​BIKE editor Dimitri Lehner: “Why I love gravel bikes – probably since 1880!”

I love bikes. All of them.

Downhill bikes. Gravel bikes. Enduro bikes. Freeride bikes. Trail bikes. Dirt bikes. If it’s got two wheels and no good reason to be sensible, I’m interested.

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

Until I found this photo.

This is a picture of my great-grandfather, Carl Merkel. Around 1880. Second from the left. Wearing glasses. Standing tall. And on a bicycle. A first-generation gravel bike. He probably knew more about my life back then than I did myself.

After all, every cycling career begins in the same way: with pride.

I got my first bike from my grandad. It was a Hercules. Blue. With a top tube – so not some child’s toy. It came with training wheels and military riding instructions – my grandad had been a major. A tank commander in a Tiger. When he said, ‘Set off’, that’s when you set off.

It happened in the courtyard at 9 Geuderstraße in Nuremberg. In the 1970s.

I was driving round in circles.

And suddenly, I wasn’t a child any more.

I used to be a cyclist.

Back then, cycling meant freedom.
Today, cycling still means freedom. Only now it comes with carbon frames, wireless gear shifts and low aerodynamic drag.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that I was carrying on a family tradition. And a city tradition, too.

After all, my hometown of Nuremberg was once Germany’s cycling capital.

My great-grandfather Carl Merkel was one of the early adopters of this new technology. He thought high-wheelers were silly. Too high. Too much like a circus. Too much show, not enough getting about.

But then the first proper bikes arrived. Gravel bikes. With plenty of drive and flared handlebars.

So he bought one.

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

People would head out into the countryside together, along field tracks and unpaved roads. They would organise races. And they would demonstrate: we’re moving faster than the past.

Then came the car.

Carl Merkel parked his bicycle in the corner and bought a 12 PS Adler motor car.

That’s progress for you.

You love it – until something new comes along.

He would probably have been pleased to know that his great-grandson would one day become a cycling journalist. Or perhaps it would have baffled him. Maybe both. Because today, bicycles are once again at the cutting edge. Once again, they represent the future. Once again, they symbolise freedom.

But without training wheels.

And without a major.

Nuremberg – when Germany learnt to cycle

Historical Facts Section

At the end of the 19th century, Nuremberg was one of Europe’s most important centres for the bicycle industry. Not in a metaphorical sense. In an industrial sense.

The City of Bicycles

• In order to 1897 came, for example a quarter of Germany’s bicycle production from Nuremberg
• In order to In 1900, four out of every five bicycles in Bavaria came from from the city
• The bicycle industry was particularly concentrated along Fürther Straße – a former mobility cluster

Among the most important manufacturers from Nuremberg and the surrounding area were:

• Hercules
• Victoria
• Triumph
• Mars
• Express
• Prime Minister
• Sirius

​Example: Victoria Works

Among the pioneers of the German bicycle industry were Max Frankenburg and Max Ottenstein, the founders of Victoria-Werke. In 1886, they began producing high-wheelers based on the English model in a small workshop with just 20 employees. Just a few years later, they unveiled their own designs and launched the first low-wheel bicycles onto the market. Success came quickly: the company grew rapidly and moved into a large site on Ludwig-Feuerbach-Straße, which was to remain its headquarters for the next 50 years.

A charming anecdote has been passed down from the early days: buyers of Victoria bicycles were given a bag of firecrackers as a bonus – to deter aggressive stray dogs.

The first cycling clubs: mobility as a social project

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

In 1884, the club opened one of Nuremberg’s first cycle tracks – on Kernstraße. Back then, races were not a leisure activity. They were more like demonstrations of the future of technology.

Nuremberg regulated cycling – as early as 1884. As so many people suddenly started cycling, the city took early action. As early as 1884–1887 There were regulations concerning brakes, bells and lights.

In short: Nuremberg drew up the traffic regulations for bicycles before cycling had become part of everyday life.

From a luxury item to a means of public transport

The bicycle started out as a status symbol. Then it became a means of transport. Then it came to symbolise freedom.

Today, it’s cutting-edge technology once again.
And sometimes it’s family history, too.