on his trail.

Now bicycles are things you don’t usually throw on the tip. They tend to rust away, in sheds and outhouses. Have you looked in your shed recently? Perhaps you’ve got an old Swift hidden away.

Judging by the rise in the cost of oil, perhaps now is the time to see if it still works.