Discussion:
A photograph tells a thousand words
(too old to reply)
Andre Jute
2009-05-06 19:00:29 UTC
Permalink
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.

A. Provenance of the photograph

1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?

2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.

B. Wheels and tyres

1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?

2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?

3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.

We can also make some observations:

C. Some observations

1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.

2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).

3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now. The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")

4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.

5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).

6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.

7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.

What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.

Andre Jute
Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Hank Wirtz
2009-05-06 23:01:06 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Which photograph? There's nothing linked nor attached to this message.
Andre Jute
2009-05-06 23:25:56 UTC
Permalink
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
Loading Image...
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Which photograph? There's nothing linked nor attached to this message.
Sorreee!

http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
c***@snyder.on.ca
2009-05-07 18:03:06 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 6 May 2009 16:25:56 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
They are heading straight at the camera - so the shutter speed is not
NEARLY as critical as if they were riding past.
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
They sure were. standardization in the industry started significantly
later on. (particularly after the mass adoption of pneumatic tires)
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Which photograph? There's nothing linked nor attached to this message.
Sorreee!
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 22:49:10 UTC
Permalink
Post by c***@snyder.on.ca
On Wed, 6 May 2009 16:25:56 -0700 (PDT), Andre Jute
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
They are heading straight at the camera - so the shutter speed is not
NEARLY as critical as if they were riding past.
I'm not so sure cameras at the time had spring-loaded shutters. They
certainly had no synchronization with the flash. The shot was composed
with the characters, they were told to hold the pose, the shutter was
probably opened by pulling a wooden or metal panner out of its slide
and then the magnesium was ignited, exposing the plate, after which
the shutter was put back. You try to take an action shot with that
procedure and frustration will drive you barmy within the week.
Post by c***@snyder.on.ca
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
2. [Overtaken by better information]
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
They sure were. standardization in the industry started significantly
later on. (particularly after the mass adoption of pneumatic tires)
And now standardization is being screwed up again.

Andre Jute
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/Andre%20Jute's%20Utopia%20Kranich.pdf
Post by c***@snyder.on.ca
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Hank Wirtz
Post by Andre Jute
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Which photograph? There's nothing linked nor attached to this message.
Sorreee!
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Andre Jute
2009-05-06 23:26:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
The photograph referred to, unfortunately missing from the OP, is at:
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Leo Lichtman
2009-05-07 00:29:08 UTC
Permalink
What I notice in the photograph is that all the riders have contact with
each other at the handlebars. I suspect that they are supporting each
other. The one who isn't getting support from the rider on her right haqsw
her left hand at the edge of the picture--she could be getting support from
outside the shot.
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 03:12:09 UTC
Permalink
Post by Leo Lichtman
What I notice in the photograph is that all the riders have contact with
each other at the handlebars.  I suspect that they are supporting each
other.  The one who isn't getting support from the rider on her right haqsw
her left hand at the edge of the picture--she could be getting support from
outside the shot.
No wonder they're not smiling. They're concentrating on staying
upright. I wonder if anyone knows how long a studio exposure was in
1893. Thirty seconds, perhaps, a long time to hold a pose even if
you're not trying to do something else at the same time. -- Andre Jute
t***@gmail.com
2009-05-07 03:44:01 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Leo Lichtman
What I notice in the photograph is that all the riders have contact with
each other at the handlebars.  I suspect that they are supporting each
other.  The one who isn't getting support from the rider on her right haqsw
her left hand at the edge of the picture--she could be getting support from
outside the shot.
No wonder they're not smiling. They're concentrating on staying
upright. I wonder if anyone knows how long a studio exposure was in
1893. Thirty seconds, perhaps, a long time to hold a pose even if
you're not trying to do something else at the same time. -- Andre Jute
My photo history is pretty sketchy these days but I don't think anyone
was using thirty second exposures for this kind of studio shot in the
late 1800s. I seem to think Brady's Civil War era work (1865) might
have needed thirty seconds in daylight but I don't know why I think
that. Photography advanced pretty fast. I can't imagine thirty years
later one still needed on the order of thirty seconds for an exposure.
Didn't they have flash powder by then? Post first, then google.

