The Trial’s End Bike Hotel in Grabouw was established in the year of the 200th anniversary of the invention of the bicycle, and it is therefore appropriate that this picturesque country hotel should host a bicycle museum. A small team comprising the owner of the hotel, Pieter Silberbauer, his daughter Bianca, ex-Springbok cyclist Shaun Forster and museum designer, Mike Bruton, have put the museum together in record time, and it is scheduled to open to the public in early October 2022.
A highlight of the development phase of the museum was the visit by the Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities in the Western Cape on Thursday, 21 July 2022 together with an entourage from her department and from WESGRO. When they entered the first gallery, their reaction was “Wow!” as they were confronted by a unique display of a bicycle drawn by one of Leonardo da Vinci’s apprentices in 1534 and a full-size replica of the first bicycle made in 1816.
There were further exclamations as the visitors viewed the penny-farthings with their absurdly large front wheels and heard from museum curator, Mike Bruton, that there are only three difficulties riding a penny-farthing – getting on, riding, and getting off. They were also stunned by the displays of innovative early safety bikes from the 1890s onwards, which included sleek road racers with wooden handlebars, shaft-driven bikes, high-framed Dursley-Pedersens, and elegant ‘Victor’ and ‘Victoria’ bikes from the USA. The tour of Gallery I ended with a spectacular display on ‘Bikes at War’, Black activist Sol Plaatje’s epic bike ride around South Africa in 1914/15, and the role of the bicycle in the emancipation of women.
Gallery II explores the multiple ways in which the basic design of the bicycle has been modified for recreational, competitive, touring and commuting purposes. This gallery also includes spectacular, one-of-a-kind displays on South Africa-made bikes and the bikes ridden by some of our most famous cyclists around Africa (Riaan Manser) or to win Olympic medals or world championships (Burry Stander, Greg Minnaar, Riaan Nel, Conrad Scholtz and Wimpie van der Merwe).
Mireille Wenger, Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities left with a very favourable impression of a highly innovative museum that is likely to become an important hub for cycling and other healthy outdoor pursuits in the Elgin Valley.
