Golden Age
While the bicycle was popular among wealthy young men in cities such as London, New York, and Paris, Starley's safety bicycle ushered in the "golden age of bicycles." A bicycle craze swept Europe and North America during the Gay Nineties; suddenly, the bicycle was safe, affordable, and available for transport and leisure for the ordinary person. Although France was swept up in the craze, production remained centered in England and the United States. However, the seeds were sown for the rebirth of the French industry.
In 1881, Paul de Vivie, a man of twenty-eight, bought his first bicycle, an ordinary. By 1887, de Vivie decided to devote his attention to his avocation; he sold his business, and moved to Saint-Étienne, where he opened a bicycle shop and started a magazine, Le Cycliste. Velocio, as de Vivie was known, began to import bicycles from Coventry; within two years, however, he had begun to produce his own bicycles. His 1889 La Gauloise was the first bicycle produced in France.
Read more about this topic: French Bicycle Industry
Famous quotes containing the words golden and/or age:
“I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear
But a golden nutmeg and a silver pear;”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear (l. 1–2)
“Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)