Was just flicking through the Museum Victoria website for some photos of old buildings the other day and thought to do a quick search for ‘Cycling’ which brought up a nice collection of shots from way back when. – here’s a few of them (with their generally obvious captions). You can find plenty more here. Search - Museum Victoria
– feel free to add any good ones that I might have missed.
Cyclists and onlookers at a bicycle race at the sandbanks picnic area on the Latrobe River - 1902
A group of men with bicycles and a gramophone. One man is holding a coiled stockwhip - 1895
A cyclist, wearing a Malvern Star Cycles sweater, shaking hands with a man wearing a blazer with a ‘V’ and crossed oars (?) on the pocket. - 1929
Six men with a catch of rabbits. The rabbits are strung on a horse-drawn cart. The cart has a sign reading: The Wanderers. Four of the men have bicycles. -1930
A cyclist competing in a road race from Heathcote to Costerfield. He won the race and was awarded a gold medal -1923
Riders drawn up for the start of a bicycle race – Hamilton 1906.
The Warracknabeal bicycle club on a country outing – 1898
Young boys competing in a bike race - Traralgon. 1930
Three men with bicycles in bush. There are two carriages behind them and some cattle
On a side note, I quite like these staged ones, especially the ones where it’s apparent that prior to the shot being taken, the thought process goes something like –
“Wow! A Camera! Quick, get things to hold!”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, guns! Walking sticks! Pipes! Anything! – go get Jimmy and his bike, put him in it! It’s a photograph for fucks sake – we need to look awesome, but pretend we do this shit all the time, so don’t smile – just look deadly fucking serious.”
(that’s a portmanteau of your first and last name, I think it has a nice ring to it, I’ve even started making the J silent just to give it a European flavour)
Definitely would been a novelty to have your photo taken. I like some of the police photos from the same time where people put on a show for the camera rather than the standard ‘mug shot’ - probably the first time they had seen a camera.
Nice find anyway. You can also search through heaps of photo collections through Home - Trove