# help ID Einstien's 1933 USA bike



## kentercanyon (Mar 31, 2015)

You've all seen the photo.  Albert Einstein enjoying his middleweight, American-looking.bicycle in a sunny courtyard in Santa Barbara, California in 1933.  In the BG of the full shot is a girl's model of what seems to be a his-and-hers combo.  Hard to see his bike but the girl's bike is profile and has a distinctive chain guard.  What's he riding?  (and is it still in Santa Barbara, one wonders, sitting out at a garage sale....) His bike seems to have the same chain guard seen in the shadow on the ground.  

here's a url of the full shot, although there are probably better scans out there, this is one place to start.  
http://blog.payrollhero.com/files/2013/05/albert_einstein_10.jpg 

A better scan looks like you should be able to see the shape of the head badge.  

Also, what's the backstory of the photo for those physics buffs out there who may know more.  (Such as, what the heck was he doing in Santa Barbara?)


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## abe lugo (Mar 31, 2015)

*may have been a ladies step through frame*

take a look at the shadow on his left leg.
also note the tires are 28"
the bars style are more common on ladies bikes. 
the chain guard is an accessory one seen on most ladies bikes of the are, same one on the bike in the background.
would make sense if he was older and didnt want to swing his leg around the top tube.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_80uqRhDtP...s1600-h/0819-einstein-riding-bicycle_sm01.jpg

here is says this was taken in 1931 while visiting Cal Tech
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/20/40954/


maybe something like this
http://www.nostalgic.net/bicycle422


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## kentercanyon (Apr 1, 2015)

*Agree it s a ladies bike... and amend that he visited Cali three times....*

good eye.  I am in agreement with most of this so far.  Somethings to add, none of which solve the mystery yet.  More clues.  



abe lugo said:


> take a look at the shadow on his left leg.
> also note the tires are 28"
> the bars style are more common on ladies bikes.
> the chain guard is an accessory one seen on most ladies bikes of the are, same one on the bike in the background.
> ...


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## Iverider (Apr 1, 2015)

Bars on ladies bikes?? WHy? Diamond frame in the background has the same bars as do a million other teens bikes. My guess is these are Euro bikes which don't really pay attention to the Genders we assign bikes. Men ride drop bar bikes over there just as much as they do our so-called mens frames. I'll guess you'll have a very hard time ID'ing this bike without closer photos. There are so many makes of Euro bikes that we don't know about on theCabe that it's almost funny! In any case...GOOD LUCK!


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## abe lugo (Apr 1, 2015)

Krautwaggen said:


> Bars on ladies bikes?? WHy? Diamond frame in the background has the same bars as do a million other teens bikes. My guess is these are Euro bikes which don't really pay attention to the Genders we assign bikes. Men ride drop bar bikes over there just as much as they do our so-called mens frames. I'll guess you'll have a very hard time ID'ing this bike without closer photos. There are so many makes of Euro bikes that we don't know about on theCabe that it's almost funny! In any case...GOOD LUCK!




First off thanks for the info, Im not sayin those type of bars are just on ladies, just sayin that style drop is often on them. Most images I have seen mens bikes have tillers/napoleon,california or motobike/ with or without the crossbar bars 90% of the time. 

Other thing is why would there be some Euro bikes in California in the '30s? At a college? 

LOOK at the shadow of his leg on the ground, right between the front and rear wheels, the is not upper bars.

Both bikes have the same chain guard, see shadow. I have yet to see a mens bike with this chain guard in vintage photo, I know it doesnt fit a large Mens sprocket, because a member here tried one on a Mens bike.
Good Luck?, Thanks! I actually like these type of inquires and helping people- if you have something of use to ADD then, please do.

The building it definately Cal-Tech near the "The Anthenaeum" building, I took a tour of this recently, I think it may have been a rear or side entrance as the front are mostly grand entrances. Or a closeby building.


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## hoofhearted (Apr 1, 2015)

*First as found ... and second ... horsepower added ................*


........  patric





 



======================
======================


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## abe lugo (Apr 1, 2015)

actual image.



