Bicycle buffs have a haven at Freehold museum Local collector’s prize possession is ‘Zimmy’ manufactured in town

Bicycle buffs have a haven at Freehold museum
Local collector’s prize
possession is ‘Zimmy’
manufactured in town

JERRY WOLKOWITZ David Metz shows how a unique drive system operates on an antique high wheeler bicycle.

More than 100 years ago, in the late 1880s and 1890s, the village of Freehold was arguably the bicycle capital of the world.

Not only did the first world champion bicycle racer, Arthur Augustus Zimmer-man, reside in Freehold, but in the 1890s Zimmerman operated a factory that manufactured the "Zimmy," a bike that he had designed himself.

David Metz, 86, a retired businessman, has done his best to assure that the borough will remain a special place for bicycle enthusiasts with his Metz Bicycle Museum at 54 W. Main St.

Along with the horse, the bicycle was a preferred mode of transporting oneself from one place to another during the last half of the 19th century, at least for short distances.

JERRY WOLKOWITZ The nameplate from an 1896 Zimmy Racer reveals that the bike was manufactured in Freehold.

While the horse gave way to the automobile around the turn of the 20th century, the bicycle has never really lost its popularity, and there seems to have been a resurgence of bicycle use in the Freehold area in the last five or 10 years.

Metz, who has been collecting bicycles for almost 60 years, opened his museum in 1998. It is considered to house one of the finest collections of restored antique and rare bicycles in the world. Some of the bikes in the collection date back to the mid-1800s.

The centerpiece of the collection is a carefully restored 1896 "Zimmy," which Metz tracked down in the late 1990s, 100 years after Zimmerman was king of the world’s wheelmen.

Metz’s bicycle museum was the inspiration for an illustrated history of the bicycle, appropriately titled The Bicycle by Gilbert King, a photojournalist from New York City. The book is published by Courage Books, an imprint of Running Press publishers in Philadelphia, and is expected to be available in book stores in the near future.

JERRY WOLKOWITZ David Metz, curator of the Metz Bicycle Museum, Freehold, stands by a 52-inch New Rapid High Wheeler bicycle, which has been ridden all over the world.

Metz is featured in the acknowledgments and dedication in the book and he wrote the introduction. He provided the research through his collection of books and articles on bicycles, his own collection of rare bikes and his own knowledge of their history.

The book is divided into eight chapters: The Beginnings; Vilocipedes and Bone-shakers; The Ordinaries and Safeties; Tandems Sociables and Tricycles; the Booming Nineties; the Racers; the Twentieth Century Bicycle; and The Modern Bike.

A tour of the museum almost two years ago led to the book, Metz said.

"The idea to do the book came from one of the tours," he said. "Brookdale Community College included my museum in its annual tour of historic places. One of the borough residents on this one tour, Carlo DeVito, is with the Running Press in Philadelphia. He suggested that the book company would like to do a book on the history of the bicycle and asked for my help."

As they say, the rest is history.

"I have several unusual bicycles that, to the best of my knowledge, are the only ones in existence in the world," Metz said. "My lamplighter is more than 8 feet tall and was used in New York City in the 1890s to light the street gas lights. I also have a complete collection of handmade miniature reproductions of antique bicycles made by a prisoner of war in Europe and several trick bicycles used in circuses and sideshows."

Metz said it took him years to track down his famous "Zimmy."

"Arthur Zimmerman was the world’s first bicycle racing champion in the 1880s," he said. "When he retired in 1895, he opened the Arthur A. Zimmerman Cycle Co. on Elm Street in Freehold. From 1895 to 1900 he manufactured several models of the ‘Zimmy’ bicycle, including the one I have on display.

"Many collectors all over the country knew I wanted one of these bikes," he continued. "A member of The Wheelmen (an international organization of bicycle enthusiasts) called me when he heard of one that was available. When I brought it home, it was a frame and bushel basket of parts. I restored it and painted it with the original collars and striping, and now it is a beauty."

The Metz Bicycle Museum also includes antique household and farm gadgets, along with antique cars. For more information about the museum, call (732) 462-7363.