tf
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 04:13:27 UTC
Permalink
Post by t***@gmail.com
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Leo Lichtman
What I notice in the photograph is that all the riders have contact with
each other at the handlebars.  I suspect that they are supporting each
other.  The one who isn't getting support from the rider on her right haqsw
her left hand at the edge of the picture--she could be getting support from
outside the shot.
No wonder they're not smiling. They're concentrating on staying
upright. I wonder if anyone knows how long a studio exposure was in
1893. Thirty seconds, perhaps, a long time to hold a pose even if
you're not trying to do something else at the same time. -- Andre Jute
My photo history is pretty sketchy these days but I don't think anyone
was using thirty second exposures for this kind of studio shot in the
late 1800s. I seem to think Brady's Civil War era work (1865) might
have needed thirty seconds in daylight but I don't know why I think
that. Photography advanced pretty fast. I can't imagine thirty years
later one still needed on the order of thirty seconds for an exposure.
Didn't they have flash powder by then? Post first, then google.
tf
Looks like Carl is asleep on this job, so I googled it myself. Here's
a concise history by Robert Leggat of photography before the flashbulb
became available in 1927 --
http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/lighting.htm
-- in which we find that:

"The first portrait using magnesium was taken by Alfred Brothers of
Manchester (22 February 1864) ... It was however very expensive at
that time and did not come into general use until there was a dramatic
fall in the cost of magnesium a decade later. This, coupled with the
introduction of dry plates in the 80s ... Then in the late 1880s ...
the introduction of flash powder ... This was not really superseded
until the invention of the flashbulb in the late 1920s."

So the studio photograph of the ladies could have been taken by flash,
which would normally have lasted about 1/15th of a second. (For sure
the background of the forest is a time exposure; the flash would have
given us black edges and background beyond the first layer of trees,
not that fabulous depth.) But setting them up and getting ready to
take the photograph would have taken much more than 30 seconds. Mr
Leggat further tells us: "Early flash photography was not
synchronised. This meant that one had to put a camera on a tripod,
open the shutter, trigger the flash, and close the shutter again - a
technique known as open flash." Uh-huh. And I thought my first camera,
a Rolleiflex, was clumsy!

Andre Jute
Of course I chose my Canon for the quality of the lens on the Ixus,
not the ease of using it!
Clive George
2009-05-07 04:25:47 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
(For sure
the background of the forest is a time exposure; the flash would have
given us black edges and background beyond the first layer of trees,
not that fabulous depth.)
The background of the forest looks like a painted backdrop to me.
RonSonic
2009-05-07 01:58:26 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now.  The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg
Check out the knobs on that saucy wench second from the right.
Leo Lichtman
2009-05-07 04:43:21 UTC
Permalink
I don't think this is a flash photograph, based on the very diffuse, almost
nonexistant shadows. It was common in those days to build studios with
large windows to give north light. What puzzles me is that the obviously
painted backdrop blends seamlessly into the foreground. Do you suppose that
the background and foreground are both painted onto the same large canvas?

Should this be posted to rec.photo.misc?
Clive George
2009-05-07 04:51:18 UTC
Permalink
Post by Leo Lichtman
I don't think this is a flash photograph, based on the very diffuse, almost
nonexistant shadows. It was common in those days to build studios with
large windows to give north light. What puzzles me is that the obviously
painted backdrop blends seamlessly into the foreground. Do you suppose
that the background and foreground are both painted onto the same large
canvas?
What I originally thought was rutted mud is of course a ruffled sheet, isn't
it.
c***@comcast.net
2009-05-07 07:07:54 UTC
Permalink
Post by Clive George
Post by Leo Lichtman
I don't think this is a flash photograph, based on the very diffuse, almost
nonexistant shadows.  It was common in those days to build studios with
large windows to give north light.  What puzzles me is that the obviously
painted backdrop blends seamlessly into the foreground.  Do you suppose
that the background and foreground are both painted onto the same large
canvas?
What I originally thought was rutted mud is of course a ruffled sheet, isn't
it.
Dear Clive & Leo,

It's a perfectly ordinary bicycle studio photo from that era, no 19th-
century photoshopping involved--if you're not sure, look through the
front spokes of a couple of the bikes.

Our great-grandfathers had already been taking similar photos for
about twenty years of riders proudly posing with their expensive
machines.

