BIKE editor Dimitri Lehner: "Why I love gravel bikes - probably since 1880!"

I love bikes. All of them.

Downhill bikes. Gravel bikes. Enduros. Freeriders. Trail bikes. Dirt bikes. If it has two wheels and no good reason to be reasonable, I'm interested.

For a long time, I thought it was my own idea.

Until I found this photo.

It shows my great-grandfather Carl Merkel. Around 1880, second from the left. With glasses. With posture. And with a bicycle. A first-generation gravel bike. Even then, he probably knew more about my life than I did.

Because of course every cycling career starts the same way: with pride.

I got my first bike from my grandad. Hercules brand. Blue. With a top tube, so not child's play. Plus training wheels and military riding instructions - my grandfather had been a major. Tank commander in the Tiger. When he said: "Drive off", then you drove off.

This happened in the inner courtyard of Geuderstraße 9 in Nuremberg. In the 1970s.

I drove in circles.

And suddenly I was no longer a child.

I was a cyclist.

Back then, cycling meant freedom.
Today, cycling still means freedom. Only with a carbon frame, wireless gears and low air resistance.

What I didn't realise at the time was that I was continuing a family tradition. And an urban one.

Because Nuremberg, the city where I was born, was once the cycling capital of Germany.

My great-grandfather Carl Merkel was one of the early users of this new technology. He thought penny-farthings were silly. Too high. Too circus-like. Too much show, too little locomotion.

But then came the first real bikes. Gravel bikes. With lots of propulsion and flare in the handlebars.

So he bought one.

And because he was sociable, he immediately joined a club: the Nuremberg Velociped Club. The first cycling club in the imperial city. Cycling wasn't a hobby back then, apart from the fact that the word didn't even exist. Cycling was progress.

We drove out into the surrounding countryside together. Over country lanes and dirt roads. Races were organised. And we demonstrated: We move faster than the past.

Then came the motor car.

Carl Merkel put his bicycle in the corner and bought an Adler motorised car with 12 hp.

That's progress.

You love it - until something new comes along.

He would probably have been delighted that his great-grandson would one day become a cycle journalist. Or irritated. Perhaps both. Because bicycles are avant-garde again today. The future again. Freedom again.

Only without training wheels.

And without a major.

Nuremberg - when Germany learnt to ride a bike

Historical facts section

At the end of the 19th century, Nuremberg was one of the most important bicycle centres in Europe. Not metaphorically. Industrially.

The city of bicycles

• To 1897 came about A quarter of German bicycle production from Nuremberg
• To In 1900, four out of five bicycles in Bavaria came from from the city
• The bicycle industry was particularly concentrated along Fürther Straße - an early mobility cluster

The most important manufacturers from Nuremberg and the surrounding area included:

• Hercules
• Victoria
• Triumph
• Mars
• Express
• Premier
• Sirius

Example: Victoria-Werke

Max Frankenburg and Max Ottenstein, the founders of Victoria-Werke, were among the pioneers of the German bicycle industry. In 1886, in a small workshop with just 20 employees, they began producing penny-farthing bicycles based on the English model. Just a few years later, they presented their own developments and brought the first low wheels onto the market. Success came quickly: The company grew rapidly and moved into a large site on Ludwig-Feuerbach-Straße, which was to remain the company's headquarters for the next 50 years.

A charming anecdote has been handed down from the early days: Victoria bicycle buyers were given a bag of firecrackers as a bonus - to deter aggressive street dogs.

The first cycling clubs: mobility as a social project

The Nuremberg Velociped Club was founded on 23 March 1881 were founded. Such clubs were more than just sports groups: they were networks of modernity. The members: entrepreneurs, engineers, merchants, progress optimists.

In 1884, the club opened one of Nuremberg's first cycle racing tracks - on Kernstraße. Back then, races were not a leisure programme. Rather, they were demonstrations of the technical future.

Nuremberg regulated cycle traffic - as early as 1884. Because so many people were suddenly cycling, the city reacted early. Already 1884-1887 there were regulations on brakes, bells and lighting.

In short: Nuremberg invented the road traffic regulations for bicycles before bicycles were part of everyday life.

From luxury appliance to public transport

The bicycle began as a status symbol. Then it became a means of transport. Then freedom.

Today it's future technology again.
And sometimes also family history.