Velo

“ We have seen astride the bicycle in the same rink, the old and the young, the fat man and the lean, the doctor, who does not believe that the fashionable exercise develops one set of muscles to the detriment of others ”

“ In France, fashion writers and fashion leaders rack their brains for the contrivance of velocipede costumes; velocipede clubs are formed; velocipede championships contested for at velocipede tournaments. There are not less than ten thousand machines running in the streets of Paris. ”

“ It can be driven by almost any man, at the rate of a mile in four minutes, on almost any road, without greater exertion than is ordinarily used in walking. This velocipede, unlike all others, is seen to best advantage on the street. In Mr. Bradford’s tasteful little curricle, the rider can sit at ease as carelessly as in a carriage, giving himself up wholly to the exhilaration of the rapid movement, and the pleasurable exercise of the muscles, which is just enough to make the machine skim over the ground, and give an enjoyable sense of power. ”

“ With those who live in the cities and require a daily exercise, exhilarating, pleasant, healthful, and free from expense; with those who reside in the country and have long [Pg 19] distances to traverse daily in reaching the scene of their labors, or with those who have leisure and wealth at their command, but love such exercises as afford an opportunity for the display of grace, agility, and skill, the velocipede has already become as great a favorite in this country as it is in France and England. ”

“ In impelling a velocipede, the limbs are not constantly in motion; for on level ground, when the impetus is at the average rate, or when the machine is descending an incline, the feet may be removed from the pedals, and the legs be placed on the bar, fixed in front of the machine for that purpose. A slight impulsion to the vehicle from time to time suffices to keep up the speed. When a rider encounters a formidable hill, he can dismount and lead his bicycle by the hand. ”

“ In the centre is a propelling wheel, covered by a house or drum, on the top of which the person using the vessel sits comfortably in a sort of saddle, with stirrups. By means of these stirrups and a hand crank upon each side, he gives the wheel its motion, precisely as it is given to a velocipede on shore. ”

“ We have seen the bicycle run with ease on country roads, and dashing with full speed through city streets, totally regardless of curbstones or crossings. In New York, no matter where you go, a velocipede is sure to whiz past you. The school-boy rides up Fifth Avenue in the morning, with his books strapped before him. In Broadway, where stages, wagons, carts, trucks, and carriages, clog the street from morning till night, the iron steed may be seen gracefully cutting its way among the larger vehicles.
The exercise is not tiresome, except to the beginner. ”

“ Nowadays one need not be astonished at anything. Take cycling, for instance. Long ago, when velocipedes—three or four-wheeled, uncanny machines—were mere toys wherewith youths loved to dislocate their joints on the lower terraces of the Crystal Palace, no one dreamt that bicycles, outraging all the laws of gravitation and practically mono-wheeled, would ere long be used on road and field and moor, on mountain-side, on steppe and desert, over barren Asiatic tundras and snow-clad{32} Yukon plains—in short, wherever adventurous mankind has penetrated. ”

“ EVOLUTION OF THE BICYCLE—1816 TO 1899. “The nothing of the day is a machine called the Velocipede. It is a wheel carriage to ride cock-horse upon, sitting astride and pushing it along with the toes, a rudder wheel in the hand. ”

“ Familiarity with the bicycle becomes a sort of second nature, and a velocipedean, after a fair amount of experience, finds himself almost as perfectly at home astride his two-wheeler, as he does on his feet.
When John Brent rode his horse across the plains in search of adventure, the era of the two-wheeled velocipede had not come upon us. We think the bicycle an animal, which will, in a great measure, supersede the horse. It does not cost as much; it will not eat, kick, bite, get sick, or die. ”

“ At times the wind would blow me out of the road on to the side, and when I got fairly braced to tack against it at an angle of forty-five degrees, more or less, it would suddenly let up and back into the road I would go with a rush, the wheel leaving a sort of self-registering mark behind that indicated the velocity of the wind at the different points in the road. ”

“ The velocipede is one of the finest inventions of the nineteenth century. It is a physiologically constructed machine; is an invaluable means of promoting [Pg 106] health, and bids fair to emancipate our youth from the common muscular lethargy and debility.
Velocipeding is superior to skating, horseback riding, base-ball, and rowing. While skating is good for the legs, horseback riding for the chest, base-ball and rowing for the legs and arms, the benefit derived from exercise on the velocipede is not local. It gives a natural exercise and general development to every muscle of the body. ”

“ The arms are the first to feel the effect of the exercise, for the pressure of the feet upon the stirrups must be met by a corresponding pressure of the hands on the tiller, necessary to prevent the front wheel from turning. This pressure of the tiller against the hands puts the rider in an upright position, with elbows well back and hands well extended, straightens the stooping shoulders, facilitates respiration, expands the lungs, and develops the chest. No position can be maintained upon the velocipede, inconsistent with ease and elegance of motion, or incompatible with the laws of health. ”

“ Of the various kinds of velocipedes, four, three, two, and one wheeled, the bicycle seems to be considered the most artistic, is altogether the most in favor, and steadily maintains its ground against all rivals. Whether it will be the model velocipede of the future remains to be seen. The various experiments now being tried will, no doubt, eventually result in a nearly perfect machine, but it will require [Pg 18] a season’s experience fully to develop the ingenuity of our American artisans. ”

“ Windmills, which are used in the great plains of Holland and North Germany to supply the want of falling water, afford another instance of the action of velocity. The sails are driven by air in motion—by wind. ”

