Cycling

“ The track was said to be very rough. Nevertheless the straight-ahead road might be the better for cycling. The good people of these parts do not regard tracks or the cyclist's eyes. It has often been recommended to me to turn off at certain places from "hard gritty rises" on to where the track runs over "nice soft flats." Of course the flats were found in such places to be well grassed and suitable for travelling mobs of cattle, whereas the gritty rises (some, good cycling) invariably were barren or spinifex-covered. ”

“ Will the sport and pastime of cycling ever become aristocratic? It is to be feared or hoped (accordingly as you admire or detest the cycle) that it will never win to this regard: at least, not while the road-racing clubs and individual cyclists continue to render the Queen’s highway dangerous for all other travellers ”

“ On the other hand, the pedal bicycle is a restful and noiseless form of locomotion for those who do not care for the hurry and bustle of a motor cycle ride, and cycling, when undertaken in accordance with ones powers, is probably the most health giving form of recreation for the mind and body. ”

“ For this reason the machine was regarded as dangerous, and however enthusiastic one may have been about the ordinary—and I was an enthusiastic rider of it once—there is no denying that it was only possible for comparatively young and athletic men, and if it had remained the only bicycle obtainable, the pastime and the utility of cycling would never have reached its present state of popularity. ”

“ The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus:
"When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps, lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the same distance in less than one third of the time." ”

“ Racing on high bicycles began to attract the attention of the public when proper cycling tracks commenced to appear in various parts of the kingdom. Previous to the construction of cinder tracks some racing had taken place on grass running tracks, three and four laps making a mile. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Almost overnight cycling became a national craze in the United States. “A frenzy seized upon the people and men and women of all stations were riding wheels; ardent cyclists were found in every city, village and hamlet.” [21]
The wheelmen were not content to do their riding on the relatively smooth city streets, but fanned out into the country in all directions. They organized cross-country rallies, road races, weekend excursions. These activities brought the wheelmen into intimate contact with the miserable country roads, and they became vociferous advocates of road improvement. ”

“ There is nothing so monotonous when cycling as to follow a perfectly straight road. Even long distance airmen will tell you that flying in a straight line for hour after hour becomes terribly irksome, and they often yearn for the motor or cycle and the turnings and twistings of the road.
The increasing amount of motor traffic and the possible conversion of some main through routes for the use of motor-cars alone has caused the Transport Ministry to consider the question of making special cyclists' paths. ”

“ He dismounted and laid his bicycle on the side of the road. He had already ridden much further than he wanted to. The duties of a dean are not a good preparation for a cycling tour in company with an energetic girl of eighteen years old. ”

“ For there is no doubt whatever that the days are gone, never to return, when cycles were stacked by the hundred in the broad village street on Saturdays and Sundays. Ripley has been called the Mecca of every good cyclist, and for some fifteen years its popularity was great among London clubmen, to whom the twenty-three miles from town, and the run home again across the commons that border the Portsmouth road from London, formed a delightful day’s cycling. ”

“ A succession of improvements followed, including pneumatic tires, free wheels, two-speed and three-speed gears, the adaptation of the bicycle to the use of ladies, and the supplementing of the bicycle by tricycles, sociables, tandems and the motor-cycle.
Cycles have been well defined as "the poor man's carriage"; but they are to-day favoured by every class of the community. Thanks, more especially, to the numerous local cycling clubs and the great touring clubs, of which the latter count their members by tens of thousands, cycles have materially developed the taste for travel ”

“ To the north and east of Paris some good riding is to be had, and the scenery is almost always delightful, but there is a vast amount of pavé. This may be usually avoided by taking to the byroads, information about which, now that cycling has become so popular, can often be had from cycle agents, or efficient repairers, who are to be found in every town. ”

“ The safety bicycle, with pneumatic tires, rendered cycling universally popular, not merely as a pastime but as a convenient means of locomotion for everyday use. Made with a drop-frame, it also enabled women to cycle without being confined to a heavy tricycle or compelled to assume “rational dress.” In consequence there was an enormous expansion in the cycle industry. In England the demand for machines had become so great by 1895 that the makers were unable to cope with it. ”

“ In this way bicycling has added, methinks, an item to the hurry and breathlessness of existence, and to the difficulty of enjoying the passing hour—nay, the passing landscape. I have only once travelled on a bicycle, and, despite pleasant incidents and excellent company, I think it was a mistake; there was an inn to reach, a train to catch, a meal to secure, darkness to race against. ”

“ Sight-seeing with ease and comfort is the ideal of the cycling tourist, and this run into a corner of Buckinghamshire and the Milton country comes as near the ideal as anything ever does in a world of punctures, leakages, hills, headwinds, and weather that is either sultry or soaking. ”

“ WILLIAM THE WHEELMAN
"'I can only emphasize the fact that I consider that physically, morally, and socially, the benefits that cycling confers on the men of the present day are almost unbounded.' (Aside) Wish I were on a 'Safety'!!"
Bicycling, Croquet, Swimming
Of the brief vogue of bicycling among the "smart set" I have spoken already. The abuse of this indispensable machine inspired a new version of "Daisy Bell, or a Bicycle [Pg 355] Made for Two"—"Blazy Bill or the Bicycle Cad"—of which it may suffice to quote the last stanza:—
Blazy! ”