The photo is too fuzzy to tell if the pose was achieved by common-
place fishing line, by carefully hidden rear upright rod-stands or
surprisingly small wheel chocks under the canvas, or by the impossible-
to-spot rods coming straight out from the backdrop.

Exposure times were long enough that hardly anyone smiles--posing was
an almost uniformly grim business.

More old photos of bicyclists:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/highwheel/highwheel1.asp
http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/hardtired/hardtired1.asp
http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/photographs/pneumatic/pneumatic1.asp

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/search_results.php?Lang=1&keywords=bicycle

http://www.flickr.com/groups/***@N23/pool/

http://www.nostalgic.net/arc/pre1920/

Go to the bottom of this page and click on the numbers for a huge
collection of old photos that dwarfs the others:

http://www.pepcak.webzdarma.cz/kolouk.htm

The first fourteen photos "for patient readers" are old bike nudes.

The 822 other photos are a fantastic set of mostly old highwheeler
photos.

Worst posing wires ever:

Loading Image...

Posing wire coming straight toward the camera:

Loading Image...

A real multi-rider pose, each supporting each:

Loading Image...

Studio work:

Loading Image...

Stop looking at her and look for the two wires holding the bike up:

Loading Image...

The famous 1872 (or 1874?) pose of the Starley lever-tension wheels
and the sidesaddle design, with _upward_ angling posing wires visible:

Loading Image...
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10319547

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 14:40:11 UTC
Permalink
Post by Leo Lichtman
I don't think this is a flash photograph, based on the very diffuse, almost
nonexistant shadows.
 It was common in those days to build studios with
large windows to give north light.  
You're probably right. Though, just as a matter of interest, one of
the advantage of those slow plates was that the shutter could be
opened and closed many times while different parts of say a building
were lit up by a flash of magnesium powder to get a perfectly even
photograph.
Post by Leo Lichtman
What puzzles me is that the obviously
painted backdrop blends seamlessly into the foreground.  Do you suppose that
the background and foreground are both painted onto the same large canvas?
Sure. The backdrop hangs behind and is rolled out at the front. Carl
has even explained, though he modestly denies it, why there appears to
be a small rise in the "scenery" the girls have just ridden across: it
is to hide framework of some kind to hold up the bikes. Throw a couple
of small broken-off branches onto the canvas and you have a three-
dimensional effect.

The backdrop trick is sometimes used in the theatre by painting the
floor some ground colour common in the backdrop and then placing
appropriate props on it, and the endless depth of advertising and
television photography is achieved by rolling out a backdrop of,
usually, white or sky-blue paper and curving it around smoothly where
it joins the floor, running it forward far enough for the edge nearest
the photographer to be out of shot.
Post by Leo Lichtman
Should this be posted to rec.photo.misc?
I think we've got the general idea, unless you're interested in
nailing the photograph down precisely in the technique and tricks of
its historical moment, in which case go for your life, and crosspost
here so we don't need to go there and struggle through their flame
wars to find one thread. Even I would be interested in a mild way, and
I've long since gone over to the photographic dark side, working
almost exclusively with pocket Canon IXUS with several electronic
programmes so old that it was thought necessary to insert "digital" in
its name. Our Pentaxes and Nikons and Olympuses -- which I once
thought of as pocket cameras! -- are long gone to people with more
patience.

Andre Jute
I'm not a know-all. I don't need to be. I know who to ask.
Mike McGuire
2009-05-07 02:03:53 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
... >
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
...
Andre Jute
Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Uh Graz is in Austria, where of course the situation is hopeless but not
serious.

Mike
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 03:09:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Mike McGuire
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
... >
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
...
Andre Jute
 Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
 http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Uh Graz is in Austria, where of course the situation is hopeless but not
serious.
That too. -- AJ
Andre Jute
2009-05-07 15:47:49 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg

Further question raised by the photograph inserted right at the
bottom.
Post by Andre Jute
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now. The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg

D. Bicycle and rider posture

1. These bicycles appear to be wonderfully well designed to the human
body, almost an extension of the bodies, postures, even the attitudes
of these young ladies. They would have been taught to walk and sit
(from childhood, nothing to do with bicycling) with their shoulders
back both for appearance and to ensure the maximum intake of oxygen.
So, on their bicycles too they sit upright, shoulders back, breathing
easily. By comparison a modern rider on his road bike is a freak,
contorting himself like a circus act, a gorilla crouching in too small
a cage, for some mechanical or aerodynamic advantage more often
imagined than realized.

