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LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 in 2011 witii funding from 
 Tine Library of Congress 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/pleasurecyclingOOclyd 
 
PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
PLEASURE-CYCLING 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY CLY^DE 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPAXY 
 
 1895 
 
Copyright, 1895, 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 ^ntbrrsttg Press : 
 John "VVii-son and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 TN this little book, the writer, looking 
 -*- back to his own days of inexperience 
 in cycling, has endeavored to furnish some 
 useful information and advice to those who 
 intend joining the army of w^lieelmen, or 
 who, in their first season on the road, are 
 beginning to appreciate the healthy pleasure 
 which cycling brings. The book being es- 
 pecially intended to aid the amateur rider 
 of the safety bicycle in the intelligent use 
 of his wheel, the writer has kept that pur- 
 pose closely in view, and has not included 
 matters aside from it ; such, for example, as 
 the history of the development of the bicy- 
 cle, and training for track and road racing. 
 
 Further, the writer has attempted, per- 
 haps too emphatically as some may think, to 
 
b PREFACE. 
 
 commend the merits of bicycling as a means 
 towards innocent enjoyment and healthy liv- 
 ing. But if, to persons as yet ignorant of 
 the art and mystery of wheeling, he may 
 seem to speak extravagantly, he is sure that 
 his book will not be the subject of such re- 
 proach from those to whom, as to himself, 
 the bicycle has brought a new and durable 
 pleasure into life. 
 
 The book has been written solely for the 
 instruction and benefit of cyclers in pursuit 
 of health and pleasure ; and, whatever crit- 
 icism the opinions expressed in it may meet, 
 they have at least the merits of honesty 
 and independence. 
 
 The writer's acknowledgments are due to 
 the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hart- 
 ford, Connecticut, for permission to repro- 
 duce the illustrations contained in the book ; 
 and to friends for advice and suggestions 
 generously given while it was in preparation. 
 
 H. C. 
 
 March, 1895. 
 
TRE WHEELMAN. 
 
 Miirraurs of leaves and of brooks, the rhythmical beat 
 
 of the breakers 
 Pounding the curve of the shore^ and the sea-birds rest- 
 lessly icheeling, — 
 Bells of the kine on the hills and the click of the scythes 
 
 i?i the meadow, — 
 Scents of the fern from the pasture, the loild roses' bloom 
 
 in the thicket, — 
 Resinous breathing of pines, cool cloud-shadows crossiiig 
 
 the mountains : 
 These his, as he rides, self-contained atid exulting i?i 
 
 motion, — 
 JV'mds softly touching his face to whisper the secrets of 
 
 summer, — 
 Straight through the shadow and sunlight, swift as the 
 
 birds, and as silent ! 
 
 H. C. 
 
 March, 1895. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Poetry of ]Motiox .... 11 
 
 II. Choosixg a Bicycle 31 
 
 III. How to Ride 63 
 
 lY. Takixg Care of a Bicycle . . . 103 
 
 V. Dress and Equipmext 123 
 
 YI. Cyclixg axd Health 141 
 
 YII. Ox THE Road 165 
 
 IXDEX iSl 
 
I. 
 
 THE POETRY OF MOTION. 
 
''Never was the man of spirit the victim of ennui if 
 his body was exposed to fatigue ; never did the man 
 healthy of body fail to find life light if he had some- 
 thing to engage his mifid'^ 
 
 Alexandre Dumas. 
 
I. 
 
 Of the million bicycles, or there- 
 abouts, in use in the United 
 States during the summer of 
 1894, some hundreds were rid- 
 den on the roads or race-tracks 
 by amateur or professional rac- 
 ing-men. Many thousands were used, wholly 
 or in part, in the business of their owners, 
 that is in going to and from offices, shops, 
 or factories at morning and evening, carry- 
 ing messages, taking orders, visiting patients, 
 and making pastoral visits. But probably 
 three quarters of the million wheels were 
 
14 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 devoted to pleasure-riding ; and if the use of 
 the bicycle for this purpose increases as it 
 seems bound to do, cycling is to become dis- 
 tinctively our national sport. It may not 
 become, or may not long remain, popular 
 with the class which seeks only those sports 
 that are made impossible to others by reason 
 of their expensiveness or the need of special 
 surroundings for the practice of them, but 
 the inherent delight of riding is too bewitch- 
 ing to be abandoned by most of those who 
 have once experienced it. 
 