“ Cycling has produced a literature of its own, both of the pastime and of the trade. Owing to the enormous profits which, for several years, were obtained by cycle makers, a trade press appeared which simply lived by, and out of, its advertisers ”

“ Only the invention of the low-bent frame made cycling for women possible about 1892. I remember gazing one day out of an hotel window in Copenhagen, when to my surprise I saw a woman riding on a bicycle. ”

“ The popularity of cycling in this country is due largely to the excellent network of roads we possess. The surfaces, it is true, are fast deteriorating owing to abnormally heavy traffic which they were not constructed to bear ”

“ In such matters the individual wheelman is powerless and the ordinary club ineffective; but a league of many thousand cyclists can exercise a great influence in obtaining public recognition of what wheelmen want and in promoting the success and increasing the popularity of cycling. ”

“ A little experience will soon teach the rider how to exercise the care necessary to prevent falls. He will learn to lean well back in his saddle when descending a hill, when about to apply his brake, or upon striking a stone or other obstacle. He will learn to lean forward when ascending a hill, and to dismount rather than to try and force his machine through sand.
That bicycling is a healthy exercise is a fact beyond dispute, as any physician who has the slightest knowledge of the bicycle will assure you. ”

“ Lewes for acetylene is for enriching ordinary illuminating gas.
Cycling and the Heart.—Dr. B. W. Richardson represents cycling as differing from other exercises in that it tells primarily and most distinctly upon the heart. It produces at once a quickened circulation, though the riders may not be conscious of it; and this accounts for the astonishing journeys a cyclist can undertake, and his endurance as against sleep. ”

“ The sand thence becomes heavier, and so lasts to a watercourse—the Woodforde. Here are camping places—soakages and waterholes—and at one of these (a crossing of the creek) I spend a night.
A very large burr has put in an appearance; and after it come burrs of all sizes and of several different varieties.
* * * *
Much of the cycling hereabout is equivalent to cross-country riding. Wherever the ground is soft the loose sand blows in and fills up the two narrow parallel riding spaces which are sole indications of wheeled vehicles having travelled this way at some time long gone by. ”

“ In riding and bicycling there is the great interest of managing the horse and propelling the bicycle, the exhilaration and quickened circulation produced by passing rapidly through the air, together with the refreshment gained through the eye by the contemplation of new and varied scenes, [398] especially if they be beautiful. ”

“ Rowing gloves should protect the hands.
The ordinary rowing costume for gentlemen is white flannel trousers, white rowing jersey and a straw hat. Peajackets are worn when their owners are not absolutely employed in pulling the oar.
343
Bicycle: Etiquette
Cycling having taken such a mighty grasp upon the land, it has naturally followed that an etiquette of cycling should be established, and that it should be well established and rigidly regarded by society. ”

“ In ordinary cases the object of the artist is to convince the hesitating neophyte that the sport of bicycling consists in sitting on a luxurious saddle, and being moved rapidly in the direction you wish to go by unseen heavenly powers.
Generally speaking, the rider is a lady, and then one feels that, for perfect bodily rest combined with entire freedom from mental anxiety, slumber upon a water-bed cannot compare with bicycle-riding upon a hilly road. No fairy travelling on a summer cloud could take things more easily than does the bicycle girl, according to the poster. ”

“ Then the imaginary spectators would fall a-talking of the fashionableness of bicycling,—how judges and stockbrokers and actresses and, in fact, all the best people rode, and how that it was often the fancy of such great folk to shun the big hotels, the adulation of urban crowds, and seek, incognito, the cosy quaintnesses of village life. ”

“ But bicycling, like all other sports and exercises, has its abuses as well as its uses, and when one sees men flying along a road (to the manifest danger of the public) bent double over the handles of their machines, it gives one pause, as to whether crooked backs, contracted chests, and knee trouble are not in store for a future generation. ”

“ All bicycle shoes should be broad on the ball, because the pedaling is done with the ball, not with the under curve, as so many think. Doeskin gloves are best for ordinary riding. Bloomers should be made to fasten at the left side of the back, which leaves room for a pocket on the right side. Tinted leggings should always match the hat and gloves.
“Tell the ladies to have their saddles built high and wide in the back, sloping away and downwards in front; and that if they pedal properly there is no reason why bicycling should not be a healthful, moral, modest and permanent form of exercise. ”

“ In the introduction to the ‘Indispensable Bicyclists’ Hand-Book’ this year we say; ‘The Ordinary bicycle, for the young and active, is the most delightful form of cycle to possess, and the youth of England147 and other active nations will ever select it in preference to its perhaps safer, yet more cumbrous rival. ”

“ With a light bicycle that can be lifted over small obstructions, an expert could go almost anywhere that it would be practicable to take a horse, and when you consider how much easier it would be to conceal your cycle, in case a little excursion on foot were necessary, and how much less danger there would be when no provender or shelter is required for the steed, certainly the idea is feasible. ”

“ “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. ”

“ The cycle hobbyist is one of the quaint characters of the fraternity, and he exists in profusion; turns up at all the meets, and always makes his ubiquitous presence felt.
Only make a wheel big enough, a lever long enough, or a spring strong enough, and he has you foul. ”