2. The proportions of their bikes are scaled to the size and desired
posture of the riders. Long before women's liberation, no one told
these ladies, one of them probably still a child, that one size fits
all. Among the details are the tall head tubes to bring the handlebar
to the correct height, the sweepback of the handlebar, the low bottom
brackets (or whatever did bottom bracket duty in those days), and
clearly very relaxed geometry and long wheelbases.

E. Heroic travellers & hard cases

1. With those narrow tyres, and the "roads" of 1893, if those ladies
cycled from Graz in Austria (where we're assuming they lived) to
Munich in Germany (where the photograph was taken), they were harder
cases than today's world circumnavigators, no if-buts-and-maybes about
it. And master mechanics too. And filthy rich besides, a given, I
think, if they could afford bicycles and foreign travel in 1893, but
there is evidence here beyond general history: those spotlessly clean
dresses came on the train or the coach or in a cart driven by a
retainer, probably carrying a maid or two to sponge and press and
launder. So I don't think they cycled from Graz. Still, even cycling
in the Black Forest was a major adventure those days.

2. From the circumstantial evidence in the photograph (uniforms,
officials, married and spinster chaperones, group photograph), and the
fact that there was some kind of a newspaper report, I would conclude
it possible to likely that these ladies came to Munchen to represent
their club, perhaps Austria itself. One wonders if cyclists from all
over the teutonic states or even Europe met formally (we can easily
guess that they met informally) in the Black Forest in 1893 or even
annually.

Yours ever,

Andre Jute
Non-financial speculations are free
Post by Andre Jute
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
Henry
2009-05-08 00:23:38 UTC
Permalink
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now. The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
you're joking aren't you ?
It's a fake.
c***@comcast.net
2009-05-08 04:02:22 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 7 May 2009 17:23:38 -0700 (PDT), Henry
Post by Henry
Post by Andre Jute
This photograph raises more questions than it answers.
A. Provenance of the photograph
1. Shutter speeds in 1893 were not fast enough to freeze these five
young ladies riding over the rise even if they were the German
Synchronized Cycling Team practising for the first Olympics... So how
the devil were they held up for as many seconds at it took to expose
the film?
2. There is a difference in sharpness between the ladies and the
background. I think the ladies were photographed in a studio, the
forest was photographed in the forest, and the print made by
composition in the enlarger, which is what people did in the days
before Photoshop.
B. Wheels and tyres
1. Can we tell which of those tyres are pneumatic and which solid?
2. Are the tyres under Albt Minor balloons, i.e. fat pmeumatics like
modern-day Big Apples, or are they really fat solid rubber tyres?
3. Several, possibly all, of those rims seem to be of different
diameters. Don't tell me wheels and tyres were an even more irrational
mess back then than now.
C. Some observations
1. Cyclists were as conformist in the beginning as now. The ladies
wearing the same dress, belt and pickelhaube.
2. Germany really was a milaristic state. The pickehaube was Kaiser
Willie's fave hat, and those dresses and belts are styled to resemble
military wear (and looks better on the women than it did on men!).
3. Cyclists were as exclusionary then as now. The uniform of their
club, the Grazer Damen-Bicycle-Club was specifically designed to
exclude fat girls merely wanting some exercise; it was a club for
smart people who wanted to look fashionable on their velos. (Reminds
me of a bike shop owner I heard brag that he belongs to six different
expensive gymnasia. When some customer asked him if he should join, he
was told, "You'd better lose some weight first, or they won't let you
in.")
4. Lookalike cyclists aren't an invention of the lycra age. The
photograph is dated very specifically 26 March 1893.
5. Look at their faces. They're not only as uniformly grim as modern
roadies, they look as much alike as hillbilly women from the most
incestuous valley in the Appalachians. They're all from the same class
and background. There was a time when cyclists were all thin-faced
whippets from the underfed working classes. Now they're almost always
soggy-soft types from the lower middle through the professional middle
classes (office workers to engineers).
6. All the same, and this is surprising, it appears even to my
untutored eye, and Carl can confirm or contradict this, that their
bikes are more varied than in any peloton I can meet on the roads
hereabouts.
7. There is nothing new under the sun. Our contemporary greens think
they invented the worship of nature. That's at best ignorance and at
worst stupid arrogance. Those Germans ladies are posed "in the
Nature" (note the definitive article, directly translated from the
German phrase still in use for being outdoors) as a policy statement.
They were in the vanguard of two whole generations of nature-
worshippers.
What a wonderfully rich photograph. Thanks to Carl Fogel for providing
the reference.
Andre Jute
Visit Andre's Gazelle Toulouse at
http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20Bauhaus.html
you're joking aren't you ?
It's a fake.
Dear Henry,

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion, it's just a typical studio
photo from that era.