 It is about the wheel, as a means of 
 amusement and exercise, that this little 
 book is written. But not only as a sport 
 is cycling destined to furnish innocent and 
 exquisite pleasure to thousands of men and 
 women whose enjoyments heretofore, through 
 the stress of narrow circumstances or of 
 absorbing avocations, have been very lim- 
 ited, ■ — not only is it to bring better health 
 and sounder constitutions to this generation 
 of young and middle-aged Americans, — it 
 is to be the saver of time and muscle to busy 
 men, who will adapt the wheel to a hundred 
 purposes in their daily work for which they 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 15 
 
 have been accustomed to use their o\Yn un- 
 assisted legs and lungs. When the bicycle 
 has fairly taken its place as the popular 
 vehicle of the day, the roads and highways 
 must be adapted to it, and there will no 
 longer be room for the rej^roach, now too 
 true, that the common highways of the 
 United States are vastly inferior to those 
 of England and the continent of Europe.^ 
 The safety bicycle is without doubt the 
 safest road vehicle yet invented. It is fair 
 to assume that nearly all the serious road 
 accidents happening to cyclers have been 
 
 1 The bicycle is now in use in nearly all the armies of 
 Europe, and in that of Japan; and it is likely that, within 
 a short time, a bicycle corps of couriers and scouts 
 will become a part of the regular army of the United 
 States, in spite of the difficulties which now attend 
 movement by the wheel over the rough country in the 
 "West, and the bad roads which are the rule rather than 
 the exception throughout the interior of the country. In 
 his Annual Report for 1892, Major General Miles said : 
 "The results obtained, under the most adverse and dis- 
 couraging conditions, prove conclusively that the bicycle 
 Avill in the future prove to be a most valuable auxiliary 
 in military operations, not only for courier service, but 
 also for rapidly moving organized bodies of men over the 
 countrv." 
 
16 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 recorded in the newspapers of the day ; and 
 it will be found that by far the greater 
 number of these have occurred by reason of 
 the unskilfuhiess of tire rider or his gross 
 carelessness, as by " coasting " in the night, 
 or in failing to give warning of his approach 
 in a frequented street. It is of course fair 
 to exclude from the reckoning accidents 
 occurring to professional or amateur racers 
 competing with each other at close quarters, 
 or to record-breakers on the road. 
 
 Bicycling adapts itself to all sorts and 
 conditions of men. No other out-door sport, 
 unless it be the gentle croquet, can be prac- 
 tised at all without a violent deoTee of 
 physical exertion. This is especially true of 
 base-ball, foot-ball, and tennis. But on a 
 wheel you may jog along a country road at 
 a iive-mile gait, or you may emulate Zim- 
 merman upon the race-track. You may 
 spin without conscious effort along a sub- 
 urban '' boulevard," or you may, with the 
 utmost exertion of wind and muscle, climb 
 a long acclivity to dash breathlessly down 
 on the other side. You may content your- 
 self with a ten-mile ride each day, or you 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTIOiV. 17 
 
 may train for a succession of century runs. 
 Whatever measure of time and speed you 
 adopt for yourself, you will find the sport 
 a delight which grows with time and expe- 
 rience. The wheelman and his wheel are 
 one in a much closer degree than the eques- 
 trian and his horse; for, as between the 
 horse and his rider, there is often, if not 
 always, a conflict of wills, whereas your 
 wheel is, to all intents and purposes, a part 
 of yourself, and answers as if by instinct to 
 your every whim and purpose. Its power 
 is so much added to your own, and as you 
 vault into the saddle and feel the pedals 
 under your feet, you mount into a realm 
 of new possibilities. The petty vexations 
 of life may pursue you on the road, but 
 they cannot overtake you, for the black care 
 that is said to sit behind the horseman can- 
 not find room on the bicycle. Dulness, 
 lassitude, headache, fly away on the breeze 
 which your own motion creates. On the 
 wheel, at least, you will find your own 
 thoughts welcome companions, and whether 
 you ride alone or in company you will never 
 be lonely. 
 
