BABYLET - Custom bicycle

The trades bicycles were born in the early decades of the 20th century. They are one-off bicycles that were modified and personalized to allow carrying out one’s commercial or artisanal activity in a itinerant way. Barbers, photographers, wheeler-sailors (arrotini? actually “arrotini” are sharpener, but in context “arrotini” means sharpener or knife grinders; might be “hobbists” need careful). They traveled on two wheels carrying with them tools and equipment to work directly at clients’ homes and in the scattered farmsteads of Italy. These bicycles were true mobile workshops with attachments for tools, utensils, containers, and all the essentials. In Italy there are museums dedicated to the trades bicycles. The barber’s bicycle is one of the most fascinating variants. This exemplar is equipped with a table, sink, carafe for washing hair, towels, a demijohn with a water reserve, a mirror, and a customer’s chair. The barber’s tool case contains: a barber brush, shaving soap and its bowl, razors, leather razor strop, scissors, manual beard trimmer, talcum pot, combs, brushes, shampoo and aftershave from the era, all strictly of the period. The case bears the barber’s initials and is personalized with advertisements for products of the era. The bicycle has an original Brooks saddle and other original details such as an Aprilia headlamp, rod brakes, a handlebar with bakelite grips, etc.