Australia's only full-time penny-farthing maker is breaking world records

Casually riding a penny-farthing around town is always going to be an attention-grabber.

"There was a customer in Sydney who lived alone and he kept to himself a lot and he liked that," says penny-farthing maker Dan Bolwell.

But each morning, the man would head off for a spin, with people starting to notice this gent perched atop his late 1800s-style bicycle.

"They got to know him and his daily ride each morning was a short little ride that felt so social and so interactive and it meant the world for him," says Bolwell, who creates the high-wheel bicycles in his Bacchus Marsh workshop, north-west of Melbourne.

"And then for other people — I do have customers, and I'm in that category as well — the attention becomes overwhelming.

"I would rather go somewhere completely quiet, away from crowds, out in the open road somewhere, and just enjoy the riding."

Bolwell, who believes he is the only professional penny-farthing maker in Australia, has handmade more than 400 custom penny-farthings since he started his business in 2012, sending them as far afield as Belgium, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Borneo and Israel.

Egged on by a customer and fellow penny-farthing enthusiast in the UK, he recently set two Guinness World Records: for the world's largest and smallest rideable penny-farthings.

That customer, Neil Laughton, helped seal the deal by riding Bolwell's 282-centimetre-high penny-farthing, dubbed Big Bertha, 100 metres through the streets of London.

Bolwell added 12 steps onto the bicycle so Laughton could climb aboard, and fitted stilts to his feet so he could reach the pedals.

From farmer to self-taught maker

Bolwell helped run his family's farm until he was about 30, when he says a succession issue left him rudderless.

"I left school early, so I didn't have any education or career behind me that I was working on and building, except being on the farm," he says.

But having made his own (more modern) bicycles for many years, and needing flexible work hours to look after his kids, Bolwell decided to give making penny-farthings a go.

"It kind of snowballed from there, and I never imagined where it was going to end up," he says.

In the beginning, it would take the small business owner about a week to produce one.

But he says customers have become used to the idea they can order complex, custom bikes they dream of, such as a penny-farthing with gold-plated handlebars.

"Some bikes might take me up to two months just to make," he says.

Known in the trade as Penny Farthing Dan, Bolwell says most people are intrigued by the size of a penny-farthing's front wheel.

"They captivate most people. They create a lot of happiness," he says.

"A lot of people smile, they're so unusual, and what a lot of people see is actually just the big wheel."

The evolution of the bicycle

Penny-farthings, popular in the 1870s and 1880s, were originally just called bicycles.

Later, when easier-to-ride bicycles emerged, the penny-farthings became known as "ordinary bicycles".

Even later, they were almost mockingly dubbed penny-farthings — based somewhat inaccurately on the size of the two coins they are named after, Bolwell says.

Bolwell says the penny-farthing was really a culmination of different inventions, such as rims, spokes, hubs and ball bearings, coming together.

"Then engineering got to a point where they could make a chain and sprockets light enough and fine enough to then make gearing, which was the end of the penny-farthing," he says.

"In 1890, the modern bike that we see today was invented — and that's pretty much the same bike."

What captivates Bolwell is the old-fashioned bicycle's ability to go at high speeds over long distances.

On a short sprint, with a rider going full tilt, he has seen penny-farthings travel up to 60 kilometres an hour.

"It's very simply mechanical energy translated into a larger size to create more distance per revolution of the pedal," he says.

"That mechanical simplicity is what's fascinated me and captivated me more than anything else."

How to ride a penny-farthing

What is the biggest mistake first-time riders of the historical bicycles make?

It's the natural inclination to look down, Bolwell says.

And it's not hard to see why, with mounting and dismounting providing a different kind of challenge to more modern two-wheeled vehicles.

"Everybody wants to look at the steps, and then they want to look at the pedals, and then they want to look at the handlebars," notes Bolwell.

"Every time I do a training session, people look down and I say 'look up', and it just smooths right out straight away."

To brake quickly, Bolwell says the trick is to step down on the back step, which loads up the weight on the rear wheel.

Bolwell says those in his community, including his customers, are "interesting" people.

"The common link is they're not normal people," he jokes.

"But like, what is normal?"

While getting around on a sky-high pushie might seem abnormal to a pedestrian in 2026, Bolwell says it is standard behaviour for the enthusiast.

"It's normal to take on adventures. It's normal to try things," he says.