Elise Steininger

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The Elise-Steininger-Steg in Graz

Elise Steininger (* December 10, 1854 as Elise Rauch in Sigmundfeld , Voivodeship Serbia and Temeser Banat , then Hungary, now Serbia; † November 11, 1927 in Vienna ) was an Austrian cycling pioneer.

Life and history

In 1879 Elise Rauch married the insurance employee Carl Steininger and moved with him to Graz in 1890/1891 . When the Hochrad was replaced by the Niederrad , she learned to ride a bicycle at the age of 37. She became a member of the Graz Touring Driver Association , which her husband had co-founded, rode tours, but also mastered art cycling and achieved “true championship” in both disciplines. When it came to the break with the club because she and five other women had given an artificial bike demonstration at a celebration of the Graz Bicycle Club , she founded the first women’s cycling club in Austria-Hungary (possibly also in continental Europe), the Grazer Ladies Bicycle Club , in 1893 , of which she was also the first president. Your tour book for 1894 showed a driven distance of 1315 kilometers. In 1895 she worked in the organization of the XII. Federal Festival of the German Cyclists' Association in Graz. Also in 1895, her husband set up a bicycle shop with its own school track, which also served as a club home and practice area for the women's cycling club. There Elise Steininger gave cycling lessons for women.

The magazine Die Radlerin wrote about her:

“ Ms. Steininger's personality is extremely attractive and engaging because of her great kindness; if you also take a look into her home, you can see it for yourself and admire her household, which is run with so much taste and exemplary arrangement, which is the most vivid proof of a dignified housewife. At the same time, this picture reminds us that sport and duty can easily be combined! "

- Therese Countess Wurmbrand-Wenckheim : Die Radlerin , II / 20/1898 , p. 448

After six years the Graz Women's Bicycle Club dissolved; one reason for this was that other clubs were increasingly accepting women. The Steiningers' marriage remained childless. After Carl Steininger's death in 1903 while on vacation in Monte-Carlo , his business went bankrupt and his widow ran into financial difficulties. She stayed in Graz until around 1925, near the school railway, which existed until the late 1930s. In 1927 she died in the Lainz care home .

The building of an old mill, already mentioned in 1409 according to Peter Laukhardt, at the address Jakob-Redtenbacher-Gasse 14 (also Kolpinggasse 12) and on the former lower left Grazer Mühlgang , was built according to the findings of the Fahrrad history workshop (with Taliman Sluga, 1999 in the Gothic Hall of the Reinerhof ) used by the Steiningers' cycling school, the first in Graz, which also operated a "cycle track" close by, typically a training area with a flat oval.

After it became known that this building of the cycling school was to be demolished in order to build a block of flats instead, a citizens' initiative was formed to preserve the building, which was just south of the protected old town center of the city, and to make it easier to use a pedestrian passage via a staircase to the west of Schönaugasse; Sarah Andersson became the spokesperson. 1500 signatures were collected under a petition for the preservation of the house and the establishment of a cultural center for cycling in it. Finally, the construction of a hotel especially for cyclists was considered. In the absence of financial support, hoped for example from the city of Graz, nothing came of the ideas and the building owner SOB, based on a demolition permit from around 2007, had the building of the mill and later the bike school demolished on July 9, 2010. During the preparation of the house construction, a main collecting canal coming from Adolf-Kolping-Gasse was relocated a few meters to the north, which made it possible to build the underground car park larger, on which the house was built from September 2011 and has since been in the north the existing perimeter block development connects. A public passage, but no longer in a straight line, remained open as a walkway and bike path.

Honors

On the top floor of the town hall, one of around 20 display boards about special women from Graz is dedicated to the founder of the cycling club, Steiniger.

On October 12, 2006, Elise Steininger was recognized as a pioneer of cycling in Graz by naming the new underpass for cyclists and pedestrians under the Kepler Bridge after her "Elise-Steininger-Steg" at the suggestion of the Argus Radlobby .

After the Nazi past of the Austrian cycling idol Ferry Dusika came to light , there were considerations to rename the Ferry Dusika indoor stadium in Vienna, Steininger's name was also mentioned as a possibility.

Elise Steininger footbridge

The footbridge is at N47.077055, E15.433534 and has made the heavily frequented left bank cycle route on the left bank of the Mur by driving under the Kepler Bridge shorter and free of crossings since 2006 .

Until 2006, the first regular crossing of Wickenburggasse was in the form of a traffic light-regulated cyclist crossing 75 m east of the Kepler Bridge and 10 m west of the tram axis. Unless you strive for the Sackstraße to the main square over the hill of the narrow branch Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Kais via the valley station Schloßbergbahn , you had to cross the wide branch of the KFJ-Kais again with a traffic light over 3 lanes. The strongest shortcut was via a 10 + 10-step staircase near the northeast corner of the Kepler Bridge with transferring the bike or using the steep grooved rails for strollers.

If you cycle down the river on the left bank of the Mur, you have allowed car traffic on the last block before the Keplerbrücke, because the city of Graz has a number of cross parking spaces for cars between the lane of the swimming school quay and the edge of the Mur bank embankment. After the last parking lot, the cycle route swings 40 ° to the right, at the same time the route leads downhill for about one meter in altitude and swings again by the same angle to the left under the structure of the Kepler Bridge when visibility is poor. As of 2017, there were 14 bent vertical struts on the stainless steel railing of the footbridge, an indication of a similar number of accidents involving skaters and cyclists. The brackets of the railing are cut with sharp edges from NiRo sheet metal and injure your fingers if you use the railing as a skater to brake.

The ramp that follows after crossing under the structure of the Kepler Bridge has a horizontal element in the middle for pedestrians and wheelchair users to take a break. By the time the footbridge joins the footpath and bike path, it has reached a length of 135 m. The footbridge could therefore be described with a wink as the longest bridge on the Mur in Graz, until the 165 m long right bank longitudinal footbridge was opened downstream of the Weinzödl Bridge on August 7, 2012.

The Steininger-Steg consists of about 10 supporting structures which are supported on about 9 girders, which are mounted on the sides of the walls of the bridgehead of the Kepler Bridge and the high bank construction. In between there are expansion joints the width of a racing bike tire.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note. 1999 the VeloCity bicycle traffic conference took place in Graz and Maribor .
  2. ^ House Redtenbachergasse 14: demolition threatened kpoe-graz.at, August 16, 2009, accessed April 19, 2020. - With 2 pictures.
  3. ↑ Michael: Topic: Historic Graz house is being torn down (read 4084 times) styria-mobile.at, September 4, 2009, with articles by July 9, 2010, accessed April 19, 2020. - With pictures of the house and demolition.
  4. ↑ Martin: Topic: Kolpinggasse 12 - Jakob Redtenbachergasse 14 (read 2023 times) styria-mobile.at, October 11, 2011, accessed April 19, 2020. - With pictures of the house construction.
  5. ^ Fritz Neumann: That was Ferry Dusika, that is Austria. derStandard.at, March 25, 2014, accessed on March 26, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Weinzödlbrücke and Shopping Nord angedockt graz.radln.net, Argus Steiermark - Die Radlobby, (Wolfgang Wehap), accessed March 8, 2020.
  7. ↑ A footbridge for cycling pioneer Elise Steininger graz.radln.net, Argus Steiermark - Die Radlobby, (Wolfgang Wehap), accessed March 8, 2020.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Steininger, Elise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cycling pioneer
DATE OF BIRTH December 10, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Zsigmondfalva
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1927
Place of death Vienna