You may have seen photos of what is commonly known as the "old timey bicycle". The one with the ridiculously ginormous (does webster even recognize "ginormous" as a word yet?) front wheel and the comically tiny rear wheel? The Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather of the 29'er. The name of this monstrosity of engineering is actually the "Penny-farthing", referring to British currency sizes of the late 1800's and how they relate to the size of the wheels. No only would you need a bowler and well-defined and waxed handlebar mustache to look appropriate riding one, you would also need to be dressed in the habberdashery of the period. Three piece suit with a pocket watch chain. A monacle wouldn't hurt your case too poorly either. You'd have to use words like "bully" and discuss how the Panama canal is a just a mere dream and whether or not you believed that Stanley would ever find Dr. Livingston but at least you wouldn't look silly riding the bike.
That is unless you're going to ride one over the Himalyan Mountains.
Apparently a gentleman is riding a penny-farthing around the world to raise awareness for various charitable organizations. Our SoCal outside sales rep, Greg, ran into him in a bike shop and scored a 
couple of photos. Check his website out. The guy is totally legit. That pith helmet is legit for sure. My favorite part of his whole bike are the waterbottle cages mounted to the little wheel. While i understand the need to carry water, i'm guessing those are really only for use in the dryer stretches of his journey. I think I'd just fine the biggest Camelbak I could get my hands on and hammer on through. I'd even use my handlebar mustache to hold the straw. Man, I wish I could grow facial hair.
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