1929 Taylor Cadet Cyclet Bicycle

The Frank F. Taylor Company was founded in Norwood, Ohio, in 1921. They made a range of children’s tricycles and bicycles but were most famous for their extensive range of ‘Taylor Tots.’

 

1929 Taylor Cadet Cyclet Bicycle

Frank F Taylor Co, Cincinnati, Ohio

16″ Frame

19.5″ Wheels with Solid Tyres

LENGTH: 46″

One of the pleasures of seeing children’s bicycles of the first half of the twentieth century is that most of them utilised styles of previous generations of bicycles. This was because parents and grandparents bought kid’s bikes rather than the kids themselves: customers were therefore nostalgic for the bikes of their own childhood. The earlier styles were also usually simpler to manufacture.

This Taylor Cadet Cyclet is interesting because it is a direct copy of the very first design of chain-driven bicycle, the cross-frames of 1886. With fixed wheel and a heavy frame it really does replicate the experience of riding the first generation of bicycle.

Frank F Taylor made these Cadets from the 1920s until WW2; early models had solid tyres, while later examples had pneumatic tyres and chrome handlebars. The advert below is from 1940.

 

 

1940 BELKNAP CATALOGUE

 

 

 

 

 

TAYLOR TOTS

1940 advert above; 1952 below