DAHLQUIST CYCLEWORKS
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        • 2020 Ridin' with Biden
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      • 1949 Paris Tour de France
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 9/11 Yellow Schwinn Tribute Bike

On September 11, 2001 a Washington Post reporter named Sally Jenkins was trying desperately to reach the still-smoldering ruins of the twin towers, in the heart of New York City. All civilian vehicles were blocked, save for the "noblest invention," the bicycle. Jenkins found a bike shop, but all the rentals were taken. Recognizing, perhaps, both the urgency felt by the reporter and the historical moment, the shop owner wheeled out a bright yellow ten speed Schwinn. (Although the reporter never identifies the model, in my imagination it has to be the ubiquitous Schwinn Varsity). Jenkins would ride the yellow Schwinn to the epicenter of the greatest tragedy in modern American history many times, reporting on the fallen, the first responders, the ghostly forms of dazed New Yorkers covered in gray ash.

On the 20th anniversary Jenkins recalled her experience of 9/11 through the lens of a cyclist on a mission. Her article in the Washington Post is entitled "Beneath 9/11's Terrible Smoke, a Flash of Gold." It begins: "After the shroud rolled over the day, I remember just one dash of color in the pall, a smear of bright yellow. It was an old Schwinn steel-frame racing bicycle, and it moved like a canary in the smoke. The bike, like all bikes, was an escape, the ability to get somewhere under your own power, fast, to carve turns and pick your own lane through obstacles. But it represented something else too, that bike, as indefinably sweet as a wildflower growing in the sidewalk."

I urge you to read Sally Jenkins' brilliant essay in its entirety online. Suffice it to say I was so touched by Jenkins' "Flash of Gold" essay I decided then and there to add to the collection the 9/11 Yellow Schwinn tribute bike you see here. The tribute Varsity is all original, save for the alloy "Continental" stem, an upgrade available from any Schwinn jobber of the time. Thanks to Bill Smith, James Allen, and Charlie Dixon for helping bring the bike home in this condition. 

What does a common, outdated yellow bicycle "mean," if anything? For Sally Jenkins the American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Jay Gould says it as well as the unsayable may be said: "Complex systems can only be built step by step, whereas destruction requires but an instant. Thus. in what I'd like to call the Great Asymmetry, every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness...Good and kind people outnumber all others by thousands to one."

In her conclusion Jenkins says "So I honor the man in the bike shop who provided free-handedly a yellow Schwinn with creeeeeking brakes, gave respite to a footsore witness of the worst day ever and helped her get from the malevolent smoke into the clearer air."

