Vienna: it conjures up images of schnitzel, strudel and
Johann Strauss waltzes but a new book from a tradition-rich publishing house in
the Austrian capital reveals another aspect of the city now nearly forgotten:
the construction of bicycles, often in tiny workshops and to a surprisingly
high technical and aesthetic standard.
The book “Wiener Mechanikerräder 1930-1980” confirms its authors’
contention that “Vienna is big but the range of its bicycle manufacturers was
once even bigger.”
In 1930 Vienna had more than 100 makes of bicycle and for
the next half-century brands would come and go.
The marques in this book, teutonically organized from “Alpenrad” to “Ziel”
by the four (!) authors, have been painstakingly researched and the heading of
each chapter indicates when the company existed, who owned it, how long the
brand was in production, the location of the workshop, whether the firm
produced its own bikes or brought in bikes under its own name from elsewhere
and sources of information. The effort
to uncover all of these things must have been daunting and indicative of the
fanatical obsession of collectors of which the authors are representative. One of them owns 85 racing bikes. Reference is made to the “tide of bikes”
occupying basements and that during research for the book the authors managed
to accumulate 16 more bicycles and eight frames!
From the number of brands it seems as if pretty much every
Viennese bicycle shop must have had its own production as the
beautifully-produced volume is over 350 pages in length. This is understandable perhaps as in the Age
of Steel building up a bike was a fairly straightforward tube-brazing operation
with components coming from a few large suppliers. In the winter months the shops could be
occupied with production for the coming year.
However, the imaginative Austrians were not limited in their cycling
vision and some of the bikes featured here have aluminum lugs screwed into
lightweight steel tubes or aerodynamically-shaped tubing or even a leaf spring
suspended frame. There were folding
bikes and aluminum children’s bikes and bicycles with jewel-like paint
finishes. It is proper that this book is
Volume 2 in the series “Austrian Technical History.”
"Wiener Mechanikerfahräder” has a charming, personal touch
to it, perhaps because the companies and framebuilders really were so
individual. One is struck by the brand
names. Some, such as “Williams,” “the Champ,” “Sussex” or “Champion” were
meant to convince buyers that they perhaps reflected the glory of English
manufacturers. But a larger group used
the names of the builders, usually taking the first two initials of the first
and last names. Hence: BBW (Bruno Beranke
Wien); Capo (Otto Cap); Elan (Eduard Lachnit); Er-We (Eduard Reininger); FAB
(Fahrradhaus Adolf Blum); FH (Franz Hrabalek); Frado (Franz Dorfinger); Frigo
(Friedrich Gollerstepper); Friha (Friedrich Hamedl); Geoga (Georg Gartner);
Igro (Josef Grosstab); JoWi (Josef Wilfing); Mipf (Michael Pfeiffer); and so
forth.
In addition to the racing bicycles one would expect to find there
are plenty of lady’s road bikes, the odd bike used for indoor ball games and
some very cool children’s bikes, including one that could alternatively be used
as a scooter. Some of the companies
offered a wide product line. The
producers of the “Select” brand, which made its own bicycles from 1947 until at
least the 1980s, offered track and road bikes of excellent quality and the book
features thirteen of them, including a remarkable bike meant for mountain road
racing and built with a split seat tube to allow a very short wheelbase by
moving the rear wheel forward, an idea taken up in these later times of
composites by others using curved seat tubes.
“Select” enjoy the services of a virtuoso framebuilder, Michael
Steinkellner, whose “S” initial was placed on the seatstays.
In addition to the excellent full colour photographs of Philipp
Horak there are vintage black-and-white photos showing the cycling scene in
Vienna in the period covered in the book, with lots of local race meets and
local heroes. The accompanying text is
quite interesting as well and often reveals the sly humour of the
Viennese. If you don’t read German you
will miss that but the quality of the book and the wealth of photos certainly obviates
the need to go for language classes.
The old bike hobby is a niche within the greater cycling
community, which in itself (at least as far as racing bicycles go) is simply a
larger niche. Upon learning of this book
we thought that this must be the most obscure topic that anyone could write
about (and we own three books on the history of variable gearing). French, Italian and English builders have had
global fame but, as the book admits, the brands highlighted here were
“world-famous in Vienna.” The book is of
very high quality and not inexpensive but the publisher has told us that more
than half of the print run of “Wiener Mechanikerfahräder” has
already been sold although the book only was published this year. And of course if you don’t want to shell out
the 59 Euros (approx. US$ 83) plus shipping for the book you can order a lovely
calendar featuring photographs from it for 19.95 Euros and shipping.
The subtext of the book is “From Zero to One Hundred to
Zero.” Of the 100 different brands
described only one company, Capo, still exists.
Yet there is hope as there is a brief chapter on the brave few
framebuilders who are working in Vienna today, including Peter Gross although
another, Hans Pöllhuber, who operates a store and workshop, has given up
framebuilding himself as uneconomic.
Many of the builders and brands in the book are known only
from a single frame and the authors present a number of mystery frames they
have found and invite readers to send them any information about them they
might have. Another personal touch.
“Wiener Mechanikerfahräder 1930-1980” might be about an
obscure era to anyone outside of Vienna but this book is a true labour of love
and a source of great entertainment if you like old bicycles and want to dip
into a different world around them.
“World-famous in Vienna” deserves to be just world-famous and would make
an excellent gift, ideal for browsing through on those long winter evenings
while enjoying a Café Melange mit
Schlagobers.
For more information and to order the book or calendar go to:
“Wiener Mechanikerfahräder 1930-1980”
by Michael Zappe, Walter Schmidl, Martin Strubreiter and Werner
Schuster,
with photos by Philipp
Horak
347 pp, ill. With text in German
ISBN 978-3-85119-342-8
Verlag Brüder Hollinek, Purkersdorf, Austria, 2013
59 Euros, plus shipping
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