Antique 10 Seater Bicycle - Vintage Bike Print - The Orient Oriten - AKA The Decemtuple - 1899

Treasures from THE VINTAGE & ANTIQUE BICYCLE COLLECTION at Lost Highways Archive & Research Library. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 8 x 24. Note that while most of our prints are consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame or custom framed as you see fit, the slimmer prints have been formatted to even inch size but will not fit a standard store bought frame. That said, there is great competition among the various pre made frame makers on eBay, and any size frame can be sourced there.

Years ago, we lived for a few years deep in a wooded corner of Fairmount Park in a 250 year old cottage I restored. On a high plateau and close to one of the Federal Period Fairmount Park mansions, were were able to ride various vintage bikes from our collection down frighteningly steep hills, pumping and pulling and stomping utterly inadequate brakes, to finally enter the serene river drive bike path circuit along the Schuylkill River. Just after moving in with my wife and two rapscallion young sons, I bought an early 60s three seater set up like a standard 50s or 60s Brit 3 speed cruiser. It was wonky, not the sturdy Rock 0' Gibraltar you want and need in any sort of multi seat bike. My kids were ecstatic, but after they pedaled around on relatively flat areas getting the hang of it, and ol' Daddy-o got some photos with them and all their cousins, I put it up for sale.  

I'd seen in my mind's eye the vision of them thinking they could handle rolling down the spectacularly beautiful Belmont Plateau and not being able to stop at the bottom, and I told that to the fellow I sold it to. He was perfectly fine with all that, convinced he could bolster the frame and super beef the brakes. We did manage to get a photo of Travis Skidmore and two of his buddies in full modern riding gear pedaling away on it, which I will have to post here as a reference image.

Anyway...

Imagine 10 people of any size getting up to any speed at all, and then trying to stop. Zoinks! Remember kids, it's all fun until somebody gets hurt!

This image comes from an utterly shredded Orient Bicycles catalog that I've owned for probably 25 years. The fact that it is so beat up doesn't make me love it one iota less. In fact, I probably have a bigger place in my heart for it because it is so blatantly raggedy assed. The images inside are magic, and include a number of multi passenger bikes available for purchase by any club or organization crazy enough to bring such a cool thing into their world.

I hear the original Oriten or Decemtuple is in the Henry Ford Museum.. will get back to you on that!

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.