After reading Jenkins' Washington Post article, thanks to the power of the word, it is almost as though I too rode a bicycle through the smoke of 9/11--and I will never look upon a common yellow Schwinn bicycle in the same way again.
 The 9/11 Yellow Schwinn Tribute Bike ©Daniel Dahlquist
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  • Home
  • Bicycle Stories
    • Story of America in 2 Bicycles
  • American Bicycles
    • American Bicycles >
      • 1890s Columbus Bicycle
      • 1892-93 Stover
      • 1893 Elliott Hickory
      • More American Bicycles >
        • 1895 Columbia Model 45 C.A. Fudge
        • 1895 Gormully & Jeffery Rambler No. 12
        • Patee Track Bicycle
        • 1895 Patee Gents'
        • 1895 Patee Ladies' Loop Frame
        • 1895 Sterling (As Ridden by Bobby Walthour)
        • 1896 Buffalo Soldier Bicycle
        • 1897 American-Made Humber Roadster
        • 1897 Crescent No. 9
        • 1899 Sterling Shaft-Drive
        • 1899 Monarch
        • 1900 Gormully & Jeffery American Bicycle Co. Rambler
        • 1902 Columbia Model 92
      • Some More American Bicycles >
        • Teddy Roosevelt 1904 Campaign Bicycle
        • 1907 Cruso Double Bar Semi-Racer
        • 1908 Tribune Blue Streak Racer
        • 1909 Sears Peerless
        • 1912 Elgin King
        • 1914 Crown
        • 1915 Sears Chief Motorbike
        • 1915 Truss Frame
        • 1916 Mead Ranger Coaster Brake Special
        • 1919 Haverford Black Beauty 'Pacer' Arch Bar
        • Tyger's 1918 Mead Racer
        • 1918 Columbia Military Model
        • 1920s Mead Ranger Motorbike
        • 1923 Mead Racer
      • Even More American Bicycles >
        • 1923 Iver Johnson Model 90
        • 1926 Columbia 50th Anniversary Motorbike
        • Supplee Hardware Suhaco Special Crown Wannabe
        • 1920s/30s Greyhound Semi-Racer
        • Marshall Field Tricycle
        • 1930s/40s Drysdale Special Track
        • 1936 Schwinn Liberty First Generation Klunker
        • 1936/37 Iver Johnson Model 90
        • 1937 Schwinn Paramount Track
        • 1939 Mead Ranger
        • 1939 Schwinn Superior Sports-Tourist
        • 1939 Shelby Airflo
        • 1940s Schwinn New World (Admiral) Track
      • Additional American Bicycles >
        • 1943 Dayton Military Bicycle
        • 1949 Schwinn Paramount Sports-Tourist
        • 1954 Mead Ranger/Schwinn New World
        • 1956 Schwinn Paramount Sports-Tourist
        • Mead Coventry Flyer
        • 1972 Schwinn Super Sport Custom Coffee Bike
        • 1983 Trek 850
        • 1985 Schwinn Voyageur Custom
      • Further American Bicycles >
        • French Gray Mead Crusader
        • Napoleon and Josephine
        • 1987 Schwinn Paramountain
        • Iver Johnson Lightweight Touring Mens' & Ladies'
        • Schwinn Paramount Tricycle
        • Tyger's Teesdale
        • 2020 Ridin' with Biden
      • Extra American Bicycles >
        • 1983 Moulton-Made John Howard
        • 1992 Schwinn Paramount S.A.S.S. Buell Mountain Bike
        • 1997 Rivendell Road Standard
        • 1981 Jeffrey Bock Light Touring
        • 1981 Trek 950
        • 9/11 Yellow Schwinn Tribute Bike
        • 2017 Rivendell Appaloosa
    • American Balloon-Tire Bicycles >
      • 1935 Schwinn Excelsior Double-Diamond Clunker
      • 1940s Schwinn Excelsior Clunker
      • Scotty Bandito Cowboy Bike
      • Roadmaster Rat Rod
  • Austrian Bicycles
    • 1948 Norwegian Styria
  • Belgian Bicycles
    • 1930s Delfa
    • 1940s Sieber
    • 1950s Jean Aerts
  • British Bicycles
    • 1895 Humber Path Racer
    • 1897 Humber Tandem
    • 1907 Full-Nickel BSA Path Racer
    • 1910 Raleigh Superbe Cross Frame
    • 1911 New Hudson Imperial
    • Unique & Unity Juvenile Bicycle
    • WWI Humber British Army Postal Service Bicycle
    • 1920s Hercules
    • Hercules NFS & Humber Messenger Bicycle
    • More British Bicycles >
      • 1930s Royal Enfield Roadster
      • 1930s Special Sunbeam
      • 1932 Royal Sunbeam
      • Humber Bermuda
      • 1936 Hetchins Brilliant No. 2
      • 1940s Maclean Featherweight
      • Robin Hood Camping Bicycle
      • 1947 Humber Roadster
      • 1949 Paris Tour de France
    • Even More British Bicycles >
      • Bicycle Institute of America Mystery Racer
      • The Double Bar Humber Number
      • 1952 Humber Sports
      • 1952 Carlton Silver Clubman
      • 1967 Marshall Field Raleigh 5 Speed Sprint
      • 1970s Bob Jackson
      • Ephgrave No. 1
      • Dahlquist Cycleworks Delivery
      • Teens Era BSA Path Racer
  • Canadian Bicycles
    • 1926 CCM Motor Bicycle
    • 1940s CCM Flyer Track Bicycle
    • 1976 Marinoni "Quebec" Special
  • Chinese Bicycles
    • Tiananmen Square Tribute Bicycle "Forever"
  • Dutch Bicycles
    • Netherlands Raleigh City Bike
    • Netherlands Raleigh Prestige
  • French Bicycles
    • 1903 Peugeot Roadster
    • 1903-1910 Tour de France Racer
    • 1910/Teens J.B. Louvet Truss Frame Racing Bicycle
    • 1920s L' Automotion
    • Automoto Champion du Monde
    • Bobet's Bicycle
    • 1961 Rene Herse Touring
    • Bobet Cyclo-Pedia Touring Bicycle
    • Blue Bobet
    • 1955 Peugeot PHX-10
    • 1960s/70s Peugeot UO-8 Juvenile
    • Motobecane Wine Bike
  • German Bicycles
    • 1939 Durkopp Track Bicycle
    • 1940 Achilles Gents & Ladies Roadsters
    • 1940s/50s Durkopp Diana Sport
    • 1940s/50s Durkopp Diana Loop Frame
    • Repurposed WWII German Military
  • Italian Bicycles
    • Bianchi Military Bicycle
    • 1940s Bottecchia
    • 1941 Legnano Tipo Campione Del Mondo
    • 1949 Gloria Garibaldina Extra
    • 1950s Fausto Coppi
    • 1950s Legnano Tipo Roma Track Bicycle
    • More Italian Bicycles >
      • Gino Bartali Team Bike
      • 1950s Legnano Tipo Roma Road Bicycle
      • Early 1960s Legnano Gran Premio
      • 1961 Bianchi Rekord
      • 1967 Torpado
    • Even More Italian Bicycles >
      • 1970s Eddie Merckx Colnago
      • 1970-71 Pogliaghi Italcorse
      • 1974 Carlsbad CA Masi Gran Criterium
      • 1976 Pogliaghi Selection
  • Japanese Bicycles
    • Miyata Mister
    • Kyokurei Post-War Roadster
    • Post War Maruto Deluxe "High Class" Roadster
    • 1960s Five Speed Fujicycle
    • 1973 Schwinn World Voyageur
    • 1973 Fuji S-10-S Special Racer
    • 1974 Schwinn Voyageur II
    • 1985 Fuji Opus III
    • 1987 Team Fuji Funny Bike
    • 1987 Bridgestone T 700 Atlantis Prototype
  • Swedish Bicycles
    • 1930s/40s Hermes
    • 1947 Crescent Roadster
  • Scottish Bikes
    • 1959 Flying Scot
  • Poetry
    • A bientot mon ami
    • Bicycle Haiku
    • Bicycle at Rest
    • Bill Harley and Major Taylor
    • Four Sunflowers
    • ​Mile-a-Minute Murphy
    • Neruda: Wrong on Bicycles
    • Tribute to Tyger
    • On a Mountain Road in Virginia
    • Forever Bicycles
    • The Humber Chainring
    • What I'll See on that Bicycle Ride
  • Events
    • 6/11/2022 Dream Team Presentation
    • 7/19/22 25th Anniversary
    • 8/26/222 Auburn Vintage Bike Show
    • I Sold My Rat Rod
  • About
  • Contact