21 Vintage Bicycle Posters That Have Us Longing for the Open Road

As we peer out the window in quarantine, we’ve been daydreaming of open landscapes and activity. So it was fortuitous that we stumbled across Richard Kuhlman’s brilliant cache of vintage bicycle posters.

Kuhlman has been collecting the posters for nearly 30 years, and began selling reproductions on his Bicycling Art website in 2001, followed by originals a few years later.

“There are many reasons why I am fascinated with these posters—cycling, the art and the message, the artists and the size and grandeur of the originals,” he writes in an email. “I am an avid cyclist and this business goes hand-in-hand with my love of cycling. I love the art and the way a message was portrayed during this golden age of poster art.”

Kuhlman adds that the reason so many women feature in the early ads is because a bicycle symbolized freedom of mobility without having to rely on transportation provided by a spouse. “Another little known fact is that both the bicycle manufacturers and farmers were aligned at this time for the promotion of better roads. Cyclists to ride, and farmers to bring product to market.”

All told, Kuhlman’s collection of originals is a wonderland of design.

Here are 21 posters spanning more than a century to keep us happily dreaming of the open road until it opens back up.