18 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 You will find in this sport not only pleas- 
 ure, but health. Every man possessed of 
 two legs and a sound heart may take to the 
 wheel with the assurance that his legs will 
 grow stronger, his wind and digestion better, 
 and his nerves less importunate. The tonic 
 effect of the sport upon all the functions of 
 the body is simply amazing. If a jaded 
 business or professional man, overwrought 
 and weary with his year's work and looking 
 forward with apprehension to his work to 
 come, will devote at the beginning of the 
 season two hours each day to the wheel, he 
 will find, in August, that his accustomed 
 outing at seaside or mountains is no longer 
 a necessity, and if he takes it, it will be with 
 his wheel as a companion. 
 
 Among the many benefits which cycling 
 is to confer on us Americans, not the least 
 is this, that it will confute the absurd notion 
 that athletic and manly sports are exclu- 
 sively for very young men, — a notion which 
 has never obtained in England, where men 
 of seventy shoot all day over rough land, or 
 ride to hounds, or like Gladstone, are wood- 
 choppers or indefatigable pedestrians. "To 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 19 
 
 say that a man is too old to ride is to state 
 an absurdity. Wheeling is easier than walk- 
 ing, and when a man is too old to walk he is 
 ready to die. And he is 
 never ready to do that." 
 
 Scarcely less notable than 
 its physical benefits is the 
 influence for moral good 
 which cycling brings to. 
 every community where it 
 is practised. The sport fosters wholesome 
 thoughts and sane habits of living ; and the 
 purely healthy excitement which it brings 
 in such large measure makes unattractive 
 that gross artificial excitement which is the 
 chief attraction to the use of stimulants. 
 Says a prominent clergyman ^ in one of our 
 cities : " Many a saloon, with its baneful 
 adjimcts of betting and gambling, has been 
 forced to loosen its hold upon young man- 
 hood since the advent of the wheel, and 
 street corners, once foul and disgusting spots, 
 have become clean and wholesome, just be- 
 cause a clean and wholesome exercise has 
 been provided for many who idly drifted 
 
 1 Rev. Dr. Heischmann. 
 
20 PLEASURE-CYCLING, 
 
 into the company of the profane and de- 
 graded." 
 
 Except rainy days, all times are good 
 times to the wheelman. Dusty roads will 
 never stop him, and a 
 degree of heat which 
 would overpower him 
 walking produces but 
 the slightest discomfort 
 as he spins along in the 
 breeze that he creates 
 for himself. And that 
 is a very muddy road through which the 
 experienced wheelman cannot pick his way. 
 Even sandy roads, which are an abomina- 
 tion in very dry weather, afford the best of 
 riding after a smart rain. 
 
 In early summer, you may rise with the 
 lark, or rather with the robin, and ride 
 through the cool sweetness of the early 
 morning along country roads, where the 
 wild roses and buttercups are freshened by 
 the dew, and the scent of newly mown hay 
 fills the air. Twenty miles you make out 
 and home, before the work of the day has 
 fairly begun for lazy people who know not 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 21 
 
 the pleasures of the road and the wheel. 
 Or you may ride in the August twilights, 
 when the sunset glows crimson in the west 
 or the great thunder clouds warn you to 
 hasten home, along roads wdiere the air is 
 heavy w4th the scents of the later wild 
 flowers, and the whippoorwills are begin- 
 ning to sing and the frogs to croak in the 
 marshes. 
 
 In the cooler air of September, you will 
 ride longer and farther under the rolling 
 fair weather clouds, through miles of golden- 
 rod and asters, or along high bluffs or sandy 
 beaches in sidit of the soft-soundim:j sea. 
 But best of all, perhaps, are the October 
 days. The wayside woods blaze with color ; 
 the maples are scarlet and the beeches gold. 
 The sumac glows red by the roadside, and 
 the russet of the oaks warms into a royal 
 crimson under the bright sun. The pines 
 fill the air with a stimulating; frao-rance, the 
 w^ind just breathes through them as you run 
 softly through a wood road over the brown 
 needles which they have been patiently 
 dropping for you through many tree genera- 
 tions. The tinkle of a cow-bell in a neigh- 
 
22 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 boring pasture only accents the silence. 
 You will not be lonely, although your only 
 companion may be a reel squirrel which 
 essays to race with you along the stone 
 wall, or an occasional rabbit sitting on his 
 haunches in the undergrowth to see you 
 pass. 
 
