Armstrong Cycles heritage sign in Austin Street Cue
Stories Above the Street  •  Cue

Armstrong Cycles & Motors

Before the motor car conquered the outback, the bicycle helped open it — carrying riders, messages and even emergency lifelines across the Western Australian goldfields.

A revolution on two wheels

The bicycle changed the way people moved across the goldfields.

At the end of the nineteenth century the modern bicycle offered something remarkable: relatively cheap, independent transport that did not need feed, water or rest.

On the Western Australian goldfields, where settlements could be separated by hundreds of kilometres, bicycles carried workers, prospectors, messages and mail. Armstrong's business grew directly from this new freedom of movement — and later followed the next transport revolution into motorcycles and motor cars.

At a glance
Founder: Percival William Armstrong
WA cycle business: established 1894
Armstrong trademark: registered 1901
Cue heritage sign: Est. 1901
Cue premises: documented by 1907
Business: Cycles & Motors
Location: Austin Street, Cue
Percival William Armstrong

He didn't just sell bicycles. He proved what they could do.

Percy Armstrong arrived in Western Australia with an extraordinary reputation as an endurance cyclist. His own feats on two wheels became the foundation for one of the State's best-known early cycle businesses.

1893

Sydney to Melbourne

Armstrong rode the roughly 930 kilometre journey from Sydney to Melbourne in just 4 days, 3 hours and 45 minutes, cutting around 26 hours from the previous cycling record.

1894

Goldfields opportunity

Armstrong established a cycle depot at Coolgardie as the Western Australian gold rush was transforming the interior. The distances and isolation that made travel difficult also created an enormous opportunity for the bicycle.

1901

“The Armstrong”

Percival William Armstrong formally registered “The Armstrong” trademark in Western Australia for cycles and similar vehicles, describing himself as a cycle manufacturer and importer.

The Special Bicycle Express

No camel? No buggy? Send a cyclist.

One of Armstrong's best-known goldfields stories began when a businessman needed an urgent letter carried from Coolgardie to Kurnalpi but every available camel and buggy was already out of town.

Armstrong offered to deliver it by bicycle and return the following day — a round trip of about 164 miles, or 264 kilometres.

“No delivery, no pay.”

He returned the next day and collected his fee. The episode demonstrated that a bicycle could be more than recreation — it could provide fast commercial transport across country where conventional transport was unavailable.

A goldfields workhorse

Before good roads, bicycles still found a way through.

The bicycle fitted the peculiar conditions of the Western Australian interior surprisingly well. It needed no feed, consumed no water and could be lifted, pushed or carried when the track became impossible.

NO FUEL

Powered by the rider

Unlike horses and camels, bicycles did not consume precious water or need food carried between distant settlements.

FAST MESSAGES

The human express

Special riders could carry letters and telegrams beyond the reach of the railway and telegraph network to remote mines and camps.

EMERGENCY TRANSPORT

A way home

For travellers far from water, a bicycle could even become emergency transport if a horse, camel or buggy failed.

A future President  •  1897

A cyclist rode 390 miles from Cue to find Herbert Hoover.

Long before he became President of the United States, Herbert Hoover worked as a young mining engineer on the Western Australian goldfields.

While travelling deep into the interior in 1897, Hoover reached Lake Darlot. An urgent telegram from London needed to catch him — but he had travelled far beyond the telegraph line.

A special cyclist came from Cue in three days — 390 miles.

That is approximately 630 kilometres by bicycle across the late nineteenth-century goldfields simply to deliver an urgent message.

A bicycle on the back

Hoover carried a bicycle as his emergency escape plan.

Hoover later explained that bicycles could follow the hardened tracks created by camel trains through otherwise soft country.

He became so convinced of their value that a bicycle travelled with his own expeditions, strapped behind his buggy.

With water sources sometimes around fifty miles apart, Hoover regarded the bicycle as possible salvation if the team failed. On the goldfields, a bicycle could literally be the difference between being stranded and getting out.

Imagine the scene

A bicycle strapped to a bush buggy.

The future President of the United States crossed Western Australia's mining country by horse and camel — with a bicycle carried behind as emergency transport.

Austin Street  •  1907

Then the next transport revolution arrived outside the shop.

The surviving 1907 photograph of Armstrong's Austin Street premises captures an extraordinary moment. The sign still advertises cycles — but now proudly adds another word: MOTORS.

Armstrong Cycles and Motors in Austin Street Cue in 1907
Armstrong Cycles & Motors

Bicycles and motor cars in the same photograph.

Two early motor vehicles are parked outside the business while men and a child stand beneath the verandah. Behind them, cycles and equipment can be seen through the windows. It is a snapshot of the precise period when the bicycle was being joined — and eventually challenged — by powered transport.

