Princess Diana's Bike Heading To MD As Anti-Royalty Exhibit

BALTIMORE, MD — What does someone who sees the monarchy as a symbol of racism do to press that point home? Spend $80,000 for the late Princess Diana's bicycle, of course.

Baltimore attorney Barry Glazer paid $80,000 for what wags in the United Kingdom called the "Bike of Shame." He plans to display it at his offices as a publicity stunt to denounce royalty, reports said.

The blue Raleigh Traveller bicycle was owned by the late Princess Diana, who rode it around Kensington, London, in her single days. But when Diana's engagement to Prince Charles was announced, royal staffers told her bike-riding was said unsuitable for a future queen, and it was sold.

Glazer bought the bike in an April 28, 2021 auction by Burstow & Hewett Auctioneers in Battle, East Sussex. (You can watch the bidding in a video at the bottom of this story.)

Glazer’s final bid was over $80,000, plus an additional $4,500 for shipping the bicycle to Baltimore.

“I don’t think it’s a bad investment," he told The Baltimore Sun. “I know it sounds like a lot of money.”

Glazer told the newspaper Diana rode the bike in the Pimlico neighborhood of London. Glazer also grew up in Pimlico — in Baltimore.

Once it arrives in Baltimore, Glazer said he plans to display the bike not in a museum, as The Daily Mail reported, but in his Federal Hill offices. He believes the historic building was part of the Underground Railroad.

He’ll use the bike as a comment on what he sees as the inherent racism of the royal system, based on hereditary principle. “The royal system is racial,” Glazer told the Sun. “That alone is what offends me. I think that’s the basis for racism.”

Lady Diana enjoyed riding the bicycle around Kensington, and would leave it chained to the railings outside her London flat, even commenting in interviews about having a wheel stolen once, the auction house said in its promotion material ahead of the sale.

"However, shortly after her engagement to Prince Charles in 1981 the bike made newspaper headlines as she was ordered to stop riding by royal officials. Branded the “shame bike,” this item is a famous symbol of Diana’s oppression," the auction house said. "Something she loved being taken away; and control over her public appearance for the reputation of what is deemed acceptable for a lady of the British Royal Family."

Included with the bike was a newspaper article from 1981 and a framed letter from Gerald Stonehill, who originally purchased the bike from Diana.

Stonehill said, "Diana had hoped the [original] sale would be concealed" for fear of exposing the news that it was considered "inconsistent with her future status."

Video courtesy of Burstow & Hewitt Auctioneers