 On a clear November morning, when a 
 white frost has ushered in an Indian summer 
 day, and the roads are beaten hard by the 
 heavy autumn rains, you may start for a 
 fifty-mile run, knowing that your wheel 
 will be all alive under you, and that fatigue 
 will fly away on the cool breeze. The dead 
 leaves rustle under your wheels ; the late 
 apple gatherers are at work in the roadside 
 orchards; the blue smoke from burning 
 leaves and rubbish rises here and there in 
 the stripped cornfields ; the distant woods 
 are shadowed in soft grays and purples. In 
 the early afternoon, you stop at a country 
 tavern that keeps a good fire and a hot din- 
 ner ready for travellers. Then a rest and 
 a smoke, — if you will smoke, — and home 
 again in the cool early twilight. There, 
 after you have changed and eaten, you may 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 23 
 
 lie back in your easy-chair, conscious of a 
 day well spent as you bask in the light of 
 the autumn wood fire, with just that deli- 
 cious sense of fatigue that makes a luxury 
 of repose, relating your day's adventures, 
 if haply you find sympathetic ears to listen, 
 or dreaming at intervals over the pages of 
 some book of adventure, like Stevenson or 
 Dumas, that fits into your mood, The 
 morrow may bring its duties and cares, its 
 bargains, or its briefs, or its sermon ; but for 
 the night you are care-free, and you will 
 permit nothing to disturb the serenity of 
 your mind. 
 
 Perhaps, under the evening lamp, you 
 will fall to planning new excursions to 
 come. Fortunate for you, if you do not 
 hear a northeaster rising in the night, and 
 get up in the morning to find the ground 
 white with the season's first snow. For it 
 is sadly true that in the winter season, gen- 
 erally from the middle of November to the 
 middle of April, if you spend it north of the 
 Potomac, you must, practically, lay up your 
 machine and forego the delights of cycling. 
 Some enthusiastic riders, to be sure, will 
 
24 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 watch and wait for every favorable turn of 
 winter weather, and ride even on the snow- 
 covered roads, when these are in any way 
 practicable. But the winter days, especially 
 in the climate of New England, ahbrd but 
 few opportunities for comfortable riding ; 
 and most of us must let our wheels rest 
 while we plan excursions for the far-away 
 spring. If we are fortunately within reach 
 of a riding-school or " rink," we may enjoy 
 an occasional spin on its hard floor, — a poor 
 substitute for the country road, but better 
 than nothing. 
 
 But if the cycler has to endure a winter 
 of discontent, the spring brings to him a 
 brighter promise than to others. In the 
 dawn of the murky March mornings, he 
 hears the cawing of the early crows making 
 their northward journey, and they become 
 for him halcyon birds. Muddy roads do not 
 annoy him, for the worse the ways the 
 sooner they will become settled. He hears 
 with satisfaction the remark, uttered oftener 
 and oftener, " the bicycles will soon be out," 
 and he resolves to devote his next holiday, 
 not to say the next Sunday, to cleaning and 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 25 
 
 setting up his machine. Soon he sees com- 
 placent boys trundling single wheels along 
 the pavement to or from the repair shop, and 
 then an expressman's wagon crowned with a 
 glittering new bicycle going out of town. 
 At length comes the morning when he 
 beholds the avenues leading to the city all 
 dotted over with moving wheels, and he 
 contemns business and engagements and 
 makes haste for home and the road. That 
 first ride of the season on a mild spring day 
 is an event to be marked with a red letter 
 in the cycler's calendar. 
 
 Wheeling levels all degrees, and disproves 
 the adage that " crabbed age and youth can- 
 not live together." Like other healthy and 
 manly sports, this brings to the surface the 
 boyishness latent in every man who is worth 
 his salt. The wheelman is your modern 
 Don Quixote, who finds his way beset with 
 small marvellous adventures. His fellow^ 
 wheelmen, met upon the road, are for him 
 good comrades, or objects of mild, benevolent 
 curiosity. One has a tire mysteriously de- 
 flated, and is in vain endeavoring to find the 
 leak under the lee of the stone wall How 
 
