Jim Hurd began collecting bikes 15 years ago, after concluding he wasn’t cut out to ride a ten-speed racer. “I rode it three times and realized it was not designed for me and vice versa,” he says. So he bought a comfortable 1950s Schwinn B6 cruiser and was searching for a headlight cover when he came across four other old cruisers in the basement of a bike shop. Hurd, a former auto collector, decided to buy the lot.
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Hurd’s collection grew to become a centerpiece of the Bicycle Museum of America, which also includes the Schwinn family’s collection. Hurd’s a curator and founder of the museum, as well as one of the world’s experts on antique and classic bicycles. Teaming up with Jay Pridmore, who writes about museums for the Tribune, Hurd recently published The American Bicycle, the first book of its kind to focus specifically on U.S. bikes, with more than 200 photos illustrating the crisp, punchy prose.
“The bike is like an unsung hero,” says Hurd. “It got a young lady out of a corset and into bloomers. It got women off the front porch and away from the chaperon. Susan B. Anthony said the bicycle gave a woman the chance to have a job without needing a man to hitch a ride from.”
Hurd has his own prediction about the next trend in bikes. “Urban bicycles,” he says, referring to a resurgence in comfortable, balloon-tire bicycles. “You’ll see 50-year-old women getting on a bike again. You’ll also see more 13-year-olds using their imagination and making low riders” with mag tires, dragster-style forks, high handlebars, and banana seats.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Jim Alexander Newberry.