I took a virtual tour of the Caltech campus and cannot find the arch way. Sounds like it is Ben Meyers house in Santa Barbara. Probably some giant Estate.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 1, 2015)

Here is a catalog shot of a 1933 Schwinn B3 

http://schwinncruisers.com/catalogs/1933.html#b3

Meyers was a wool merchant who became a banker by being the guy the other sheep ranchers trusted their money with.  From there he clearly made a lot of money and became a pillar of the community and a trustee of Caltech, where he got to host Albert in Pasedena and Santa Barbara.  It's said they like to go on long bike rides together in Santa Barbara.  There's a nice shot of Albert alone on a beach there that you can see here:  (no bike tho) 

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1607298,00.html

1933 was a sad year for germany and after this trip to California, Albert was scheduled to return to Berlin (his home) but the Nazis rise led him to stay over for longer than originally planned and when he did return it was only as far as Belgium.  Later in the same year he arrived in NYC as an immigrant to the US like so many other Jewish people who fled the fascists.  He never returned to Germany.  One might guess this little bike ride was one of the last stress-free moments he enjoyed for a long, long time.  Although a pacifist, he wrote to FDR about the possibility of a nuclear bomb and how the principal was known in German academic circles.  I can't imagine the burden he must have felt over this issue.  It changed the world... 

Once he was asked how he came to discover his theory of relativity, and he said I thought of it while riding my bike."  The more I read about this man, the more I admire him.


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## abe lugo (Apr 1, 2015)

Do you happen to know the address of the Meyer Estate in Santa Barbara?
Also I do believe the bike is of the 28" variety as the proportion of the tire is thinner and taller. You can still get the 28" tire frame in '31 and believe you could also in '33.


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## thatonejohn (Apr 1, 2015)

I'm also going to agree with saying the bike he's riding is identical (or nearly identical) to the one in the background, could've been bought and delivered at the same time if it was an estate.  I don't see any truss rods in the picture, does that narrow anything down or am I just not seeing them?  And not that it adds much info, but looking at the shadow of the rear wheel, the shadow of the spokes is darker on the upper half, which would cause me to think there's a skirt guard on it.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

abe lugo said:


> Do you happen to know the address of the Meyer Estate in Santa Barbara?
> Also I do believe the bike is of the 28" variety as the proportion of the tire is thinner and taller. You can still get the 28" tire frame in '31 and believe you could also in '33.




I don't yet know the whole tale about the Ben Meyer issue...   the archivist at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum seems to say that he thinks Albert only visited SB once and that was in 1931 when he stayed at a different home.  He tells me Albert stayed "for a short visit with the Ludwig Kast family in a cottage at the Valley Club of Montecito, although he also visited a number of local estates."  he also claims there is no Ben Meyer listed in the 1931 or33 area directories.  

So the mystery deepens a little, but frankly I think the man is mistaken.  Meyer may have just not had a listing in the phone book as this may have been a place owned by the university or a seasonal rental, who knows?  He seemed to live in Pasadena (he was born and died in San Fran) and only visit Santa Barbara which isn't uncommon.  The photo is clearly labeled in the archive it resides in as being at the Ben Meyer home and during a visit to SB in Feb 33, but you know how these things go - someone elderly may have recalled the occasion wrong decades later when bequeathing the image to a collection.  I still think the building looks like the one at Caltech, "the Aethaaeum."  The wall lantern seems really close to what you see on the front of the building today, and we know he stayed there....  

As for the wheel size, I can't say I am any good at judging that.  When I have a 24" tire or tube in my hand I have to read the writing to tell if it's not a 26.  I just can't seem to pick wheel sizes by eye even when they are right in front of me.  

I think I see truss rods but they are facing to camera and not prominent.  There is a gleam that would be on the upper part of one that might be a reflection to camera glistening off them...  

Good call on the skirt guard issue.  Of course what we need is a better scan of the real photo....  then we could see a lot more.


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## mike j (Apr 2, 2015)

I think I see a Rollfast head badge in Patric's enhanced image.