26 
 
 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 ready are you to proffer him your advice and 
 best assistance. A flock of hens, with a per- 
 versity peculiar to 
 their breed and 
 sex, scuttle under 
 the wheel of that 
 clean cut young 
 stranger in the 
 crimson jersey, 
 and one is nearly 
 "' ~" decapitated. " 
 you monkey on a bicycle I " screams an old 
 woman, the owner of the foolish fowl, as she 
 observes the accident from her doorway, and 
 this appears to you an exceeding funny inci- 
 dent in the human comedy as you ride up 
 prepared to arbitrate differences between the 
 virago and the bewildered youth. You meet 
 a stout lady in navy blue ambling along at 
 a five-mile gait. Her wheel-frame is fes- 
 tooned with parcels, apparently of groceries, 
 and a small milk-can depends gracefully 
 from her handle-bar. You are sure that you 
 know her, as she wheels from the highway 
 into a lane that leads to a region of aban- 
 doned farms. You stop in a convenient 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 27 
 
 shady fence-corner for a rest and a smoke. 
 Soon comes another on a wheel numbered 
 in the same series as your own, and you fall 
 to discussing with its rider important ques- 
 tions of make and merit of machines, or the 
 respective advantages of single and double 
 tubes for tires, or the best means of inflict- 
 ing punishment on the pestilent curs who, 
 on the country roads, bark and snap about 
 your pedals. All the loquacity that is in you 
 becomes actively developed, and you chat 
 unreservedly with the farmer 
 hoeing his corn, or the keeper 
 of the country grocery where 
 you stop to buy a bad cigar. 
 You feel a certain benevo- 
 lent superiority to the pedes- 
 trians whom you meet upon 
 the road, and as for horses you regard them 
 as but poor creatures ; knowing, as you do, 
 that on your machine you may make your 
 fifty or sixty miles a day for an indefinite 
 period, — a thing utterly impossible to a 
 horse, — and that your steed of steel will 
 never tire, or stumble, or kick, or balk, or 
 run away. 
 
28 PLEASURE-CYCLING. • 
 
 After all, it is vain to attempt to explain 
 to the uninitiated the delight which the 
 gratification of what has aptly been called 
 the " bicycle passion " brings to its vota- 
 ries. It is a delight that grows with time 
 and practice, and never wearies. To the 
 healthy mind and body, it brings a fresh 
 sense of power and the never failing joy of 
 motion ; to the lover of natural beauty, a 
 closer fellowship with the trees and the 
 flowers, and the glory of the hills and sea. 
 Perhaps it has not been more exquisitely 
 expressed than in these verses of Eben E. 
 Eexford. 
 
 " It 's a joy to be up in the morning when the dew is 
 
 still on the clover, 
 When the air is full of sweetness that seems like a 
 
 draught divine, 
 To mount one's wheel and go flying away, away 
 
 like a rover 
 In the wide, bright world of beauty, — and all the 
 
 world is mine ! 
 
 "I sing in my care-free gladness, I am kin to the 
 wind that 's blowing, 
 I am thrilled with the bliss of motion like a bird 
 that skims the down ; 
 
THE POETRY OF MOTION. 
 
 29 
 
 I feel the blood of a gypsy in my pulses coming 
 
 going, — 
 Give me my wheel for a comrade, and the king 
 
 may keep his crown ! " 
 
II. 
 
 CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 
 
' You may talk about your ships of state 
 
 And how they plough the main ; 
 You may talk about your big balloons, 
 
 And eke your railroad train ; 
 You may jolly up your trottijig horse, 
 
 And speed him till he reel ; 
 But when you 're after health and fun 
 There ^s nothing like the wheels 
 
 John Henderson Garnsey. 
 
11. 
 
 It is not the purpose of this 
 book to give a detailed history 
 of the development of the 
 Safety Bicycle of 1895 from the 
 "Celeripede" and"Drasine" of 
 1816, and the machines called 
 " hobby-horses," — in all of 
 which the rider sat on a perch 
 between the two w^heels and propelled the 
 machine by thrusting with his feet against 
 through the Lallemant Ye- 
 
 3 
 
 the ground 
 
34 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 locipede of 1866, to which, it is believed, 
 the pedal motion was first applied, and in 
 which the essential elements of the modern 
 " Safety " first appear. Nor is it worth the 
 v/hile to devote space to the " high wheels," 
 or "ordinaries," so common ten years ago, 
 but which have now nearly disappeared 
 from the roads. An exhaustive and accurate 
 " History of the Bicycle " may be found in 
 Luther H. Porter's " Wheels and Wheeling," ^ 
 and to that book the reader who may be 
 interested in the subject is referred. 
 
