Proud to be from Pittsburgh: Bicycle Heaven Museum

PITTSBURGH — Bicycling is booming in the Steel City.

With new bike lanes in Pittsburgh, bike-sharing programs and miles of trails have popped up for riders to explore. The growing popularity has led to a reflection on the city’s rich history of cycling, which is on full display at the Bicycle Heaven Museum on the North Side.

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“When everybody comes in, the first thing they do is go, ‘Wow!’ museum owner Craig Morrow said. “I think it's because they know they are going to find their bicycle.”

Morrow has been collecting bikes for 30 years, and now has the largest collection on display in the world.  It's colorful, fascinating, free and gaining national attention.

The museum sits right off part of the Three Rivers Heritage bike trail. Morrow said on weekends, he gets hundreds of visitors, and they all leave smiling.

“I think it is because everybody had a bike when they were a kid, and that was your first adventure really. You figure if you wanted to go out and do something, go to the pool, whatever, you went on your bicycle and that was your freedom,” Morrow said.

Among his collection is a limited-edition pair of Harley Davidson bicycles as well as a rare and valuable art-deco looking Bowden from the 1940s.

“Those bicycles are actually a bike collector’s dream bike. There might only be 40 or so known,” Morrow said.

Eleven of them he found in Pittsburgh. In fact, Morrow said 70 percent of his bike were found here.

“The steel mills were really booming, so people were able to buy top end bikes,” he said.

More than 3,000 bikes are in his collection, and Morrow said he has ridden each of them at least once.

To learn more about the museum, CLICK HERE.

WPXI