Lucas King of the Road

Months ago, Mike Barry Sr. took down a brass bicycle lamp from the top shelf of his cabinet of vintage parts. The whole top shelf, in fact, was lamps. “The early ones run on kerosene, the others are acetylene,” he said. The one he held in his hand was made in Birmingham, England around 1920. “It’s very nicely made,” he added. It was the King of the Road, Model 260, by Joseph Lucas, an oil dealer and lamp manufacturer whose company would later make electronic components for early automobiles. The King of the Road mounted to the front of a bike.

“You put carbide into the container underneath,” Barry explained. “Water then drips down on it. The water and the carbide make acetylene.” You could then open the lamp at the front and light the gas.

“It gives a beautiful light. Really really nice white light that gets reflected,” he said. “It’s like an incandescent bulb.”– MP