 Neither is it possible to attempt here a 
 description in detail of the different bicycles 
 now on sale in the English and American 
 markets. The illustrated catalogues and 
 circulars issued by their respective manufac- 
 turers sufficiently and fairly describe the 
 details and peculiarities of the different 
 wheels, so that an intending purchaser, 
 studying and comparing the catalogues, can 
 get a very good idea of the characteristics of 
 the best known bicycles. 
 
 1 Published by the Boston Wheelman Company, 
 
 1892. . 
 

 SAFETY BICYCLE 
 
 1895. 
 
 1. 
 
 Frame 
 
 9. 
 
 Chain 
 
 2. 
 
 Sprocket- Bracket 
 
 10. 
 
 Eear- Sprocket 
 
 3. 
 
 Sprocket 
 
 11. 
 
 Saddle-Post 
 
 4. 
 
 Pedal-Cranks and Pedals 
 
 12. 
 
 Saddle-Rod 
 
 5. 
 
 Wheels 
 
 13. 
 
 Saddle 
 
 6. 
 
 The Plead 
 
 14. 
 
 Pneumatic Tires 
 
 7. 
 
 Steering-Post 
 
 15. 
 
 Valves 
 
 8. Fork 
 
 16. Step 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 37 
 
 The principal parts, common to most 
 models of the safety bicycle/ are : — 
 
 The Frame (1), built from steel tubing, 
 and answering to the body of an ordinary 
 wheeled vehicle. Frames are built of differ- 
 ent heights to suit the reach of different 
 riders. At the base of the frame the 
 
 Sprocket-Bracket (2), or crank-bracket, 
 carrying a shaft or axle which answers to 
 the main shaft in any system of machinery, 
 and on which is fixed a 
 
 Sprocket (3), or toothed wheel, and the 
 
 Pedal-Cranks and Pedals (4). 
 
 The Wheels (5), generally twenty-eight 
 inches in diameter, the rear beincf the drivinsf, 
 and the front the steering wheel. 
 
 The Head (6), consisting of the handle- 
 bar and the vertically set tube which 
 carries it. This vertical tube slides into 
 and is clamped to a tube, which passes 
 through the forward tube of the frame, 
 called the 
 
 1 See Illustration. There is a line of safety bicycles 
 in which the power is transmitted from the crank-bracket 
 to the rear axle by means of a rigid shaft and bevelled 
 gearing. 
 
38 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 Steering-Post (7), and makes the top of 
 the 
 
 Fork (8), which, being turned with the 
 movement of the head, takes the steering- 
 wheel with it. 
 
 The Chain (9), which transmits the power 
 from the sprocket to the 
 
 Hear Sprocket (10), a smaller toothed 
 wheel set on the rear axle of the machine. 
 
 The Saddle-Post (U), or the tube of the 
 frame into which slides the 
 
 SADDLE-PtOD (12), or tube, carrying the 
 
 Saddle (13), which is adjustable to any 
 convenient height. 
 
 The Pneumatic Tires (14). 
 
 The Valves (15), passing through the 
 wheel felloes, by the application of an air- 
 pump to which the tires are inflated. 
 
 The Step (16), usually a tubular pro- 
 longation of the left hand rear axle nut. 
 
 The double part of the Frame, carrying the 
 rear axle bearings, is called the Eear Fork. 
 
 Foot-Eests, or '' Coasters," set upon the 
 steering-fork, and Brake- Work, may be 
 added ; also Lantern-Clip, Bell, and a Cy- 
 clometer to measure distances. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 39 
 
 The principal devices upon which the 
 utility of the modern safety depends are, 
 first, the system of gear, and transmission of 
 power by the endless chain; secondly, the 
 application of the ball-bearing ; and, thirdly, 
 the pneumatic tire. 
 
 By the use of the gear and chain, a wheel 
 of small diameter, say twenty-eight inches, 
 is made the equivalent of a wheel of from 
 two to three times its own diameter, such 
 as was used in the "high wheels" of ten 
 years ago ; although this is effected with 
 some comparative loss of power through 
 friction and lost motion. 
 
 By suspending the wheel and sprocket 
 axles, and the spindles of the loose pedals, 
 within circles of steel balls, accurately turned 
 and revolving on one another and suitably 
 enclosed within cones and cases, the friction 
 of the moving parts has been reduced, to 
 the great advantage of the durability of the 
 machine and ease in propulsion. 
 