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## hoofhearted (Apr 2, 2015)

===========================
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## abe lugo (Apr 2, 2015)

I thought Rollfast badge at first, but now I happen to think it was an Electric badge or a badge with red at either side. the bike is turning so that darker shape is actually the left side of the badge.

I found the whole photo here 
http://www.lbi.org/2012/09/albert-einstein/#4

If you look up Cal tech on google street view, you actually walk around most the campus. Most all the arches there with that shape are deep also none of the building have the shutters on the sides of the windows like this.
The "Aethaaeum"  has a grand entrance on the parking side and doesnt have  a smaller building attached to it. The back side where all the weddings are held at have bunch of arches together. 
The funny thing is I took a tour about the architecture about year there, for work. They did show use the building Einstein and other scientist called home while they were there.

Lastly, I dont think there are any truss rods on either of those bikes, not ALL bike had them.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

I'm also now - after review - saying no truss rods on either bike.  What I thought was a gleam off one is actually daylight through the rider's legs.  

Small note on Meyer and his estate.  In 1930 census he is listed as living on Doheney in Beverly hills, just he, his wife and their humble compliment of FOURTEEN live-in servants, from Japan, Finland, (the massusse, naturally) Scotland, England, the Irish Free State, Germany etc.   Three grooms, three gardeners, two maids, two cooks, a horseman, etc.  Sounds rough.  The home and grounds are now occupied by a large high rise apartment building.  Haven't yet found a picture of the home but I might soon.  On the trail...  

If he had children, they were grown by then - he's Albert's same age, mid 50's - so the bikes are not for his daughters I don't think.  But the estate was large enough that the servants may have used them to get around, who knows.  That part of LA is very hilly however.  I doubt they went far, and there are no baskets or racks on the bike either.  

Since we know Albert stayed on the Caltech campus at the club, it's doubtful he was ever at the estate on Doheney but to be inclusive that has to be considered as one of the many possibilities.  There is a book I've ordered called A Lone Traveller: Einstein in California that may have some more clues in it.  

That sure looks like a schwinn chain guard to me.  Since the consensus so far seems to be ladders model, wire skirt guard, enclosed chainguard and no truss rods we are left to find a similar set of handlebars and guessing about the head badge.... 

It's nice to know the world's smartest man preferred a coaster brake.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

Not the original fork, but here's a prewar schwinn ladies pic that shows the paint scheme and the chain guard well.  This would be a 26" but Albert's bike may be a 28".


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## abe lugo (Apr 2, 2015)

the bike on this page http://www.nostalgic.net/bicycle422/picture1850 its 28" wheels, the frame is very similar but the 33 and newer would not fit 28" wheels
As far as the rear fender, they basically have holes and you thread string through to create the skirt guard.

I have an extra 26" version if you want to PM me about it.
I really want to get my wife a 28" most my bikes are now pre 33.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

*crude overlay of a prewar schwinn*







Seems like a basic match here...  a crude overlay using photoshop.  If you open both images and A/B them on your screen you can compare.  Not sure what this proves, if anything but I wanted to see for myself if the forms were really similar.  Whatever size wheel it is, it doesn't seem to be a ballooner.  

I'd wondered about the skirt guard technique, I've seen fenders with the holes and didn't know that was the deal.  If you get a bike like this for the wife, maybe she will be inspired like Albert was!


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## Jeff54 (Apr 2, 2015)

The curvature on  handlebars and Schwinn's girl stub nosed goose neck pattern also looks like a 1928-32 Schwinn world. The bike in background has a laced rear fender plus the fender brackets in same position  as well.  . and there's this too
from : https://oldbike.wordpress.com/1917-schwinn-the-world-motor-bike-model-1760/






 





Obviously Einstein is happy, smiling cause he's riding the best bike built in the "World"


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## Jeff54 (Apr 2, 2015)

Jeff54 said:


> The curvature on  handlebars and Schwinn's girl stub nosed goose neck pattern also looks like a 1928-32 Schwinn world. The bike in background has a laced rear fender plus the fender brackets in same position  as well.  . and there's this too
> Obviously Einstein is happy, smiling cause he's riding the best bike built in the "World"




It also looks like the bike in background is fitted with a boy's Schwinn issued  seat, as shown in the catalog bikes. .


