How bicycles, motorcycles took over the roads of Madras

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Lamps in cycles, while riding, became compulsory from 1940 onwards, and there was an amendment within a month as the police were also apprehending cyclists who were walking with their unlit vehicles. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives

Long before cycles came, we had the indigenous two-wheeler – the rekla , but that required an animal to pull it. When did cycles come to Madras? My guess is sometime in the 1880s. The Hindu , dated March 4, 1899, warns cyclists of stunts such as taking off their hands from the handlebars. It drew attention to three cyclists in Bombay being fined for this. One man said he had raised his hands to pray at a passing temple, the second said he was wiping perspiration from his face, and the third pleaded guilty. As it was their first offence, they were let off.

Pammal Sambanda Mudaliar writes that the Cycles Club occupied the ground floor of Suguna Vilasa Sabha till 1910. So we know that there were sufficient numbers of cyclists, at least of the English variety, in the city.

How old do you think is the demand for a separate lane for cyclists in our city? 92. The Hindu dated September 22, 1934, highlights this, and from then on, we have done precious little about it.

A bicycle retail shop in Parry’s Corner in 2002. Shops such as these began coming up in Broadway early in the 1900s. | Photo Credit: S.R. Raghunathan

Lamps in cycles, while riding, became compulsory from 1940 onwards, and there was an amendment within a month as the police were also apprehending cyclists who were walking with their unlit vehicles. Rear lamps too were compulsory, and it was only in 1941 that these were replaced by the reflector. As late as 1988, we read of the government (then under the President’s Rule), giving us a month to fit lamps on to cycles.

The risks to cyclists were highlighted by none other than the great naturalist M. Krishnan, in an article dated December 1, 1957. By 2023, The Hindu was lamenting over how cyclists were being pushed off the roads. The risks were only growing, though bureaucratic obstacles, such as licences, had long vanished.

In Tamil films of the 1950s and 1960s, the cycle was always the stuff of youth, and romance. Can we ever forget Gemini and Saroja Devi in Kalyana Parisu ?

M.A. Chidambaram launched the Italian brand Lambretta in India in the 1950s. The plant, in collaboration with the Italians, was set up by Chidambaram’s Automobile Products of India, just outside Bombay. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives

To purchase a cycle you had to go to Broadway, early in the 1900s. Rustomji Dorabji Wellington was a pioneer in cycle retailing, and he later founded the Wellington Theatre.

Another was R. Patel, who ran Royal Cycles, which later became the first business of K.R. Sundaram Iyer and Easwara Iyer of the Easun Group. It was that group that first took up manufacture of motorcycles at their Enfield factory in Thiruvottriyur.