1. The event commemorates the Bombay Bicycle Club which delivered food on penny farthings in 19th-century Bombay.
2. The name “penny-farthing” came from the sizes of the two wheels. Diameters varied but a typical example had 53-inch front and 18-inch rear wheel.
3. Before penny-farthings were invented, bicycles were called “velocipedes” or “bone-shakers”.
4. First invented in the late 1860s, penny-farthings were not known by that particular name until 1891.
5. From the early 17th century, “penny-farthing” was used to mean “insignificant” or “worthless”.
6. Early penny-farthing riders in American were known as “Wheelmen”.
7. In 1994 the “League of American Wheelmen” was renamed “League of American Bicyclists”.
8. The world record for distance ridden in an hour on a penny-farthing is 23.72 miles set in 1891.
9. The inventions of pneumatic tyres and bicycle chains in the 1880s led to the demise of the far less safe penny-farthings.
10. In 2008, Briton Joff Summerfield completed a 22,000-mile round-the-world penny-farthing ride.