The Debrecen news portal Dehir visited Attila Katona, a veteran bicycle collector and restorer from Debrecen, in the spring of this year, and found a row of very special bikes in the yard of his family home. The specialist has transformed many of them from a very poor state to near-original condition with hard work.
At the time, he said that he did not want to sell the bikes or make a fortune from them, but that his dream was to show his collection to the public in a bicycle museum in Debrecen.
Attila hasn’t been bored lately, as he showed up with his bikes at the Tour de Hongrie team presentation in Hajdúszoboszló, we could meet him several times at Zoo Debrecen, and he had a temporary exhibition at Fórum Debrecen shopping center.
In recent weeks, he has been sharing photos on social media of how he is getting closer to realizing his dream, and then came the great news that Debrecen’s first bicycle museum will open on 1 August.
The venue is the former Loki pub and Excalibur Club at 30 Piac street.
The collector previously told us how he developed his immense love for bicycles. He explained that he had been repairing his own bikes since he was 9 or 10 years old.
– As soon as I got my first one, I took it apart, changed a few parts and put mudguards on it. After a while, my mates came to me when they had a problem, so I fixed theirs too. So, I started riding and repairing bikes as a part of my everyday life, and in the early 2000s I started collecting mountain bikes from the 80s and 90s,” he recalls.
He received his first veteran bike as a gift from his friend Imre Gyöngy, who gave him his grandfather’s former bike, an enamel-plate Csepel.
His second old bike was a 1928 Swiss military bicycle, which he acquired, and since then the collection has grown steadily over the last 15 years, and now has well over 100 items. Attila Katona is very proud that the city of Debrecen has recognized his collection and his work by including it in the Debrecen Register of Values in January this year. He is not only a collector, but also a restorer, working regularly on the rarities of the Budapest Transport Museum and the first Hungarian Bicycle Museum in Balassagyarmat, so that they can be preserved in the best possible, most authentic condition for posterity.
It was Attila Katona’s dream to open his own bicycle museum in Debrecen, and thanks to his hard work, it has become a reality, and we from Dehir visited him. Looking through the permanent exhibition is a journey through time, as we can admire the evolution of bicycles from the first wooden bicycle invented by Karl von Drais to the first pedal bicycle by Pierre Michaux. The owner of the collection is particularly proud of the bicycles made by Hungarian artisans, as they are completely unique. You can see the work of masters such as Ferenc Bécs, Miksa Essenfeld and Nándor Velvárt, but of course you can also see old Csepel bikes that are over 100 years old.
Attila Katona’s other great love is Italian racing bicycles, and the collection includes several machines that decades ago raced in the world-famous Giro d’Italia road race in Italy. The museum houses around a hundred bikes, including pieces that were previously part of the Museum of Transport’s exhibition ‘Swapped for a Bike’.
– It is a wonderful feeling to be here in the museum, which is now open. It’s been quite hectic lately, there’s a lot of work going on in this collection, so I’m a bit tired. But it is a relief to be standing here in the place I have worked for all these years. It was really nice to have people at the door the very first morning I arrived to open.
– added the professional.
Attila said that several schools have already been contacted, and children will be able to come in organized groups to see the exhibition and learn how a bicycle is restored. He also mentioned that a small café area and a service point have been set up in the premises. So, it’s not just visitors who can visit the museum, but also people who have a bike that needs repair.
– We’ll also organize programs, in fact we’ve dreamed up a kind of cycling center here in the city center,” he said.
There is a donation box where anyone can drop donations according to their means, and donations can also be made to the following account number:
Kétkeréken Debrecenért Egyesület: 11738015-21478035-00000000
Source of text and pictures: Dehir
