Dear Reader, are you sitting down?
While I was travelling for this leg of the journey, there was a follow-up story through the Saltwire Network that appeared in the local Nova Scotia newspaper updating their readers on my adventures. That article made it into the hands of Gordon Troop. Gordon emailed to tell me he came across the article and wanted to let me know that he is an “antique bicycle nut” and –– are you holding onto your seat dear reader? –– “happens” to have the bicycle that Karl rode around the world!
Can you believe it? Nor could I, so let’s pause for a minute before continuing our chronicle.
As it happens, I knew of Gordon. While completing my research, I heard about an antique bicycle collector who frequented the “Bike and Bean” –– a local café and bike shop in Tantallon, Nova Scotia, that happens to occupy the space of a former train station built around 1901. Unable to find Gordon online, I sent several emails to the bike shop asking if my contact information could be provided to Gordon, but to no avail. As my inquiries coincided with the pandemic, I figured Gordon*, like everyone, was locked down at home staying safe.
Needless to say, dear reader, I responded to Gordon’s email immediately, setting up a time to first call him to then schedule a visit at his home to see the infamous Red Bird.
The day of our meeting happened to be a dreary, rainy, maritime weather day. Gordon met me on the driveway and was quick to give me a hug of welcome, then straight to the matter at hand I was to follow him to the shed. There’s a lot going on in that shed, a number of bikes are packed into a tight space and each one with a story and history that is near and dear to Gordon’s heart.
At 80 years old, Gordon would say that he’s not so much of a “collector” of antique bicycles, motorcycles, engines, clocks, radios etc. but more an “accumulator”. The credit is aptly shared with his wife, Gloria, whose good nature lets him indulge in his hobbies. In the same way that people ask me how I became interested in Karl, I was similarly interested in how Gordon came to collect and repair bicycles.
Gordon grew up on the family farm in rural Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. He was clear to me that farming wasn’t a choice of work back then, it was just something you did. And if you wanted to make a living as a farmer, you better learn how to fix things yourself, so that’s just what he did.
He recalls that his first bicycle was a double-crossed barred CCM Rambler. Gordon shared that the bike was a gift from his father and previously belonged to him, “you didn’t get new things back then”, Gordon reminded me. Years later, he found that same bicycle, a 1926 Rambler, at a flea market and promptly bought it and restored it. The Rambler was in the shed, and was the first bike that led to his accumulation.
It was also the Rambler on which he cycled around Cape Breton’s Cabot trail –– the first time! The second trip was on a 1903 Gendron bicycle, the third an 1895 Penny Farthing and then his fourth trip was on a homemade “boneshaker” bicycle supplemented with some rubber on the wheels to minimize the shaking of his bones.
I can’t even conceive of getting on a Penny Farthing, let alone riding it around the Cabot Trail. I asked Gordon if he ever fell off that bike? “Twice”, he replied — but he wasn’t badly hurt, drawing on his earlier military training and performing a “dive and roll” resulting in a mere bruise to the ego.
Okay, Dear Reader, I hear you, you’ve been patient enough - what was this about the Red Bird?
The story goes that Herbert Creelman (Karl’s younger and only brother) born June 30, 1887, lived in the family home until his early death on May 8, 1919. Herbert had tuberculosis and died just shy of his 32nd birthday. You’ll recall dear reader, in Karl’s letter to sister Mattie, dated 1891 from Colborne, Ontario he writes about needing a new bike and that one handlebar of his bicycle was nearly broken off and was hard to use. He had plans to get his handlebars changed and offered to then send the bike back to Nova Scotia for his brother Herbert. So parts of that old bike came back to Nova Scotia. Then, after arriving back home from his trip around the world in 1901, it’s believed that Karl left the bike he got in Brantford, the Red Bird at the family home with brother Hebert.
Upon Herbert’s passing, another Creelman** family member moved into the house on Ryland Avenue, Bible Hill and lived there till 1956. When that family moved out of the house, the contents were cleared, and the Red Bird was reportedly thrown into the dumpster. But the bike was resurrected and purchased by William “Bill” Rudolph, a bicycle collector from Herring Cove, Nova Scotia who then sold the Red Bird and a few other vintage bicycles to Gordon in 1997.
Now flash forward to this moment, when I’m standing half in and half out of Gordon’s shed. The part of me that’s out is getting soaked from the rain but I’m not paying attention to that as the other part of me that’s inside the shed is staring wide eyed at a bike that may have been Karl’s when he cycled around the world. Gordon’s theory is that he can’t say for certain that it was Karl’s bike, but he can’t say for certain that it wasn’t!
So the story could end here, but you know dear reader our Karl Chronicles are not based on hearsay and theories, and we need some conclusive facts to verify the bike and any linkage to Karl. I hope you join me next week when I share more information. Till then, please share the word and send your email to a few friends encouraging them to subscribe to the Karl Chronicles.
*I will say that if I knew he had a Red Bird, let alone THE Red Bird, I’d have been more persistent. Needless to say, a big thanks to Gordon for reaching out to me and journalist Chelsey Gould for her article that made it happen.
**Lots more to come about these Creelmans. Let’s just say there are a lot of them all over the place, and I’m chatting with many of them!