Scary Bikers

[Richard]

Is it a current fashion for kids to ride bikes with no brakes these days?
I have noticed several cases where kids just use their shoes to slow down when nearing a busy road junction at the bottom of a hill.
Perhaps it's more exciting to dice with death at an early age?


BMX bikers also?

[Derek Jempson]

No brakes, no bell, no lights and not much common sense, some of them, especially when riding on pavements, which as far as I know, is still illegal.

[Richard]

note the date on this article in the Hastings News:

Dangerous Velocipedes (Boneshakers - as heavy as a fridge)
January 28, 1870
The News commented on bicycles: “Complaints have reached us of the danger which passengers incur in our streets after dark from the velocipedes, which begin to abound here. These locomotives make so little noise and present so small a body to the sight that they almost run over anyone before they can be seen. They should carry lamps. They might, at all events, be kept off the Parades, particularly where the footway is narrow, as it is opposite White Rock.”

I think the Velocipede pre-dated the Penny-Farthing

[Derek Jempson]

Nothing changes, but now it's skateboards and mountain bikes (or are they out of fashion now?). Maybe it's BMXs.

[Gerry Glyde]

note the date on this article in the Hastings News:

Dangerous Velocipedes (Boneshakers - as heavy as a fridge)
January 28, 1870
The News commented on bicycles: “Complaints have reached us of the danger which passengers incur in our streets after dark from the velocipedes, which begin to abound here. These locomotives make so little noise and present so small a body to the sight that they almost run over anyone before they can be seen. They should carry lamps. They might, at all events, be kept off the Parades, particularly where the footway is narrow, as it is opposite White Rock.”

Good find for the news item

I think that the photograph was taken on the Edwardian Street in the Beamish Museum in County Durham
I think the Velocipede pre-dated the Penny-Farthing