Happy New Year

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Happy New Year!  These great greeting cards from Brighton Bicycle club members Herman Bumiller, J.A. Flaig, Carl Burger, and J.E. Poorman have a lot of great details. They feature real photo’s of each superimposed over custom drawings of them on their bicycles.

Herman Bumiller’s card includes a reminder that at his place of employment, Pickering Hardware on the southeast corner of Fifth and Main Street one could purchase a new Columbia Bicycle. He’s shown racing down a country road on his safety and losing his cap. He’s dressed in the turtleneck sweater and riding pants of the Brighton Club.

Otto Carl Burger is shown encumbered with the tools and wares of the hardware store. He was a clerk at the Bode Hardware store and was captain of the BBC in 1895.

Frank J. Flaig was an accomplished engraver. He’s shown wearing the B.B.C. cap and a monogrammed jersey.

J.E. Poorman’s New Year’s card from 1897 features him wearing argyle socks and being chased by a country dog.  In the background are two cyclists sprawled upon the ground with a bicycle. This might be a reference to an event that occurred during the August Poorman race earlier that year at Chester Park where there was a big crash among a number of riders when one racer’s foot came off the pedal, which resulted in a big pile-up of twelve racers who were hot on his wheel. Several were seriously injured according to the Enquirer article covering the event.