Te Aka Otakou means "The Otago Vine" and refers to the winding path of the cycle trail clinging to Otago Harbour, but you knew that, of course.
Today’s cyclists will see Te Aka Otakou as the culmination of their campaigns to ensure their survival by having their own bit of the asphalt, free of lumbering trucks and cycle-cursing motorists, and they would do well to honour the cycling pioneers of Dunedin.
Did Dunedin produce the first bicycle in New Zealand? In 1869 Samuel Thomson was a 19-year-old blacksmith at Morgan and McGregor’s Port Chalmers foundry and designed a velocipede to take part in Dunedin’s first cycle race held at the North Ground on July 8. (As usual, Auckland was slow off the mark and it was August 23 before a bike appeared in that city). Thomson’s machine came second in the race but his velocipede was given to the Early Settlers’ Museum in 1917 and can still be seen at Toitu.
It’s often labelled the "first New Zealand bicycle" but some old timers believed it was the third bicycle to be made in Dunedin, proving that firsts are hard to pin down.
Thomson spent 54 years in his Port Chalmers job and died at Careys Bay in 1921.
In Lawrence they honour blacksmith Patrick O’Leary, who built "the first New Zealand-made bicycle" in 1893. Patrick’s bicycle certainly looks more like a modern bike than Thomson’s quaint machine, so it may be a matter of defining "what is a bicycle"?
Medical man Daniel Colqhoun supported cycleways. "Visitors came from other parts of the colony during the summer for the sake of the beauty and healthfulness of the city and year by year there were a greater number of visitors from Australia, and even from the old country, and if the city could offer them good scenery and pleasant roads to ride, drive and walk on it would be a good stroke of business, and, to put it in the lowest possible light, I believe there is money in it."
The hint of money to be made may have done the trick and in 1896 a track was formed from Cumberland St towards Andersons Bay. It was about 9ft wide, three-quarters of a mile long and cost £200 (about $46,000 today). It was noted that before then "the road was practically impossible for cyclists in winter" and that the path "has been much appreciated and freely used by pedestrians without any friction being caused between them and the cyclists." After early problems with softening of the track it was covered with Silverstream gravel, rolled and tar sealed.
Costs for all work were met by fundraising but the city council helped out by allowing cyclists to ride on the Cumberland St footpath for about 50 chains before it met the track.
But other footpaths were sacred ground, as William Begg discovered later in 1896. He was charged with riding on a footpath in Main North Rd which Begg claimed was similar to the Cumberland St section used legally by cyclists and they’d been riding on it for years. Magistrate Edgar Carew was unmoved and fined Begg two shilling and sixpence while warning cyclists against using that footpath any more.
William Begg was the captain and president of the Dunedin Cycling Club but his law breaking didn’t prevent his election as mayor of the city 23 years later.
Alexander Crow was another worthy wheelman. He was the manager of Hallenstein’s clothing factory and in the early 1900s was described as "Consul for the New Zealand Cycling Touring Club". His legendary trips included a Dunedin-Naseby-Oamaru-Dunedin 230-mile trip setting off to Palmerston after work on Thursday; to Naseby on Friday; to Oamaru on Saturday through Danseys Pass, which even now would daunt many a cyclist.
Alexander reported, "it is one of the stiffest grades that cyclists can tackle, running up to a height of about 4000ft. Not at all a road for a cyclist to lose his head and allow his machine to jump off the road, as he would have about 2000ft to whirl through before he got into the river."
Sunday was a day of rest and he pedalled back home to Dunedin on Monday.
There were many other early Otago cycling enthusiasts and when they officially open Te Aka Otakou let’s give a thought to those magnificent men (and women) on their pedal-power machines.
■Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
