As the Giro rides into town, the Ulster Museum enters into the festival spirit offering an insight into one of cycling’s greatest innovations and an opportunity to explore this revolution through art.
John Boyd Dunlop bicycle
On display from 28 April
The world-famous inventor of the pneumatic tyre, John Boyd Dunlop, was a veterinary surgeon who set up practice in May Street, Belfast, in the 1860s. According to the story, he thought of his idea for an inflated rubber tyre in 1887, while watching his young son riding his tricycle over the cobbled streets outside his house. After some experimentation, he fashioned tyres from tubes of sheet rubber covered with linen which he blew up with a football pump and tied to the wheels. He patented his idea and went into partnership with the Belfast cycle makers W. Edlin, who had a factory in Smithfield, before setting up on his own in 1890 with the Dunlop Tyre and Rubber Company.
The Tube, Discover Art
2 -10 May, 10am-5pm (closed Mondays and on some weekday mornings for school groups)
Drop into Discover Art and help make a large tubular installation inspired by William Roberts’ painting Les Routiers, and celebrating Dunlop’s first pneumatic tyre.
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