UPDATE - Latvian Tricycle Barnfind – True or False?

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UPDATE - we recieved many comments on the story. To answer the question in the title of the feature: Latvian Tricycle Barnfind – True or False? The answer is: FALSE!

In recent years there have been quite a few reports of tricycles and quadricycles that have been found in dusty old barns and basements after many decades of hibernation. Many of these machines have come from France, which is not a surprise since the bulk of all early vehicles were manufactured and, presumably, sold there. The latest of these discoveries came to light just a couple of months ago in very unusual circumstances. A close friend of one of our readers, who has Latvian ancestry, was contacted by a distant cousin to say that an elderly relative had died, leaving a barn full of old farming machinery - she had no idea what to do with it.

Amongst photographs of the ‘junk’ (surprisingly it is the same word in Latvian), she saw below image and immediately recognised it as the crossbar of what she thought was a bicycle, but then another image showed a few fragments of two back wheels, so there is little doubt that it is a tricycle. As you can imagine there was feverish excitement in the household and within just a couple of days it was agreed that the tricycle could be sent to the UK. It will be a couple of weeks before the consignment arrives, but in the meantime, there are a few mysteries to consider, the first of which is the make of the tricycle. A closer look at the battery box clearly shows some letters: ..illot et H…..Fra… What could that name be?  There is nothing in Georgano's that helps to identify it, but surely someone must have a few thoughts on the make of tricycle?

The other intriguing aspect of this is that the Latvian farm is situated on the outskirts of Rezekne in eastern Latvia. From here a road runs directly north, through Pskov and Luga to St. Petersburg, where trike racing was a very popular pastime in 1899 and 1900. Indeed, in 1899 the legendary Russian trike rider, Count Nikolai Orlovsky, rode his 1.75hp Clement machine all the way from St. Petersburg to Vilnius, and would have passed through Rezekene. Could there be a connection? We shall just have to wait and see where our research leads us, but this potentially opens up a completely new chapter in our understanding of early tricycle use.

Will be continued...

Words by Michael Edwards.

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