NEW BREMEN, Ohio — Historian Ryan Long is the coordinator of The Bicycle Museum of America. 

The museum, in downtown New Bremen, is a time warp, with more than 150 bicycles on display, dating back several hundred years.

Long, a graduate of Ohio State University, said each bicycle has a story, and some have ties directly to the Buckeye State. 

“There’s a sewing machine company out of Dayton that became the Dayton bicycle brand, eventually became Huffman, then Huffy,” said Long. “I mean, there are dozens of bicycle companies that came out of Ohio.”

Long said he’ll always have an affinity to the early 20th-century era just because of what those bikes represented to the people that rode them. 

“Big on women’s suffrage, big on workers’ rights. And I just, I like what the bicycle meant during the 19th century,” he said. “It was a tool to be used, but it was also something for companionship.”

The basement of the building houses the rest of the collection, upwards of 800 bikes that get rotated in and out during the year.  

Long said while there’s a lot of knowledge to take in at the museum, the experience of seeing others take pride in a bike or memory is the best part of his job. 

“We have a huge collection of 1950s, 1960s bikes that people rode when they were kids and I enjoy when they come in and say that they saw their bike,” said Long. 

The Bicycle Museum of America’s collection was purchased by Crown Equipment business owner James Dicke in 1997. 

He moved the collection from Chicago to New Bremen after the fall of bicycle company Schwinn. 

The museum is at 7 W. Monroe St. in downtown New Bremen.