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

here's what I think is a 1917 catalog pic of a ladies Schwinn World bike.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 2, 2015)

Also note how snubby the front fenders are on these Schwinns...  If it had been a ballooner we cold have nailed the year since 1933 was the first year, and Albert was in california then...  

Does anyone know if Ignatz Schwinn was Jewish?  He was German, that much I know but was he also Jewish?  Perhaps Albert's host was expressing native pride or ethnic solidarity in his choice of bicycle company.


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## abe lugo (Apr 3, 2015)

Hey, Just so you  know, Im really just into this topic to find out the location of the pic. Its interesting to me. It would be cool to take pics on a bike there, however the house may be on a Private estate now.
I'm be happy to take a look at Caltech, in fact I have an person at work with a contact to the historian, but I doubt the pic was taken there.

Besides the bikes, which are cool nonetheless.

Also It seems Einstein was Jewish, but that gets into off topic conversation in this board.

I did further diggin...
Found a 1933-1936 Phone books for Santa Barbara.
http://sbgen.org/upload/files/allowIndex/CityDirectoriesetc/Santa_Barbara_County_Tel_Dir_1933.pdf
It turns out Ben Meyer or the Meyer family has a Farm/Ranch 
The listing says Ben R. Meyer "Rayben Farm"  Via Roblada Phone 25846.

In both cases found the same info, no street number. 
Via Roblada is here

 4650 Via Roblada
Santa Barbara, CA 93110
34.419461, -119.780898

So now you have about few miles of street to search. At least 33 properties.

The next step would be to see if there is a listing for the Farm someplace.

OR

go through a Realtor site like refin or zillo, fine houses that have sold on the street recently, check them out one by one.


As far as bikes.
late 20's-early 30's ladies bikes. Schwinn or at least Schwinn frames 28" wheels. The skirts are string not wire, Elgin's has the wire skirt, coaster brake.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

that's great Abe! I just found the same info about Via Roblada from an archivist at CalTech wh cited the 1940 census.  I have an ancestry.com membership but i'm getting an error message when I go to look at the census data from 1940, which probably won't tell us a street address - there may not have been one - but it would tell us who the neighbors were and that is a help, since they went "door to door" when collecting data.  His place there had a caretaker and his family, and it's possible the bikes belonged to them, who knows?    I am already searching the caretaker family tree a little bit.  It takes time...  

I'll send the full info from the archivist next.  Some further clues in there.  

On a related note, it seems Albert had two sailboats, one in Germany that was nice, and a small one in Princeton and people have made searches for them over time and not been able to locate them, despite physically going to the places and asking the old timers, etc.  Albert made some brief inquiries himself after 1945 in an effort to see if he could get any of his property back.   The Prussians first, and then the Gestapo itself seized his boat, and auctioned it in the early 1930s after he fled the fascists.  

The relevant part about his Jewish heritage is that he often had Jewish friends,  and moved in their social circles when he traveled.  And Los Angeles society was such that many clubs and resort districts, etc were segregated.  Humphrey Bogart and John Ford and a few others used to have an informal drinking and poker club that met on John Ford's yacht, and they made the joke that their club was alright because it had "Jews but no dues."  I'm guessing the Hope Ranch part of Santa Barbara will turn out to have other Jewish estates and be something of an enclave.  

The archivist told me that the home of Ben R Meyer is still standing, and that a relative of his owned it after 1957 when Meyer died but eventually sold it, and the current residents (not named) have restored it beautifully.  I wonder if the bikes were in the garage!

As Sherlock said to Watson, "the game is afoot!"


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## catfish (Apr 3, 2015)

It should say bicycles. Not guitars. But either one works for me.


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## Jeff54 (Apr 3, 2015)

> =abe lugo;442344]Hey, Just so you  know, Im really just into this topic to find out the location of the pic. Its interesting to me. It would be cool to take pics on a bike there, however the house may be on a Private estate now.
> I'm be happy to take a look at Caltech, in fact I have an person at work with a contact to the historian, but I doubt the pic was taken there.




