Ludwigsburg - Teacher Hans-Joerg Gerste tells enthusiastically about the draisine’s reconstruction according to the original design of Karl Drais from the year 1817 – the ancient bicycle. “I added however ball bearing”, he says “for better cycling.” The history teacher himself has already tried the vehicle which is now shown in the exhibition “200 years of bicycle – When the wheels learned to move”. He has passed on his own love for two-wheelers of all kinds to his purpils of Oscar-Walcker-School. In the bicycle’s anniversary year he had offered a seminary about this issue as part of the school subject environmental technology to the pupils of the technical grammar school. The seminary aimed at developing the exhibition together with the State Archive. “It is not about lecturing the public”, says Peter Mueller, Head of the State Archive, “but to present an exhibition from the point of view of the pupils.”
Participating in the game “Who wants to be a cyclionaire”
The result is a dynamic course through the time of the draisine via high wheeler, usage of bicycles in war times up to the latest developments of light carbon frames and e-bikes. The RSC Komet club takes the visitors into the old racing sport times with jerseys and cups. The videos of the BMX rider Philip Schraub of MSC Ingersheim show the present.
There are many areas where visitors can test out things. Which is the best to cycle on? A road racer or a holland bike? And who knows all answers to questions around dynamos, rubber tyres or bicycle lighting in the computer game “Who wants to be a cyclionaire”?
The models and hands-on activities are supplemented by the documents from the State Archive, as for example by the patent application for the draisine or the patent of the Swabian inventor Johann Friedrich Trefz who built his velocipede around 1869, a bicycle very similar to today’s models.
Promoting the environmental-friendly two-wheeler in the automotive region
The City Archive also contributed in the exhibition by unpacking for example old maps showing cycle lanes in the 80ies. “Then as today, Marbacher Strasse had already been an issue”, states Simon Karzel, Head of the City Archive.
Dirk Zedler, managing director of the same-named Institut für Fahrradtechnik und -Sicherheit GmbH, also calls for more cycle lanes. Together with the Schultz collection he contributed numerous antiquities and models to the exhibition. The objective is to draw the attention to the environmental-friendly two-wheeler in the automotive region. "Otherwise we will be suffocating in traffic”, says Dirk Zedler.
The exhibition, which is accompanied by many events, will be open until June 29 at the State Archive at Arsenalplatz.
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Author: sada
