The New York photographer Lewis Hine took photos from child messengers at the beginning of the XX century. He showed how widespread child labor was at that time as well as some other habits like child smoking that we consider disturbing today. These children were used as couriers to deliver goods from newspapers to medicines from small and big businesses. They worked as small ants coming and going which preoccupied the most progressive sectors in the American society.

In 1908 the National Committee for Child Labor hired the photographer and sociologist Lewis Hine in order to document the labor conditions of such small people. He traveled the USA for nine years with a humble equip consisting in a 13 x 8 cm camera, an unstable tripod and a magnesium flash. Such effort was the start of considering Hine a pioneer of social photography.

What Hine found was worse than he had imagined. Children suffered from leonine working conditions, starting working at the age of nine, they often pedaled until dawn and slept under a bridge. The luckiest ones combine school with long hours of pedaling. Some times they entered the worse neighborhoods in which arms dealers, drug addicts and pimps operated. Some others worked for unscrupulously bosses. Hine wrote a sentence in their photos which summarized what was behind every picture. This fact allowed people understanding the real feeling they passed on them.

The situations that Lewis Hine shot were extensible to both large cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Houston or New York to small localities, and no matter how big a firm was i.e. giants like Western Union as well as small courier business were involved.

After taking the photos, Hine presented them to the Committee which used them as arguments in order to reach the dreaming Keatings-Owen Law in 1916. This established restrictions as it comes to legal working age and work shifts. However the Supreme Court repealed it, the spirit of the original Law influenced the New Deal which did not allow for child labor in the 1930’s.

The history of Hine continued by being part of the Red Cross in the First World War which allowed him traveling in Europe and taking lots of photos. Nevertheless, he ended his days in the same poverty that had been denounced in his pictures. He left 5,000 photos which were donated to the Photo League by his son. The Photo League was dismantled in 1951 and the Museum of Modern Art of New York considered them as irrelevant and refused them even though the enormous social value they had. So discouraging. Finally, they were donated to the International Museum of Photography George Eastman House in Rochester where you can see some of them.

Arturello di Pópolo is one of the most impressive bikeclowns. This Argentinian man plays a show which is highly influenced by La Bicicleta, an originally humor, piece of art developed by Joseph Francis Jinarek. This Austrian bicycle winner suffered an almost crash when competing, i.e. the handlebar of his bike came off from the frame at high speed. Fortunately, thanks to a series of pirouettes and his balance skill, he could stop his bike, put his feet on the ground and open his arms. The public clapped enthusiastically and La Bicicleta show was born.

Arturo Chillida del Pópolo (Arturello di Pópolo) knew about La Bicicleta when he saw Jinarek son (Joe Jackson Jr.) performing it in a awards gala with the best bikeclowns back in 1976. He was so impressed that decided to perform its own La Bicicleta.

La Bicicleta consists in a two-characters play in which no word is pronounced. This apparently drawback does not avoid collecting a lot of laughs. It starts with a beggar clown who finds an alone bike. After checking the owner is far, he retains it. His funny problems start from this point, and I am not going to spoil them.

The impact of Arturello di Pópolo on La Bicicleta is considerable as the original play lasts about twelve minutes, whereas the di Popolo adaptation extends for forty minutes. However, their essence remains the same: Making people laugh similarly as all the other bikeclowns like Álvaro Neil do.

Here you can see some of his shows.

Artistic cycling is a 130-year-old sport. Yes, you have read 130 years. Cycling races began to hit their stride in Paris in 1868. Then, Nick Kaufmman showed audiences a different way to enjoy bicycles. He performed acrobatics on his bike. People were left with their mouth opened when admiring this new sport. Kaufmann expressed so much emotion and people helped by cheering him up, so that he made the connections he needed to organize a competition about artistic cycling. Indeed, he became the world champion of Professional Cycle Trick Riding, as it was known, in 1888.

This sport has been evolving over the years and now is really popular in Europe, and specifically in Germany. Competitors demonstrate several tricks indoors to judges, thus earning points as they perform. Similarly as ballet or gymnastics, participants compete in rounds of five minutes. Multi-person teams also compete by using multiple bikes, switch, ditch…

To perform the balancing tricks and backward motion, these artists use fixed-gear bikes with a gear ratio of 1:1, and tires of proportionate size. To enhance maneuver, the handlebars are similar to those used in racing bicycles, but upside-down in comparison. Moreover, the front wheel should be free to spin 360º.

By combining these outstanding bikes and long hours of practice, riders perform handstands, wheelies, body-surf, and attempt as many other tricks as they can in their allotted time. Hence, innovation is rewarded by judges who also take into account the number of tricks, execution, form and degree of difficulty.