{"id":20795,"date":"2018-05-31T11:50:56","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T15:50:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20795"},"modified":"2018-05-31T11:50:56","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T15:50:56","slug":"youll-look-sweet-upon-the-seat-of-a-bicycle-built-forvictorians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/youll-look-sweet-upon-the-seat-of-a-bicycle-built-forvictorians\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for\u2026Victorians"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daisy, Daisy
\nGive me your answer, do
\nI\u2019m half crazy
\nAll for the love of you.
\nIt won\u2019t be a stylish marriage,
\nI can\u2019t afford a carriage.
\nBut you\u2019ll look sweet
\nUpon the seat
\nOf a bicycle built for two.
\n<\/em>
\nFew people living today would have any idea what Daisy\u2019s honeymoon ride felt like, but you could get the next best thing at this Sunday\u2019s Aurora Street Festival.
\nHosted by the Aurora Chamber of Commerce along Yonge Street from Wellington Street in the north, to Murray Drive in the south, the Festival is primarily a pedestrian affair, but, thanks to the Aurora Historical Society, you\u2019ll be able to try out some pretty sweet wheels.
\nOkay, you won\u2019t actually be going anywhere, but you\u2019ll be able to get up close and personal with the seat of a bicycle built for one.
\nThe Aurora Historical Society (AHS), which is based at Hillary House National Historic Site, will be wheeling out their latest acquisition for the festivities, an acquisition that not only fills a hole in their vast collection, but strengthens the links of the Hillary Family to local sporting history.
\nFestival-goers will be able to proverbially kick the tires on an original Goold Ladies Bicycle from 1896. Built in Brantford, a hub of Canada\u2019s cycling industry, it was donated to the Aurora Historical Society this Spring, complete with its original body, frame, pedals and chain.
\nSays AHS curator Erika Mazanik: \u201cBrantford was the hot spot for bikes in the 1890s and the Good Bicycle Companies was one of the main companies down there.
\n\u201cThis is a rare condition bike to have and part of the reasons we wanted a bike is we know the Hillaries had one, but we didn\u2019t have one of our own in the collection. We don\u2019t know what happened to their original bikes, but our landscaping chair John Bayer was doing some extensive research on the history of the landscaping of the house and was looking at historic photos and found this picture of this bike leaning up against the front of the house and he got it in his head we needed a bicycle and, sure enough, shows up with a bicycle.\u201d
\nMr. Bayer found the bike at a show in Brantford and thought it was the perfect fit for the HS.
\nThroughout the warm months ahead, the AHS plans on displaying the heritage bike on their porch so visitors to Hillary House can take photos and see how cycling was at the tail end of the Victorian Era.
\n\u201cIt just seems to fit in with the whole story of the Hillary family,\u201d says Ms. Mazanik. \u201cThey were athletic, with the tennis courts being on their property and we have all their tennis equipment, all their croquet equipment, all their lawn bowling equipment, and equipment from all the traditional sports of the day \u2013 and cycling was one of them. This really fills a huge gap.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to try and bring it to events and talk about it and we\u2019re hoping to wheel it out during the Street Festival (weather permitting) this year and let people look at it. This is an artefact we care deeply about and want to preserve, but we also want it to be seen and loved. There is no point locking it up and having it not seen, so we want to show it off as much as we can.\u201d
\nAs much as they show it off, this is a look and touch situation, so resist the urge to hop on to feel \u201cat one\u201d with Daisy. The bicycle is not rideable.
\nTo get a gander, however, keep your eyes peeled for the Aurora Historical Society\u2019s booth at the Aurora Street Festival on Sunday, or watch for it as it might be wheeled past you!<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir Daisy, Daisy Give me your answer, do I\u2019m half crazy All for the love of you. It won\u2019t be a stylish marriage, I can\u2019t afford a carriage. But you\u2019ll look sweet Upon the seat Of a bicycle built for two. Few people living today would have any idea what Daisy\u2019s honeymoon ride […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/2018-05-31-10.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5pp","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 03:55:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}