Bicycle Equipment

Ohio History

Bicycle Equipment

 Here you can see some of the machinery Orville and Wilbur Wright used, located in the back of the shop. The brothers started out their business by repairing friends' bikes. But they soon began to actually build and sell their own lines of bicycles. Their brands, the Van Cleve and St. Claire, were designed by the brothers and, of course, had improved features. The cheapest bicycle cost $50, which would be worth about $1000 now. They offered installment payment plans, as well as discounts for trade-ins. In fact, as we read on a sign there, the Wrights gave one of the trade-ins, a Viking bicycle, to their friend Paul Lawrence Dunbar (remember him?). Talk about entrepreneurs!