It's a "fake" in the sense that the bicycles and riders are posed
motionless for a camera in front of a backdrop, which was the standard
for those who could afford it.

Here's another studio photo from the same era, with the arm of a
not-quite-concealed floor stand showing between the rider's right leg
and the front of the rear rim:
Loading Image...

Here only the base of the stand is visible:

Loading Image...

And here the photographer hid the support:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixedgear/2201787320/sizes/o/in/pool-***@N23/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixedgear/2201787354/in/pool-***@N23

Notice the shabby, peeling carpet on the studio floor.

Lots of photographers set up backgrounds for taking pictures of proud
bicyclists on their expensive contraptions.

These two boneshakers both use the same fairly well camouflaged
support post, but one poses better than the other:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/letterlust/2254668437/in/pool-***@N23

http://www.flickr.com/photos/letterlust/2255467140/in/pool-***@N23/

A not-very-well-concealed studio stand:

Loading Image...

(No, it's not a normal kick-stand--it's on the chain side.)

An 1885 photo of a highwheeler:

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/large.php?accessnumber=II-78701.1&zoomify=true&Lang=1&imageID=148547

Zoom in and see if you think there was some retouching under the
rider's left hand to hide a stand support.

Skeptical of huge adjustable studio stands for taking photos of
highwheelers?

http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/imagedownload.php?accessNumber=II-96758&Lang=1&imageID=149169&format=large

Embarrassingly, I originally thought that it was some kind of a
highwheeler truing stand. No one bothered with truing stands--you just
put the highwheeler upside down and trued the big wheel against its
fork legs:

Loading Image...

***

Just jam a fixie's rear wheel at an angle against the backdrop itself:

Loading Image...

***

Major Taylor with an obvious seat post wire:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncjack/332891274/in/set-72157594437756025/

Now look between Taylor's seat post and thigh--you can see just an
inch or so of the wire heading off to the railing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncjack/332892678/

A more famous Taylor photo, with no _visible_ support:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncjack/332891474/

In this case, the camera angle probably lets Taylor's leg conceal
another seatpost wire--it was a more carefully posed publicity photo
for selling the chainless bike. Taylor was an accomplished trick and
fancy rider, but it's unlikely that he did trackstands for a camera
and pretended to be riding when a simple wire worked better.

***

Coming out of the backdrop and concealed by the rider's body, a
downward slanting wire to the seat post (or even a support rod) let a
rider pose as still as if he was sitting on a chair.

The often elevated rear wheel is a clue to support from the
backdrop--gravity pulls the unseen wire taut:

Loading Image...

Somehow I doubt that she's doing a trackstand.

***

I wonder if the baby is as securely attached to the posed bicycle as
the bicycle is attached to the wires?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fixedgear/2201787370/in/pool-***@N23

***

If you've ever seen a magician levitate a woman from a table in front
of him and pass a big hoop around her to show that there are no thin
overhead wires, then you've (not) seen a horizontal backdrop support
rod:
Loading Image...

Wires are just simpler and easier for posing bicycles.

To paraphrase James Randi's favorite line after he demonstrates that
he can duplicate supposedly supernatural tricks, if they were doing it
by the 19th century equivalent of photoshopping, they were doing it
the hard way. A stand, a wire, a chock, a little careful camera angle
or even re-touching to erase the wires, and there you are--hundreds of
studio photos of mounted bicyclists.

Heck, even _modern_ photos use wires or fishing line for posing.

Look closely at the cover of this Smithsonian book, and you'll find
two wires slanting gently downward, the one on the left from the
barely visible saddle, the one on the right from roughly her left
knee:

http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/HistoryTechnology/pdf_lo/SSHT-0024.pdf

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

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