If it's any consolation, I recognize the architecture as an early Californian mission style.. Older collages were built in that style as well many privet residences.  with exception of collages remaining and a lot of the mansions built have been demolished or redesigned beyond recognition in the past 40 years.. Housing booms kill older architectural designs on estate properties. 

It has typical detail, clay roof white stucco-ed  brick walls and the opening that was common in estates and state built buildings 100 years ago. 

For the imbalanced ceramic pottery on the porch/steps I'd be inclined to expect it's a residence verses state building. To the right would be a carriage house/garage, and covered with cedar shingles, no doubt that's long gone and or replaced with larger. 

Yet the unit is also relatively plain looking, so, it may also be a residence sub section of Caltech where a little privately placed ornamentation could be allowed. . If that is still standing it may have been converted to office, or study rooms today, without a carriage house attached. .

Of the dumbest roofing repairs/replacements I've seen on old buildings in the past 50 years is to remove ceramic or slate and install 20-30 year modern shingles or tar.. yet, there's 100's of 1,000's of buildings in Europe with those old roofs after 2,000 years, simple corrective repairs last eons longer. The roof tops of Caltech SB appear to have been changed.


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## catfish (Apr 3, 2015)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

"Rayben farm" sounds like it may have been two people who went in on a vacation place together - a "Ray" and our Ben.  Maybe a relative? I checked that '33 directory you linked to and the only other person who lived at that time on Roblata - listed elsewhere as Via Roblata and here as Roblata road - culture wars in full force - is a man named Carpenter.  He's the caretaker....  so the place was big enough to warrant it's own road.  Probably subdivided by now but the original house may be obvious from the layout.  Next mission, check the aerial photos.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

4653 Via Roblada, Goleta, CA 93110

This place with the orchards, or else, more likely, the beach house just up the coast from here is my bet for the original "farm" on the road.  They have small square Spanish style abodes and what seems like an oval hours track// polo field  as you pass by what seems to be a gatehouse/ caretaker place.  The twin houses on the beach there, the little ones with a larger and newer mansion behind it looks like it would have been the housing for the owner and a guest, or co-owners, etc.  

What's funny is that i've surfed not too far from that exact break many times.  Goleta is a sleepy college town known for serious throw down Halloween ragers.  The cops eventually had to post guards to keep out people from other towns crashing the city-wide party.  Note the road called "Olas" - that's spanish for surf break spot....


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

Okay I forget how rich this Meyer guy is.  Roblata Road is named for him, it's his middle name.  By 1940 he's moved off Doheney however and onto N. Elm, still in Beverly Hills and still in a HUGE mansion but no longer a palatial estate with stables etc.  I'm guessing he made a killing selling off the land on Doheney however.  I'm wondering what sort of equestrian activities he was into, since he employed three grooms and a horse trainer when he lived on Doheney in 1930. Either racehorses or else polo ponies, I'd guess.  The beach house I think was his is the one with a huge oval field on the way in.  That's either a track for thoroughbreds or else its a polo field or possibly both.  He probably moved the horses out to Goleta as Beverly hills and Hollywood grew from the sleepy 1910s town into the center of the movie world.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

http://halfpuddinghalfsauce.blogspot.com/2015/03/la-collina-estate-of-benjamin-r-meyer.html

here is an article on Meyer's Dohney estate, La Collina.  When I say the guy was rich, I mean he was RICH.  His gardener?  Frank Lloyd Wright's son.  The house?  It has a casino and a movie theater in it.  Looks like yeah, it was broken up and sold around 1941, but a lot of it still stand, including the off chance that Albert's bicycle dragstrip was on. (Although I do think the photo is in Goleta / Hope Ranch area but remain skeptical until we have better proof.)  The driveway is now a street, La Collina avenue.  Thirsty?  It had it's own reservoir!  (We got a pool and a pond.  Pond'll be good for you.) The gatehouse looks like Jed Clampet's Beverly Hills mansion.  What's interesting to me from this article is that he favored orchards of olive trees, and I think that may be what we see on the beach there in Goleta, too.  It's some kind of orchard anyway...  Ben Meyer married into money and made money as a banker, taking over what became Union Bank from his dying father in law.  It says his horse-hobby was racing heavy harness ponies.  Think Cinderella's carriage on a dirt track. Oh, and they started a little hospital too.  It's now called Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 3, 2015)

