Before they built airplanes, the Wright brothers owned a bicycle shop.
The Wright brothers are best known for their historical flight over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903, but years before the siblings made aviation history, they were busy running a bicycle shop in western Ohio. Wilbur Wright and his younger brother Orville had long dreamed of gliding through the wild blue yonder, but it would take years of work to finance their costly first attempts. In the 1880s, the brothers undertook their first joint business, a small printing shop in Dayton that churned out local newspapers, church pamphlets, and bicycle parts catalogs. By 1892 the brothers had moved from printing for bicycle companies to starting their own, inspired by their shared passion for cycling; Wilbur reportedly loved leisurely rides through the countryside, while Orville was known for participating in bike races.
The Wright Cycle Company initially offered repairs and rentals, but as cycling became more popular, the brothers turned to manufacturing their own designs in an effort to compete with the dozens of nearby bike shops. Their first model, the “Wright Special,” was released in May 1896, followed by the “Van Cleve.” Together, Wilbur and Orville hand-built around 300 bikes per year during their peak production years before 1900, using the profits to fund their flight experiments. By 1908, they had abandoned their shop to focus solely on aeronautics. Today, only five antique Van Cleve bikes exist, two of which remain in the brothers’ hometown at the Wright Brothers National Museum in Dayton.
Before takeoff at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Wright brothers had to decide who would man their one-passenger plane for the first time, making the decision with a coin toss. But even when the duo expanded their planes to two-seaters, they were rarely skyborne together, sharing only one flight during their lives. Orville and Wilbur reportedly promised their father they would never fly together because of the risk of a plane crash; the brothers gave their word, which also ensured that one of them could continue their aeronautical work in case of a fatal accident. In September 1908, Orville did survive the world’s first deadly plane crash, during a demonstration for the U.S. Army (his passenger was U.S. Army Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge). The accident, however, didn’t deter Orville or his brother, and two years later the siblings shared their only joint flight, soaring for six minutes while their father watched from the ground. Afterward, Orville took the excited 82-year-old on the sole flight of his life.
