From the Archives: The Jeddah Bicycle

It was the mid-1970s and Lockheed's L-1011 TriStar, had been introduced a few years earlier. Dad, who normally worked from the company's Burbank headquarters, was getting up super early to drive out to the Palmdale facility (it was not regular, but not unusual either, for him to come home and have a scotch on the rocks during this time). Well, at some point, he flew to Saudi Arabia and then Europe (aboard one of those L-1011's, of course) as part of a team from Lockheed. He was an engineer, but whether the purpose of the trip was training or sales, or even some of both, I am not sure. Anyway, while in Saudi Arabia, he drove past the "world's largest bicycle," and thought enough of it to take this photo:

  The Bicycle, by Julio Lafuente, is situated in a roundabout in the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In the mid-1970s Lafuente worked for a city creating monumental sculptures "to bring about the beautification of the city through the realization of landmarks and monuments." The Bicycle is one of those larger than life size sculptures.