rcommbikes 

This beast showed up in a recent bike drive by a Rotary Club. It's labeled "Built by D. Adams ....Minneapolis Minn." We think it's a clown bike, but pretty old. I haven't found a match with a google image search.
Any wild guesses about value? Know of a museum that might want it? Any history on the maker?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

fred

NVFlinch 

While I know absolutely nothing about clown bikes...methinks this may be more of an exhibition, or circus bike. The reinforced seat suggests that more than one person might be on the bike at a time. The address 2946 Nicollet Avenue was the site of a stucco house built in 2015, then used as a photo developement shop in the thirties. Now it is an empty lot next to the below grade railroad. I suspect it was demolished for the rail route, but just guessing.

Here's a pic of a circus act with their bike. Note the matching construction details where the tubes (pipe?) were joined, and the front fork and handlebar similarities:

Duragrouch

The external pegs on the axles may indicate standing points, though they are very small. The vertical head tube angle may indicate a desire for the handlebars to stay perfectly level when turned (for standing or inverted acrobatics?). Zero fork trail may have been intentional, or simply a result of the above. I wonder if a fixed gear, or freewheeling hub.

thinktubes 

Use cases…

alcjphil

Artistic cycling:

Duragrouch

I didn't even know this was a thing. That's astounding. Well my guesses of fixie and zero fork offset were right (although I hadn't guessed completely reversing the fork, makes sense). Looks like she is also running a belt drive for smoothness. Geez, it makes Olympic figure skating look easy. And she's only ONE of the competitors.

Oldsledz

Contact a museum in Minneapolis , to see if they have any info.

zukahn1 

Fixed gear trick riding was some what big at one time but is now pretty much a lost art form.

Duragrouch

One of the videos above seems '60s or '70s, but the other is 2017, so looks like still appreciated in Europe. Like biathlon. Also, like figure skating, looks like competitors have really upped their game in the ensuing decades.

Duragrouch

Well it beat my first thought as circus bear bike due to the frame strength, though I immediately recognized that the inseam and standover heights are too long. See first paragraph for circus bear bike reference (and a truly great 2010 article about folding bikes):

https://www.bicycling.com/bikes-gear...lding-bicycle/

Duragrouch

Looks pretty difficult. And yet the 2024 Summer Olympics (tm) will feature, for the first time, breakdancing.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brea...ummer_Olympics

Not knocking it, but with the limited venues and bandwith for events, bicycle acrobatics would peak my interest. But yes, breakdancing has wider appeal for young folks, which is why they put it in the events.