First Bicycles

Wilbur Wright bought a used high wheel ordinary bicycle for just $3 while the Wright family lived in Richmond, IN between 1881 and 1884. In 1892, Orville bought a new Columbia safety bicycle for $160. In the same year, Wilbur purchased a used Eagle safety bicycle for $80.

First Bicycle Shop

The Wrights opened a bicycle sales and repair shop called the Wright Cycle Exchange at 1005 West Third Street in Dayton, OH in 1892. They carried many brands of bicycles, including Fleetwing, Reading, Coventry Cross, Envoy, Smalley, Warwick, Duchess, and Halladay-Temple. Prices ranged from $40 to $100. The Wrights also rented bicycles and sold parts and accessories.

This newspaper ad for the Wright Cycle exchange appeared in 1893.

Bicycle Shop Locations and Names

As their business grew, the Wright brothers moved their bicycle shop six times and changed the name once.

• 1892 -- Wright Cycle Exchange at 1005 West Third Street, Dayton, OH.
• 1893 -- Wright Cycle Exchange at 1015 West Third Street, Dayton, OH.
• 1893 to 1894 -- Wright Cycle Exchange at 1034 West Third Street. The name was later changed to Wright Cycle Co.
• 1895 to 1897 -- Wright Cycle Co. at two locations -- the main store at 22 South Williams Street, Dayton, OH  and a branch in downtown Dayton at 23 West Second Street.  The branch store was closed in 1896.
• 1897 to 1908 -- The Wright Cycle Co. at 1127 West Third Street, Dayton, OH.
  

The fifth shop at 22 South Williams Street. Here the Wrights began to manufacture their own bicycles.

Manufacturing Bicycles

In late 1895, the Wrights began to make preparations to manufacture their own bicycles. They introduced the "Van Cleve" on April 24, 1896.  The Van Cleves had been among Dayton's first settlers and  were ancestors of the Wrights.  Later in the year, the Wrights introduced a second, less expensive model called the "St. Clair." Again, the name was drawn from local history; Arthur St. Clair had been the first president of the Northwest Territory, which later became Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

The Van Cleve was mostly hand made with a choice of handlebars, metal or wood rims, and single tube or double-tube pneumatic tires. The St. Clair was largely built up from high-quality parts that were available through many sources such as the Davis Sewing Machine Company of Dayton, OH (which later became the Huffy Corporation) and Pope Manufacturing of Boston, MA.

There is some controversy over whether or not the Wrights manufactured a bicycle called the "Wright Special." The only reference the Wrights ever made to this bicycle was in an announcement that appeared April 17, 1896:  "For a number of months, the Wright Cycle Co. have been making plans to manufacture bicycles...we will have several samples out in a week or ten days, and will be ready to fill orders before the middle of next month. The WRIGHT SPECIAL will contain nothing but high grade material. " This can be taken two ways. Either the Wrights were getting ready to introduce a bicycle especially manufactured by them, or they were going to introduce a bicycle called the Wright Special. Since the bicycle the Wrights unveiled seven days later was the Van Cleve, and the Wright Special appears in none of their catalogs, most historians tend to believe that the announcement refers to "special" bicycle and not a brand name.

A Wright Van Cleve bicycle.

A Wright St. Clair bicycle. The horizontal wheel is part of an aeronautical experiment from 1901.

St. Clair and Van Cleve nameplates, thought to have been designed by Orville.

1897 newspaper ad for Wright Van Cleve bicycles.

Cycling Innovations

The Wright brothers introduced two inventions on their bicycles. The Van Cleve came with a special "self-oiling hub." Dayton only had 12 miles of paved streets in those days and the dust played havoc with bicycle bearings, causing them to wear quickly. The Wrights sealed the bearings with felt washers and created an oil reservoir inside the hub, cutting down on maintenance. This special hub also carried its own spare parts -- two extra bearing races or "cones" in which the bearings rode. These were the most likely parts to go on early bicycles.

In 1900, the Wrights announced a "bicycle pedal that can't come unscrewed." Pedals were mounted to the crank by threaded posts.  On early bicycles, both posts had standard right-hand threads. As the cyclist pedaled, the action tended to tighten one pedal and loosen the other, with the result that one pedal kept dropping off the bike. Wilbur and Orville used right-hand threads on one pedal post and left-hand threads on the other so the pedaling action tended to tighten both pedals.

Business Profits

The bicycle business was good to the Wright brothers, initially. In their best year (1897), they made $3000 or $1500 apiece in a time when the average American worker was doing well to make $500 per year. They also managed to save $5000, which went a long way in financing their aviation experiments. By the turn of the century, however, the hand-made bicycle business was no longer lucrative. The American market had been saturated by thousands of businesses that had sprung up to satisfy the initial rush to own a bicycle. Huge manufacturing firms had geared up to manufacture bicycles for as little as $10 apiece. The Wrights were forced to lower their prices again and again to remain competitive.

Selling the Business

The Wright manufactured very few bicycles after 1902 and  none after 1904 -- they were much too busy developing and trying to find a market for their airplanes. When they finally began to sell aircraft in 1909, the bicycle shop at 1127 West Third Street was converted to a machine shop where employees of the Wright Company -- the brothers airplane  manufacturing business -- turned out parts for the airplane engines and drive trains.

In 1909 or 1910, the Wrights sold all their remaining bicycle parts and the rights to the Van Cleve name to W.F. Meyers, a bicycle salesman, repairman, and machinist. Meyers did not make his own bicycles, but had another company put them together and he put the Van Cleve nameplate on them. Meyers continued to sell Van Cleve bicycles until 1939.