Beware! Penny-farthings!

I must be a very lucky person. I often find myself in the right spot at the right time. Yesterday I was in Chichester again, strolling about in the city centre (Chichester is really a town, but it has a major Cathedral and can be called a city), and I'd just taken this picture of the Market Cross:

As you can see, I was standing out in the road. And normally this would be a risky thing to do, as buses and cars would be coming up behind me, so I might be flattened. But in fact it was only a week since ordinary retail shops had been allowed to reopen, and traffic remained sparse. In fact - only one shot earlier - the road behind me had been like this, apparently empty:

But no, it wasn't empty at all. I was about to take another picture of the Market Cross - not being entirely happy with that lady in pink wandering into my first shot - when I heard a DING! close behind me. I looked around, and beheld a sight you just don't see nowadays. A man in cap, waistcoat and shorts high up on a penny-farthing bicycle. Thank goodness the little Leica was in my hands - that's where the good luck comes in - and I was able to snatch a passing shot. Then he was gone, although I zoomed in to get another more distant view:

Well! A bike from the nineteenth century! I'd seen penny-farthings in museums and books, but never before in action before my very eyes. Clearly the chap was riding a modern replica, but even so he still had to cope with the various problems arising from the bike's design. Which were: 

# Mounting and dismounting were a challenge needing a lot of practice! To get going, you put one foot on a step on the side of the frame, then you scooted yourself forward with the other, and finally hoisted yourself forward onto the saddle. 

# You sat high up, and had a great view, but it was an awfully long way to fall. 

# There was no chain. The pedals were fixed to the front axle. So going up a slope meant extra effort with the legs alone - no gears to help. And similarly, going down a slope meant using the legs to control speed. 

# Every bump was transmitted to the saddle. Ouch.

# Once you got that big front wheel going, you could cover a lot of ground in one revolution. So you'd get somewhere even if riding along in a lazy way. Furiously ridden, penny-farthings could be very fast machines.

# But there were no brakes! Well, there was a device that rubbed against the front wheel, but it didn't do much. To really slow down, you had to rely mainly on steady back-pressure on the pedals. I've no idea what you would do, if the bike picked up speed on a steep hill! Say your prayers? In more controlled conditions, you would half-dismount and press one foot onto the small wheel to slow the bike down. Another thing needing lots of practice! 

# Gliding to a halt and stopping entirely meant finding the step by touch alone, coming out of the saddle, and jumping nimbly down to the ground, all without mishap. 

All in all, a penny-farthing was a daunting proposition! In its day, around 1880, it was regarded as a dangerous machine strictly for daring young men. And that was on roads without cars or other motorised traffic, only horses. Apparently the more apprehensive and less confident penny-farthing riders had a 'bicycle face' - meaning a face full of anxiety. And no wonder! What if that big front wheel hit a stone in the roadway, or got into any kind of rut, or there was (Hell's bells!) a sudden need to swerve, or even stop, to avoid a crash? Plenty to worry about. Nevertheless, if doing it well and nonchalantly, a young gent astride a lofty penny-farthing, clad in natty riding tweeds, must have looked the last word in dash and style. 

The man who passed me in Chichester wasn't young and sporting - definitely middle-aged - but (apart from the shorts) he was dressed in a vaguely late-nineteenth century fashion, and even had a Sherlock Holmes pipe - a meerschaum, I think it's called - in his mouth (another thing you never see nowadays: a man smoking a pipe). Mind you, I wasn't sure that it was actually lit. Lit or not, I thought the ensemble looked very stylish. And he was going quite slowly, so it was possible to get a good look at him as he approached, passed, and leisurely pedalled onwards. Oddly enough, his progress on those rubber tyres was noiseless. He definitely needed that bell! 

What would happen if he encountered a deaf or blind person? Or someone totally engrossed with their phone? 

Or with a camera? If you look very, very closely at the second of my photos, the one looking down the street, you can in fact make out man and penny-farthing in the middle distance, coming in my direction. But silently, so you hear nothing. And it doesn't look like 'a man on a bike'. At that distance, you can't really see any bike at all (that tall, thin, unfamiliar front wheel is almost invisible face-on), and the rider is perched so high that you don't recognise him as a 'bike-rider', and therefore as an approaching hazard. 

If a modern day-dreaming pedestrian and penny-farthing rider were to suddenly meet, I'd say it's highly likely that the former would freeze in shock and fright, and the latter - unable to stop or swerve - would take a header over his handlebars. With medical consequences. So the cool, unruffled, debonair demeanour of the man I saw in Chichester has to be admired. 

I wonder how he managed to get in enough practice, to ride with such skill and confidence? 

And a further thought: just how much would it cost to have such a bike made for you? I'm guessing many thousands. 

Fancy having a go? Are you sure? I found this YouTube video of an enthusiast mounting his penny-farthing and doing a quick circuit in a wide suburban street: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Ocy0SPgcM. This person, who makes these bikes, goes into it all rather more thoroughly, and makes it look easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dofjVbwfg1o.  And this man, who admits to being new to the game and to have taken a tumble, still does a good demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p--RKyDFIAk.