Franciszek Zawadzki

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Franciszek Zawadzki (6 October 1887 – 7 November 1975) was a Polish bicycle manufacturer and road cyclist. He became Poland’s first national champion and won the Congress Poland road racing titles in 1910 and 1911, before Poland regained full independence. On 24 August 1919 he won the first 100 km race in independent Poland, organized by the Warsaw Cyclists’ Society, of which he was a member from 1910 to 1921. In 1921 he finished fourth in the national championships.

In 1917 he opened a bicycle factory in Warsaw on Bagatela Street. At first it made 17 bikes a year; by the 1930s production reached about 30 bikes a day. The bikes were lightweight and had Brooks saddles. They were high quality but expensive, bought mainly by wealthy customers and police. Bicycles were very popular in interwar Poland, and Zawadzki became wealthy from the business.

Before 1939 he hoped to move the factory to Glina in Otwock County, but World War II began before he could. The old factory and his Warsaw home were destroyed by bombs, and he moved with his wife and their only child to a villa in Stara Wieś. Nazis robbed his estate during the war. His son Zbyszek fought in the Warsaw Uprising, was captured, and died in Stutthof.

After the war his estate was nationalised. He opened a small workshop in Stara Wieś to repair bicycles. His wife died in 1968 after being hit by a car. He remarried, sold the villa to help build a kindergarten in the village, and moved to Warsaw, where he died. He is buried with his wife at Powązki Cemetery, which also has a memorial to his son.