Tuesday, January 29, 2019

the L'Aventure, an 1882 pedal car, I kid you not, as not even Benz was producing self powered vehicles for sale that early


I think this is the only adult pedaled "vehicle" though, I think it's only different from Velocipedes by the steering wheel, body, and top. That qualifies it as a vehicle I think, and not a Velocipede.

So, the story accompanying these photos is that a couple of buddies built it, pedaled from Paris to Calais, and on the way back had a break down, so they left this in a cellar near Rouen, and then they went off to fight in the war and never came back for it.

The driver pedaled from the cockpit, and the passenger pedaled from the back seat.

http://www.museonicolis.com/aventure/

2 comments:

  1. This has got to be the coolest thing I've seen all day. It's steampunk without the steam. I read the story, but it seems a bit incomplete. It doesn't say what war the two guys went off to fight in.

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    1. YOU'RE DARN RIGHT COOLEST THING ALL DAY! Probably all week, if that cinerama truck didn't impress you as much as it did me. But I thought people would figure a war in 1882 or 83 in France could only be the Sino-French, or the Anglo=Egyptian, or whatever else the French were killing off all the men who wouldn't be around to pass on their genetics to a new generation able tohold off the Germans in WW1 and WW2. By the way, amazing time in France in 1880 1880 Nov 8, Sarah Bernhardt, French actress, made her US debut at NY's Booth Theater. (MC, 11/8/01)

      1880 Dec 11, Louis Pasteur (57), French scientist, began an experiment to identify the microbe that causes rabies. (ON, 6/08, p.4)

      1880 Rodin created his sculpture "The Thinker." (HNQ, 12/6/00)

      1884 Jul 4, The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris, France.

      1884 Oct 13, Greenwich was established as the universal time meridian of longitude.

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