Cycling History on Baronne St, Embodied in New Orleans Bicycle Club

We don’t often think about the bicycle’s impact on history; these days bike riding is simply a cost-effective, green way to get around the city, not a form of social revolution. Few people realize what a subversive thing bicycles were in the 1880s, changing people’s ideas of social, sexual and racial equality, modes of dress and inspiring the modernization of America’s streets and roadways.

Society’s urban & industrialization meant that people had more free time on their hands and many wanted to fill it with healthy exercise in the outdoors. Biking created the first opportunity for both sexes to enjoy together- an idea shocking to Victorian sensibilities. As the fad took hold across the United States, New Orleans jumped onto the bandwagon, forming the New Orleans Bicycle Club (NOBC) in 1880.

The NOBC’s evolution mirrored the changing times. Born first as a ‘gentleman’s club,’ they initially described themselves as “men of affairs of relatively high standing.” The less affluent were kept from membership by default, as they wouldn’t be likely to afford the expensive bicycles.

The NOBC promoted the sport by holding public events around the city (including a woman cyclist competing against horses at the Fairgrounds- she won 2 out of 3 races), and as the price of bikes came down more people bought equipment and began riding in the city. Smaller clubs catering to the middle class sprung up as the public was drawn to the sport.

Not everyone was a fan, however. Conservative groups disapproved of women riders, especially as the ladies started abandoning impractical hoop skirts and petticoats in favor of the comparatively racy pantaloons and divided skirts. Issues of race arose because the Northern cycling groups accepted applicants regardless of color, while the NOBC wasn’t ready to do that. Non-riding citizens thought the bikes a threat to public safety as riders careened around at a terrifying 10mph.

That last one was actually correct, though the danger was more to the riders than the public. Rough, unstable dirt and oyster roads caused many injuries and soon riders around the country began clamoring for proper paved roads. A national movement was begun and many of the first paved roads were installed because of these efforts.

Throughout all of these changes, the NOBC remained popular, outgrowing their facilities and contracting to build a new state of the art headquarters at the corner of Baronne and General Taylor Streets. The Times-Picayune of June 21, 1891 described the club and sport as follows:

The New Orleans Bicycle Club long ago wheeled into line as one of the crack clubs of gallant young men who will do all they can to encourage a manly sport and keep at it in a manly way.There are some old fat-heads who pretend to think it silly work riding a wheel because they do not ride themselves, and so they prate about bow legs and crook-spines with assinine ignorance of the wholesomeness and healthfulness, as well as pleasure, that a vigorous young fellow gets out of his wheel as he spins through the dew and delicious atmosphere of 5 o’clock of a June morning.

“There isn’t a gentleman’s club in town that has a better record than ours,” says (member Joseph Pennell). “You see, in the first place, it takes a might good, clean record as a gentleman to get a man into our club. In electing members we never forgot that they are to meet socially the ladies of our own families and that they must be worthy.”

The entire lower story is to be floored with Schillinger pavement, and one side will be devoted to a ten pin alley that will be perfect of its kind. Also down stairs there will be a billiard room, a gymnasium, a lavatory, bathroom, finely fitted up lockers and a big wheelroom.

Up stairs, on one side the hall will be a reading room and library, a private parlor and toilette-room for ladies and one or two committee rooms.

On the other side the hall will be a reception room and two parlors all connected by arches or folding doors and those in turn will give with folding doors upon the large assembly room that will cross the entire house. When these are thrown into one it will make one of the largest ballrooms of the south.

The whole, of course, is to be beautifully finished in native woods and tile and beautifully furnished.

Bicycles remained wildly popular until the 1920s when interest faded, eventually replaced by our love of the automobile. The NOBC disbanded, though it was resurrected in the 1960s.

Meanwhile, their headquarters had been converted into apartments over retail space before falling into disrepair. It was unoccupied in April of 2005 it was purchased for use as a warehouse.

The owner has now petitioned to demolish this building along with several others on the block but has not submitted a redevelopment plan.