Cycles & Motors

Percy Armstrong saw what was coming.

Armstrong's business did not remain tied to pedal power. He became one of Western Australia's earliest pioneers of motorised transport.

In 1900 he imported a motorised tandem bicycle powered by a small petrol engine — one of the earliest working motor vehicles seen in Perth.

In 1901 he imported an early De Dion motor car and his business began arranging imports of motor cars and motorcycles. The Armstrong Cycle Agency evolved naturally into the Armstrong Cycle & Motor Agency.

Changing transport

One Austin Street photograph captures four eras of movement.

HORSE

The old standard

Horse-drawn transport remained essential for freight, passengers and work throughout the district.

BICYCLE

Personal freedom

The bicycle gave an individual unprecedented freedom to travel without relying on an animal.

MOTORCYCLE

Add an engine

Early powered cycles provided a bridge between the simplicity of the bicycle and the emerging motor car.

MOTOR CAR

The future arrives

By the time Armstrong's Cue shop was photographed in 1907, motor cars were already becoming part of the streetscape.

More than transport

The bicycle became sport, competition and community.

As roads improved and motor vehicles became more common, the bicycle did not disappear from the Murchison.

Cycling developed into an important recreational and competitive sport. Riders raced long distances on roads that could still be rough, sandy and unforgiving.

By the middle of the twentieth century, organised cycling remained part of community life in the mining towns of the district.

Big Bell Cycle Club  •  1950

More than forty years later, the Murchison was still riding.

This 1950 photograph of members of the Big Bell Cycle Club shows how cycling had evolved from practical goldfields transport into sport, recreation and community life.

Members of the Big Bell Cycle Club in 1950
From necessity to sport

The bicycle remained part of Murchison life.

The photograph identifies the riders as Lou Head, Doug Tester, Bill Luttrell, Tubby Eaton, Ted Durkin, Robert Sharp, Bob Jahn, Ron Sievwright, Tom Roberts, Eddy Ryan, Don Sharp, Reg Steele and Bill O'Brien.

In the 1890s a bicycle might carry an urgent telegram hundreds of kilometres across the bush. By 1950, cyclists in the same wider district were gathering together to ride for competition, fitness and enjoyment.

Two wheels across the decades

The reason for riding changed. The bicycle stayed.

The history of cycling in the Murchison mirrors the development of the district itself.

At first the bicycle answered a practical problem: how to move a person or message quickly through country where transport was slow, expensive and dependent on animals.

As towns matured, it became everyday personal transport. Later still, cycling survived as recreation and sport — keeping two wheels in the Murchison long after Armstrong's motor cars had appeared outside the Austin Street shop.

From pedal power to petrol

Armstrong and cycling on the goldfields.

1893

Record ride

Percy Armstrong breaks the Sydney–Melbourne cycling record.

1894

Goldfields depot

Armstrong establishes a cycle business at Coolgardie.

1897

Cue to Hoover

A special cyclist rides about 390 miles from Cue to reach Herbert Hoover.

1901

Cycles & motors

Armstrong registers his bicycle trademark and moves into the emerging motor trade.

EST. 1901

The Cue sign

The restored Austin Street sign remembers the Cue Armstrong business with an establishment date of 1901.

1907

Austin Street

Armstrong Cycles & Motors is photographed in Cue with early motor cars outside.

1950

Big Bell Cycle Club

The bicycle remains part of Murchison sporting and community life.

Modern Armstrong Cycles heritage sign in Austin Street Cue
Stories Above the Street

Two wheels return to Austin Street.

The restored Armstrong Cycles sign recalls the business photographed here during the early years of motoring.

The modern sign carries an Est. 1901 date. Surviving photographic evidence independently confirms that Armstrong Cycles & Motors was operating in Austin Street by 1907.

The bicycle illustrations on the sign are a fitting reminder that long before sealed highways connected the Murchison, riders were already crossing enormous distances on two wheels.

Historical note

This page draws on the surviving 1907 photograph of Armstrong Cycles & Motors in Austin Street, Western Australian Government Gazette records relating to Percival William Armstrong's 1901 cycle trademark, historical cycling records, and Herbert Hoover's account of travel on the Western Australian goldfields. The restored Cue sign carries the date “Est. 1901”; until a contemporary Cue business record confirming that precise opening year is located, the page distinguishes that date from the independently documented 1907 photograph.

Stories Above the Street

Before the motor car conquered the outback, the bicycle helped open it.

From Percy Armstrong's record-breaking rides and goldfields bicycle express to an urgent 390-mile journey from Cue in search of Herbert Hoover, the bicycle was once serious outback transport. The 1907 Armstrong photograph captures the moment powered vehicles began to join it, while the Big Bell Cycle Club photograph shows that two wheels remained part of Murchison life for generations afterwards.