Bicycles! Bicycles! Bicycles!

Over at blogTO, Derek Flack is raaaather good at putting together galleries of old Toronto photos. And I think his post of old bicycle pics is one my favourites so far. Most of them are from the early 1900s, back when the car-to-bike ratio was a little less, uh, Rob Ford friendly — some cyclists fly across the not-exactly-gridlocked Bloor Street Viaduct, another trudges up the muddy, automobile-less hills of St. Clair. I'll re-post a couple of my favourires here, but why even bother scrolling down when with a quick click you can check out his full post right here.

Riding along the Don River, between Don Mills & Leaside, 1912

University Avenue, looking at about where the American Embassy is now, 1912

Yonge Street & Summerhill, 1915

The Royal York Hotel, 1919

The Ford Brothers' Worst Nightmare

From the year 1900, one of Toronto's early streetcars. This, I presume, is what the Ford Brothers are thinking of when the dimiss 21st century light-rail technology as "fancy" "trolleys". And if that weren't enough to keep them up nights, you'll notice the sign on the tree to the left: an offer to check passengers' bicycles for free.

Photo: What Bike-Loving Pinko Elites Looked Like in 1900

A photo of a cycling club taken in the year 1900. It was posted by Derek Flack, along with a bunch of other neat photos from the first decade of the last century, on blogTO here.

And, as always, I've got more of my favourite old Toronto photos here, in my Toronto Dreams Project Historical Photostream.