The ten-speed bicycle was another game changer, Kennett says. “So all of those Raleigh bicycles, if they were built from 1965 to 1985, they were actually probably made in New Zealand, out of steel that was made in New Zealand from iron sands that were dug up on the west coast of Auckland.” Morrison industries started making Raleigh bicycles in New Zealand, and that continued for more than 20 years. “They reduced the import licenses for cars and bicycles and almost anything that you used steel, so that the steel would be used from Glenbrook instead. In the 1960s the Labour government at the time was looking to create markets for the Glenbrook Steel Mill, near Auckland. “And that pretty much set bicycle design in stone from 1900 through to the 1960s.” “The screws, nuts and bolts, the chains and everything, they're all standardized in the UK and New Zealand copied those standards. This innovation also coincided with the pneumatic tyre which made for a much more comfortable ride, he says.īy 1900 bicycle parts became standardised, he says. So that was the key, the chain and cogs.” “The fact that a bicycle chain was invented, and had two cogs, which were different sizes that enabled you to produce a bicycle that travelled the same forward distance in one pedal revolution as a Penny Farthing with a massive with a massive big wheel. The breakthrough that allowed for this more practical bicycle was the chain, he says. “And so the whole suffragette movement embraced the bicycle in the 1890s and saw that as a way of getting more freedom in their lives.” “And the clothes that they wore, up until the Rational Dress period around Kate Shepard era, the clothes they wore meant that they actually physically couldn't ride a Penny Farthing, but they could ride a safety bicycle. “That was a real turning point a safety bicycle was not only able to be ridden by many, many more people, but in particular, women didn't ride Penny Farthings. The next big innovation was the ‘safety bicycle’ in the 1890s, he says. And that was the Penny Farthing, and we had the Penny Farthing for the next 20 years.īy the turn of the century New Zealand had around 70 factories manufacturing bicycles, he says, with 25 in Christchurch alone. And therefore they developed bicycles over a period of about three or four years where the front wheel just got bigger and bigger and bigger, until it couldn't be any bigger for a human being with long legs to ride. “People racing them recognised the larger the front wheel, the further they would travel with each revolution of the pedals. The Penny Farthing was a progression from the Velocipede, he says. “A picture of this Michaud-type bicycle ended up in a blacksmith's magazine in Dunedin, and various innovators - foundries, blacksmiths, engineers - they looked at those drawings and they decided to have a go competing against each other, making bicycles which they would then race together a few months later.” And it was it was built by an engineer called Ernest Michaud and Michaud had photos and drawings that slowly travelled the world. “It was essentially a machine with two pedals attached to the front wheel that was very difficult to ride. The Velocipede was one of the earliest bicycles made in New Zealand, he says, from a French design in the 1860s. Kennett says it's a celebration of kiwi ingenuity and passion which continues to this day.
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