If anyone wants to ask the neighbors in Hope Ranch about Albert's bike, there is Fess Parker, watergate crook H.R. Haldeman's kids, or the esteemed Snoop Dogg. Maybe they picked up the bike at a local garage sale and use it to fetch the gin and juice from the corner store.  Average home price in Snoop's hood?  2.6 million.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 4, 2015)

*a detail to compare*






Here is a shot of Caltech's Athenaeum with Albert lighting his pipe that shows the shape of the wall-sconces.  It's different from the sconce in the bike photo, which seems more Spanish - that one has a crucifix atop it, I think.  Meyer's roots go back to Santa Barbara and the sheep ranchers there, supposedly.  The house or cabin we see in the bike photo may be part of an old ranch Meyer bought as a vacation refuge, or it may be older than that, as in a place that belonged to his wife's family, or his own...   I hope we can figure this out.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 5, 2015)

*Albert the avid cyclist*

I'm reading Walter Isaacson's biography of Einstein and it's utterly lacking in detail about Einstein's biking!  Such a failure of a bio, lol.  (Fun book, well written and easy to understand on the science aspect) Of course this detail from such a grand life seems trivial to most, but consider instead what his life (and ours) might have been without the moment he imagined himself riding a bike alongside a beam of light...  

What I did find at the end is an excellent bibliography that suggests some of the family-written reminiscences as possible sources for stories about such basics as where and when he learned to ride a bike and what his first bike may have been like.  On page 55 Isaacson quotes from a love letter written in 1900, when Albert was newly graduated from Zurich Polytech and around 21 years old.  He's declaring a vision of their bright future together when he is able to get a tutoring job - he failed to get an assistant professorship from his alma mater and his wife-to-be failed to graduate in her 4th year, and was returning for a 5th.  In the letter he writes, "Pleasant work and being together - and what's more, we now answer to no one, and can stand on our own two feet and enjoy our youth to the utmost.  Who could have it any better?  When we have scraped together enough money, we can buy bicycles and take a bike tour every few weeks." 

While far from definitive, it tells us he likely knew how to ride a bike and the joys thereof during his college years in Zurich, and possibly before.  At 16 he tried to get into college early after quitting a Munich "gymnasium school" (high school with rigid classes) but failed.  Instead, while fortune and business brought his uncle, father and mother to Italy near Milan, he boarded with a family and attended a more free-form high school in the smaller Swiss town of Aaura.  The precise chronology is something like this - he was 15 when his family moved away and left him to finis gymnasium, but he faired poorly there and was either expelled or quit the next year, where he went to italy until he could sort out a better option, which came the next fall when he failed to get into Polytech and instead went to Aaura for one year. 

This is the age and opportunity zone where he may have first had access to a bike he could use, and so perhaps his opportunity came in Italy where he visited on vacations, or he'd already learned in Munich at the "gymnasium.".  

I'm also wondering if he had a bicycle in Princeton during the war years and beyond.  I do know he never learned to drive a car.  

I haven't gotten to the part in the book where he finally settles for a job in the swiss patent office, but that was his first salaried position and likely his first economic opportunity to buy his very own bike with his own funds.  As a college student he was quite poor and some of his money had to go towards paying to change his citizenship from German, which he renounced at 17 in part to avoid compulsory military service, and finally establishing a Swiss passport which took him four stateless years.  

All of this suggests his first bicycle experiences were on Swiss or German or Italian machines c. 1884-1905.  What might those bicycles been like?


