When Tobias Krieger drives past you can get the impression of stepping out of a time machine. The Karlsruher is traveling with the penny farthing. Today he is one of the few who can still do that.
Karlsruhe (dpa / lsw) – One of the trickiest moments for Tobias Krieger is dismounting. A small metal rod, the step, is available to him when he swings off the penny-farthing. Barely long enough for a shoe width. Then it’s time to find your footing, shift your weight, brake and quickly put your second foot on the ground.
“This is a short moment,” said Krieger. “You have to find the step blindly.” When it rains, the risk of slipping is too great for penny-farthing. “I avoid anything wet and slippery like the plague.”
Even when cornering, Krieger cannot dismount. Because the saddle sits just behind the handles for steering on the oversized front wheel. The pedals are also mounted on it. When Krieger sits there and the bike swings left or right for a turn, his leg doesn’t get on the step attached to what’s called the back – a curved strut that leads to the much smaller rear wheel.
The solid rubber tires without profile pass on every impact – not cushioned. Driving on gravel is very uncomfortable. “Cobblestones are also really nasty,” says Krieger. “You have to read the road constantly.” Whether stones, branches or high curbs – any resistance slows down the momentum of the bike on the spot. In the worst case, the driver flies forward off the bike. And that from a great height: At the moment, the 60-year-old from Karlsruhe is mainly on the road with a 52-inch bike. That’s the equivalent of more than 1.30 meters.
The height and the associated risk of injury made penny-farthing difficult, said the chairman of the Historical Bicycles Association, Christoph Ulbrich. “Anyone who can ride a bicycle can sit on any historical bicycle – but not on a penny-farthing.” That is left to the specialists. There are a good two handfuls of them “who are really passionate about it”.
Krieger has been one of them since 2003. Even before that he had collected vintage bikes, he reports. A bicycle dealer friend of his then showed him a flyer from a high-biking school – and his girlfriend at the time finally gave him a course as a gift.
The musician and music teacher now owns ten penny-farthings: some originals from the 1870s and 1880s (“They sometimes drive like a beast”), some specially made-to-measure replicas. A friend from the Czech Republic is building them, says Krieger. Such a penny-farthing made by hand costs 3,000 to 3,500 euros. The more frills there are, the more nickel plating you want, the more expensive it gets – of course.
Once upon a time, the highly developed English bicycle industry was at the forefront of the production of , according to the hochrad.info website. “In 1887 there were over 60 bicycle factories in Germany, which produced around 7,000 bicycles that year. Two to three times as many bicycles were exported from England in the same period.” Sewing machine dealers were considered particularly suitable for the sale of penny farthings, as they were often trained locksmiths or mechanics and had the basic requirements for professional treatment and any repairs to the wheels.
However, due to the high risk of accidents and the high demands placed on the riders, penny farthings were soon phased out. “The higher the wheel, the harder it is to handle,” says Krieger. It’s harder to pedal, it’s harder to drive up the mountain, curves are much more uncomfortable. “It is precisely the reflexes that you have as a cyclist that are dangerous on a penny-farthing,” he says, citing abrupt braking as an example. Ulbrich from the Historical Bicycles Association made a similar statement. The penny farthing was a “dead end in development”.
Nevertheless, high cyclists are eye-catchers at every meeting of the association, says the chairman. Krieger also felt this in Karlsruhe. Whenever he was out, people pulled out their phones and took pictures. Often without asking if that’s okay.
Today, the 60-year-old occasionally rides a penny-farthing. “There were times when I sat on it every free minute.” He drove to work or day-long tours across the country, 80 to 100 kilometers a day. There are extra travel saddles, says Krieger. And ways to attach luggage. Above all, the peace and quiet during a penny-farthing ride is incomparable, he enthuses. “It’s completely silent! No chain or sprockets or anything else.”
