Alongside our reimagining and designing of the modern Keating bicycle has been an equal process in relation to brand. How can we pay tribute to our past while joining the ranks of our peers who build upon 130 years of innovation? It’s a fun balance, particularly because we think R.M.Keating got some things right back then. We also think he’s dancing in his grave seeing just how radical these novel two-wheelers have become. So we sit at this intersection, rubbing shoulders with our technological contemporaries (hello @sramroad AXS), and thinking a little like our ancestors (steel is real baby).
Over the course of this past year of pandemic, our friends @hybriddesignsf helped us reimagine what a modern Keating Wheel Co. looks like. After 130 years of rust and dust, I think we clean up pretty nice. Swipe through for a small taste of our new duds.
You can’t take the dust away completely though. More on that soon.
Loving bicycles and building a bicycle company are very different things. I filed my annual report with the state today to confirm that I am still a “thing”, which as a company not yet selling anything, stings a little bit. It’s the middle of January, and any local dirt has long turned to frozen cement - alas our first gravel prototype is rolling and ready for some cold muddy miles.
130 years ago, Keating’s first bicycles were made for dirt, like in the sense that paved roads weren’t quite a thing yet. We’ve come a long way since then, hydraulic disc brakes, 500% gearing and all, but what hasn’t changed all that much are our reasons for riding.
Slapping LLC at the end of something has a way of taking some of the fun away. Reminding myself here to keep it fun. Someday we’ll push past serial # 0001 but for now I’m enjoying our newest model in over 100 years. I’m riding the damn bike.
Thanks to y’all who have put in your own blood, sweat, thoughts and tears to help me see this come to reality. I appreciate you. We’re still rolling.
A young boy stood in front of hundreds today, from the top steps of the capital he said he was scared. Instead of sitting in front of his legos or playing with his friends, this boy stood in front of a microphone, before a vastly disproportional sea of white people, openly concerned about what the color of his skin meant. This is a childhood stolen, stripped away. This is not freedom. This is not human.
Real, radical change can only come from real, radical protest. I will not pretend to understand what it’s really like to live with such racial injustice, but I am angry, I am with you, and I am learning. Black people are in a state of emergency, but this is everyone’s fight.
Wake up. Read up. Show up.
Digital illustration of an analog photograph, how about that! Thank you @champagne_rodman for helping us have some fun with history. This is Wilburt Stevens Maltby. Maltby and I both graduated from the same high school, but were separated by about 120 years. Maltby also happened to be employed and sponsored by the Keating Wheel Co during the 1890s as a trick cyclist. Thank you Casey for pumping some new life into this old photograph of ours, and continuing on Maltby’s legacy! 🤘🚲
I received an incredible email this week from a woman named Ruth who shared with me some of her family history and a poem written in 1895 by her Great-Great-Grandfather, Isaac A. Pool (those are her great-something aunts in the first photo). The poem tells of the bicycles impact during the 1890s and its role as the great social revolutionizer. The poem strikes strongly with its similarities to today, reminding me of the continued efforts for inclusivity that organizations like @wtfbikexplorers and many others bring attention to today. The bicycle remains strong as ever the symbol and vehicle for equality and freedom. •
To read the full story, check out our latest blog post linked in our profile. •
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Take a break from your Sunday paper, here are some clippings I pulled from The Referee — a cycling trade journal from 1895 and 1896. Hope everyone’s taking care.
Leave it to @bicyclecrumbs to put a smile on our faces amidst the covid craziness. Thanks for the family portraits my friend. 122 years might separate these two, but grandad is still looking pretty sprightly!
In the Boston area? KWC has partnered with @thewestendmuseum and @buildersball to highlight the cycling legends of Boston circa 1890s. Included in the exhibit is Wilburt Stevens Maltby - world traveling trick cyclist and Keating Wheel Co’s most preeminent sales person, as well as our 1897 Model 42.
Boston was at the epicenter of the bike craze in America and the West End Museum has done a beautiful job preserving and sharing the people and stories that that made up this incredibly transformative time period.
The exhibit will be showing now until May 30. Catch us at @buildersball alongside @marscycles May 9 with some new bicycles 😉 and at @thewestendmuseum May 10 for a special talk! More to share on that soon. 🚲💨
