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Queensland: "We Never Used to Cycle Here"


Bicycles outside Palace Cinema in Cairns, 1937.

We all know that it's too hot to ride a bicycle in your regular clothes in Queensland. You need all manner of special clothing and a lightweight bicycle to be able to tackle the heat and topography. And an electric assist motor if you can get your hands on one. Everybody knows that. That's why nobody ever rode bicycles in the state until 1975.

Or maybe we just have short term memory loss. It's actually called "generational forgetting" - how we have little regarded for what came before us.

Here are vintage photos from the State of Queensland, Australia that show the bicycle was a normal transport form all over the state for decades.


Bicycles parked outside the City Baths in Maryborough. 1940s.


Bicycles parked in Mackay, 1948.


Bicycles parked outside the Lands and Works Office, 1904.


Bicycles parked outside the Hotel Boyd in Mount Isa, Queensland, 1952.



Unidentified father and son posing with a bicycle for a travelling photographer


A modern Australian shearer



A modern Australian shearer, ca. 1900


Boys on bikes at Barramornie Station, August 1924



Shearer on the move with his bicycle, ca. 1906

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