“ But velocipede tracks are now in preparation. Race-courses will be free to the bicycle, velocipede stables will open in their vicinity, and the proprietors [Pg 98] will rapidly line their pockets. All the skating ponds will be metamorphosed into velocipedariums and velocipede rinks. These will make capital exercise grounds, where numberless riders can make their graceful curves to the music of a good band; and where, in hot summer weather, they can be protected from the sun by awnings. The large parks will be open to velocipedestrians. ”

“ Should the velocipede upon which you learn be too high to practice in the way we have indicated, you should have some one hold the machine for the first trial, the hands upon the back extremity of the bar upon which you sit, so as to in no way impede the action of the fore wheel.
To those who wish to learn, we would especially suggest the spring, fall, and winter months. It is too warm to learn in summer, that being the season to reap the reward of early exertion. Velocipede riding is the easiest thing imaginable when one knows how to ride properly. ”

“ We do not confine ourselves to propelling by the feet exclusively. The driving-wheels may be rotated by the hands, as in some descriptions of velocipede, or by the feet and the weight of the body combined, as in the rocking-saddle kind.
“Having thus described our invention,
“What we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is,—
2. A velocipede formed of a horizontal wheel or rim, when supported on vertical wheels adapted to be rotated by means of cranks, substantially as set forth. ”

“ “As an exercise bicycling is superior to most, if not all, others at our command. It takes one into the outdoor air; it is entirely under control; can be made gentle or vigorous as one desires; is active and not passive; takes the rider outside of himself and the thoughts and cares of his daily work; develops his will, his attention, his courage and independence, and makes pleasant what is otherwise most irksome. ”

“ By thus providing the bicycle with a circular track engaging the driving-wheel the said track forms virtually the driving-wheel of the bicycle or velocipede, and as it is of very greatly increased diameter as compared with the driving-wheel of the velocipede, it enables the machine to be driven over rough and uneven roads without violent bumping and jolting, and without discomfort to the rider. ”

“ The speed attained by the swifter kind of velocipede on the roads, averages from twelve to thirteen miles an hour. On a smooth, level floor, such a speed can be maintained with but little effort on almost any machine. It is safe to say that a good velocipede rider can travel a hundred miles as quickly as an ordinary horse with an ordinary load. Of course, the more a person rides, the easier it becomes, and the less the fatigue. ”

“ When the steering-wheel of my improved velocipede is deflected, the saddle swings in an opposite direction to that in which the rider tends to fall, which enables the rider to regain his balance with very little movement of the steering-pivot, and also to maintain a direct course with greater ease than with the ordinary machines. ”

“ The conception in the mind of man of road carriages which require an element of balancing was a recent event in the development of vehicles in general, and the similarity of the words bicycle and tricycle, together with the fact that both are included in the generic term velocipede, has led many to overlook a distinction of balancing, which should class them under very different heads. ”

“ We present an engraving of an English one-wheeled velocipede. The feet are placed on short stilts, connected with the cranks, one on either side of the rim, while the rider sits upon a steel spring saddle over the whole wheel. The inventor modestly limits the diameter of the wheel to twelve feet, and the number of revolutions to fifty per minute. Twenty-five miles per hour is the speed expected to be reached. The riders of this machine, without the [Pg 81] ability to overcome the laws of gravity, would be very likely to get broken bones and noses. ”

“ Young America is pictured coming in on a velocipede. Henry Ward Beecher thinks the coming man will ride one, and we shall not be surprised to see his prediction fulfilled, and devout worshippers propelling themselves to church on Sunday with all due gravity and decorum.
[Pg 21] Velocipeding is a hopeful sign of progress. If that man is a benefactor who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, he should come in for a share of praise, who teaches a man to go ten miles as easily and as quickly as he previously went one. “Time is money;” ”

“ As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current—if that appellation can properly be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by the white ice, thunders on to the southward with a velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract. ”

“ The great weight of the ship may indeed prevent her from acquiring her greatest velocity; but when she has attained it, she will advance by her own intrinsic motion, without gaining any new degree of velocity, or lessening what she has acquired. ”

“ The proportion between the velocity with which men or animals move, and the weights they carry, is a matter of considerable importance, particularly in military affairs. ”

“ August was scarcely conscious of danger more than he was of cold or hunger. A marvelous sense of courage, of security, of happiness, was about him, like strong and gentle arms enfolding him and lifting him upwards—upwards—upwards! Hirschvogel would defend him.
The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the redbreast away, and then tramped about in their heavy boots and chattered in contented voices, and began to wrap up the stove once more in all its straw and hay and cordage. ”

“ His legs move only in the tread of the wheel, and his hands rest quietly on the ends of the cross-bar of his machine. The rope-walker keeps every muscle tense, and every limb in motion or ready to move. No wonder, when a tourist on his bicycle spins for the first time through a village here, or among the nomads of Asia, he is followed by a gaping crowd, till his machine carries him out of their sight. ”

“ It is an exercise in which neither the horse nor the rider is seen to advantage; the heavy monotonous tramp of the beast, cramped by the narrow limits, becomes a stilty, wooden gallop. The rider, too, more careful of her balance than intent upon graceful action, restricts herself to a few, and by no means picturesque attitudes. With all this, the girl now before me seemed herself so intensely to enter into the enjoyment of the scene, that all her gestures sprang out of a sort of irrepressible delight. ”

“ An English naval officer had said to me, after learning it himself, “You women have no idea of the new realm of happiness which the bicycle has opened to us men.” Already I knew well enough that tens of thousands who could never afford to own, feed, and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life, the charm of a wide outlook upon the natural world, and that sense of mastery which is probably the greatest attraction in horseback-riding. ”