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## kentercanyon (Apr 6, 2015)

*Albert's sister w bicycle c. 1900*

Here's a photo from c. 1900.  Probably a year or two into the new century?  The happy woman with the bicycle is Einstein's sister, who married the brother of Albert's first love.  His best friend married into the same family.  

can't seem to get it to attach .  here is the url from the german wiki site of Jost Wunteler, the patriarch of the family who Albert lived with while attending a year of "high school" as he studied in Aarau Switzerland in prep for the Zurich Polytech

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jost_W...er_mit_Familie_und_Maja_Einstein,_um_1900.jpg

I ready yesterday in a general bike history photo book that Albert liked to go on bicycle tours "when he was in college in Munich."  (He never went to college in Munich, and was only 16 years old when he left.  He went to a "gymnasium" school there, a rigid German high school and hated it.  So perhaps the author means college in Zurich or high school in Munich, not sure.  It also claims he rode a bicycle in Princeton, which seems natural but I've yet to find a photo.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 7, 2015)

I've found an ally at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum who says he can confirm the location of the photo with a later picture from Hope Farm Ranch, the ranch house of Ben Meyer.  Haven't seen the photo yet, however.  

Still working on confirming the date, which has been reported variously in early February of '33 but in general it seems it was a momentous time for the world and for Albert.  Early February, 1933 - the United States was on the verge of a currency or banking collapse, as the Federal Reserve reported that supplies of gold were lower than legally mandated, but Hoover, a lame duck president refused to act.  Meanwhile in Germany Hitler had just been appointed Chancellor of a coalition government he obviously had little intention of allowing to remain as such.  Einstein, like most Jewish germans was suddenly aware that his future was in serious doubt.  Scheduled to return to Berlin, he was probably already re-arranging his travel plans, or aware that he needed to.  FDR was mere days away from taking power but knew by the time he took the oath the county may be in ruins.  (The day after his inauguration he declared a "bank holiday" that stopped the panic.  

And yet amidst all this a prominent California banker and the world's leading physicist took the time to commandeer a couple of ladies Schwinns for a ride to the beach, and one of them snapped a candid photo.  One had just lost his home and the other possibly his livelihood, which stood on the brink of financial ruin.  Remember this next time you need cheering up.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 10, 2015)

Here's another photo that seems to be the ranch of Ben Meyer in Hope Ranch Goleta/ Santa Barbara area on the same trip in February 1933.  The board & batten style woodwork is visible in the back and the plants seem the same.  Einstein and his wife are with Meyer and wife and a rabbi and another lady, and Albert seems to be wearing the same buttoned sweater he wears in the bike photo.


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## abe lugo (Apr 10, 2015)

kentercanyon said:


> View attachment 207899
> 
> Here's another photo that seems to be the ranch of Ben Meyer in Hope Ranch Goleta/ Santa Barbara area on the same trip in February 1933.  The board & batten style woodwork is visible in the back and the plants seem the same.  Einstein and his wife are with Meyer and wife and a rabbi and another lady, and Albert seems to be wearing the same buttoned sweater he wears in the bike photo.




the attachment doesnt work.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 10, 2015)

fixed?


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## abe lugo (Apr 10, 2015)

yup, cool find


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## kentercanyon (Apr 11, 2015)

*confirmed location as Meyer ranch*

wait til you see this one - watermarked and not the whole image.  I'm ordering a scan of this from the museum.  Probably sometime in the 1940s, same place same angle.  No Albert and no bikes but I'd say this confirms the location as Meyer's Hope Ranch home.


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## kentercanyon (Apr 17, 2015)

*Einstein's Caltech commute route*

On his first of three stays in Pasadena, Einstein lived at 707 S Oakland Avenue in a four bedroom home that seems to be still standing.  As you can see it was about a mile from campus and reported in the local paper that he would walk to and from the university. Yet later we know anecdotally that he was remembered by locals as having been spotted many times "riding a bike around the campus" and I'm guessing that at some point he acquired a bicycle for this commute somehow.  But thus far, my research hasn't found specific proof of when this took place first.  



On his last visit, in 1933, I've read that he was almost hit by an automobile and it was then that he moved to living quarters in the Atheneaum on campus, but again I have not confirmed the source of this story, yet.  I'm reading a small book called A lone Traveller: Einstein in California whose main sources seem to be small social items placed in the local paper.  Perhaps I can find more, such as if his automobile encounter was whole he was walking or on a bicycle.


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