![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
I know I've seen an image of the 1800s tall bike used for lighting lamps, but I cannot find it. Its age should make it public domain, so if someone can upload an link a copy, that would help the article a lot. Phidauex 20:20, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
See: http://www.johnnypayphone.net/tallbikes/ Johnnypayphone 18:16, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks! I've added one image, and will add a few more to the wikimedia commons as I get time, and verify dates for licencing purposes. This is exactly what I was hoping to find! Phidauex 17:15, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I haven't ever heard the term "tall bike" used to refer to bikes like this. Boston, where I live, has S.C.U.L, an active "chopper" club, and "chopper" s eems to be the most consistent word for this kind of modified bike.
The diction of the original article and its poster's IP address suggest that the original poster spoke Dutch; I wonder if this is a term that is peculiar to the Netherlands. I suggest that the article should be renamed chopper (bicycle) with "tall bike" listed as a regional term. Tim Pierce 04:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Naming of this sort of thing is pretty sporadic and localized. Some call any bicycle that isn't in stock form a 'chopper', where others use chopper to describe extended fork bikes only. Chopper is a very broad term, and the tall bike, even if considered a type of chopper, could then be considered only one of many types. If a 'chopper' page is built, it could either link here, or this could be merged as a type of chopper. But without a tremendous amount of additional article material, this page should not be renamed 'chopper'.
Also, don't forget the significance of the historical 'tall bikes' used for lamp lighting. These raised frame bicycles are similar in design to modern tall bikes, and are certainly not choppers, since they were intentionally built that way for a purpose. Phidauex 05:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I've provided an external link to my website on the history of the tallbike. There are many pictures of vintage tallbikes there including actual lamplighters. Please feel free to use those pictures to fulfill the image request (I'm not sure how to do this). I'd suggest that the highwheeler pictured should be replaced with a vintage, first-generation tallbike.
On semantics: The concept of this bicycle as being "tall" at all is a product of this century. At the time of their invention all road travelers were at that height, on carriages, horseback, or pennyfarthings. Bikes that tall were called "Ordinaries". It was the modern shortbike that was unique and called a "Dwarf Safety". Shortbikes at that time even had a mounting peg on the rear stay because it was simply how bikes were mounted.
The lamplighter itself only arose after the previous bike for the job, the pennyfarthing, fell out of favor and was often outlawed. The term "chopper" (referring to a part of the stock frame being chopped or cut) arose in motorcycle culture out of the "bobber" (which emphasized streamlining and minimalism). In years of visiting mutant bike clubs in America and beyond, as well as full-time commuting on a tallbike, I have never ever heard the term "chopper" used to refer to a tallbike unless it was a tall-chopper. That terminology is the result of the unique bicycle hacker culture of Boston, which mainly focuses on long-fork bikes with other shapes being rarer. I've heard tallbikes referred to as "upside-down bikes" (because of the 1964 Popular Mechanics article featured on my page), "clown bikes", "bicilocos", "highbikes", "treebikes" (because you needed a tree to get on one), "double-talls", "double (or triple etc) stacks", but the use of "chopper" to refer to anything besides a chopped-fork bicycle is only used in its archaic (though technically correct) sense in the Boston area.
Note: An assistant is not needed to dismount or mount these bikes, unless they are of such a height that the freemount is not possible (and even that ceiling has been overcome by Atomic Zombie's Project Skywalker). JohnnyPayphone
The "tall" aspect of tall bike is not quantified in any way. Height figures would be good. - Rolypolyman 04:02, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
If we can't find sources that meet WP:N, then should we look at merging the article into Bike? -- Ronz ( talk) 17:35, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Cyberbot II has detected that page contains external links that have either been globally or locally blacklisted. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed, or are highly innappropriate for Wikipedia. This, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's spam, or not a good link. If the link is a good link, you may wish to request whitelisting by going to the request page for whitelisting. If you feel the link being caught by the blacklist is a false positive, or no longer needed on the blacklist, you may request the regex be removed or altered at the blacklist request page. If the link is blacklisted globally and you feel the above applies you may request to whitelist it using the before mentioned request page, or request it's removal, or alteration, at the request page on meta. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. The whitelisting process can take its time so once a request has been filled out, you may set the invisible parameter on the tag to true. Please be aware that the bot will replace removed tags, and will remove misplaced tags regularly.
Below is a list of links that were found on the main page:
\bicio\.us\b
on the global blacklistIf you would like me to provide more information on the talk page, contact User:Cyberpower678 and ask him to program me with more info.
From your friendly hard working bot.— cyberbot II NotifyOnline 17:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)