The Davis Enterprise: Apr. 17, 2009

Davis Bicycles! column #14

Title: Whymcycles ride on — Resourceful tinkering gave birth to fascinating machines
Author: Peter Wm. Wagner

photo caption: Peter Wm. Wagner and his family take three of his unusual Whymcycles for a spin in their West Davis neighborhood. From left are his wife Jerri, daughter Amelia and son Sam. All three machines pictured have an off-center rear axle, and no pedals or chain drive. They are powered by the rider maintaining a bouncing rhythm while standing on the center section. The “Hoosier” race car tires on two of the machines allow them to stay upright without a kickstand while parked, and to float on water.

It all began when I was a 3-footer, age 4 ... learning to ride my 8-year-old big sister’s bike, which had 2-foot-high wheels. No supervision, no training wheels or helmet. Alone, I learned... Two years later at Christmas, we three youngest received our first and only bikes, one-speed Schwinns. We mastered them and explored our neighborhood on them.

In the years to come, Dad ignored our pleas for newer machines. He kept his word, that one bike, one speed, would do. And they did. My Spitfire got me through school, and much exploration of Los Angeles.

My friend’s family had a surplus of bikes, ready as the cycles of our dreams. At age 10, my pal and I did yard work for cash for parts to build our own Stingray. We first made a seat of wood, with splintery, bloodless result. The seventh-grade picnic, serendipitously near the bike rentals at Griffith Park, was my first experience on a bicycle built for two ... a tandem! The first of my many tandems was ridden that first Earth Day. Tandems are soooo fun for family and dating!

A sidecar soon followed, repurposed as a two-wheeled box on the front of another bike ... a pickup truck trike! We carried cans, friends, car engines.

The early car years stole some of my bicycling time. But the thrift, fun and ease of parking have kept me cycling, always. After college, a business career left me time and cash to spare.

“Make a rear-steered tandem, like we rented, in the 1930s,” my father challenged. OK, done. A bike vacation? A 10-speed rear-steered tourer that could ship in a one-bike box ... and be a single-seater, too. A 26-inch unicycle? Gotcha! Stretch a double into a triple. OK, a 48-inch big wheel? Make my own highwheeler.

Visits to museums found me “greeted” by antique originals, and ideas for projects. I’d never make a 10-man “Orienten” tandem. But alongside that bike at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich., was a simple, yet mysterious bike that has come to define me. There stood a 1934 “Ingo” bike, a wood-floored scooter with 28-inch wheel and low off-center axle.

A year later, I warily tried to lace, or spoke, such a wheel, under the watchful eye of an elder tinkerer friend. Twenty years hence I would be helping another generation of cycle inventors.

That off-set wheel went onto a bike. With patience, bounce propulsion had entered my life. I met two highwheel cyclists in Old Sacramento, on their 100-year-old originals. They tried my “Ingo,” never having tried one. And I got to ride their old boneshakers.

They encouraged me to make more of my Ingos, which I renamed “Whymcycle,” from my middle name Wm. plus “cycle” — “whimsical” meaning imaginative, fanciful or eccentric — like the Ingo, geometrically! 122 bouncing Whymcycles created thus far!

Then came marriage ... babies ... baby seats ... toddlers. A tandem with high pedals in front for Colin to be safe out front on the rear steerer. New baby sister? Then ditto on the triple!

Upon moving to Davis, my neighbors and cycling friends wanted some of these bikes. Duplicates came into being, with parts from the recycling center and helpful shops.

For years we enjoyed the Picnic Day Parade. Cycling chums applied to enter the parade and the one-day-a-year Davis Whymcycle Society was born. Friends, strangers, students and families of every age meet on Picnic Day morning. We match size and abilities to machines. We parade down to campus. Everyone tries any machine they wish, while listening to marching bands, ponies snorting and antique tractors chugging.

We bounce, ride tall bikes, trikes, handcycles, quadricycles and amphibious “kinetic sculptures.” These human-powered machines are in races on the West and East coasts and beyond, at rivers, bays and lakes. This “triathalon of the art world” has cycles of fantastical animals, or mechaniacal machines, making every builder an artist in his or her own right. Their purpose, as well as that of all 240 Whymcycles I’ve made, is enabling every one of us to have the joys of our childhood continue long into our senior years.

See you on campus. There’s ample bike parking!

— Peter Wm. Wagner lives in Davis with wife Jerri and son Sam, and enjoys teaching in Davis and introducing kids of all ages to the world of Whymcycles. His nearly grown children, Colin and Amelia, ride with him when they can.