 The vibration of the rigid frame of the 
 bicycle when running upon ordinary roads, 
 almost unendurable in the primitive ma- 
 chines, was greatly lessened by the appli- 
 
40 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 cation of the cushion tire, and is made 
 nearly inappreciable by the use of the 
 "pneumatic." ^ 
 
 The best mechanical ingenuity and the 
 most exquisite technical skill have been 
 applied to devisiug and perfecting the parts 
 of the modern bicycle ; had not this been 
 so, the practical difficulties in transmitting 
 power through the complicated and wasteful 
 mechanism of the machine could not have 
 been overcome, and, like the old velocipedes, 
 the cycle would have been but a toy, useless 
 for practical road work. 
 
 The initial force which moves the bicycle 
 is a foot pressure, or " push," applied to a 
 loose pedal set at the end of a crank and 
 moving a shaft or axle on which is set a 
 toothed wheel called a " sprocket." This is a 
 lever movement, in which the pedal-crank is 
 the long arm, and the radius of the sprocket 
 the shorter arm, the weight here being the 
 
 1 Before the application of the pneumatic tire, various 
 devices of spring forks, frames, and saddles were applied 
 in conjunction with the cushion tire, to take up vibration; 
 and many machines thus equipjjed are still to he seen 
 upon the road. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 41 
 
 force in pounds necessary to move the chain 
 and attached gearing; in other words, the 
 whole load, plus friction and lost motion. 
 The power is then transferred by an endless 
 chain (in itself one of the most wasteful 
 methods of conveying power) to a smaller 
 sprocket-wheel set on the rear axle of the 
 machine. Here we have another lever 
 action, in which the power is applied to the 
 extremity of the short arm of the lever, this 
 being the radius of the rear sprocket, while 
 the long arm is the radius, or spoke, of the 
 rear wheel; the weight being finally lifted 
 at the end of the spoke where it meets the 
 rim of the wheel. It is evident that this 
 weight is equivalent to the force, measured 
 in pounds, required to propel the machine, 
 and that it is just so much less than the 
 force exerted by the rider on the pedal- 
 crank as is lost by friction or wasted motion 
 suffered in the transmission of power through 
 the whole train of mechanism. 
 
 The great strain borne by the long arm in 
 the second lever system has been lessened 
 by the tangential arrangement of the spokes, 
 which is not the least useful of the various 
 
42 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 devices which have been applied to the 
 bicycle manufacture. 
 
 By the application of the ball-bearings 
 at the tops respectively of the steering-post 
 and fork, the actual work of steering the 
 bicycle has been reduced to a niinimun, and 
 the durability of the working parts insured. 
 
 The frames of the best modern bicycles 
 are built of steel or nickel steel tubing. 
 The frame-joints, axles, sprocket-brackets, 
 and balls for the bearings, with their cones 
 and cases, are made from steel forgings, 
 turned down to shape. For the joints, how- 
 ever, some manufacturers have adopted the 
 " lap " method of joining, in which the ends 
 of the tubes are lapped and reinforced, and 
 the joint then brazed. 
 
 The problem of more equally dividing the 
 load between the front and rear wheel-bear- 
 ings of the machine has not yet been solved, 
 for reasons which the reader will understand 
 if he studies carefully the arrangement of 
 parts, — the architectural plan, if it may be so 
 called, of his bicycle. Even if it were pos- 
 sible to distribute the load equally between 
 the two wheels, it is a question whether this 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 43 
 
 would result in any practical advantage, 
 since it is evident that, as the burden thrown 
 on the forward or steering wheel is increased, 
 the friction at the steering-head becomes 
 greater, and the machine less sensitive to 
 steering. 
 
 Great ingenuity has been applied to the 
 perfecting of the bicycle chain. The self- 
 oiling or block chain is now used in the best 
 machines, each block containing a felt pad, 
 which, being properly filled with oil, will 
 keep the chain sufficiently lubricated for a 
 run of several hundred miles. 
 
 The accomplished wheelman must be a 
 bit of a machinist as well. He wall learn 
 all he can from books, catalogues, and circu- 
 lars, from bicycle agents and manufacturers 
 and fellow cyclers ; but most and best from 
 carefuily studying his own machine, and from 
 trying to keep it always in perfect working 
 order. 
 
 The writer, like most wheelmen, may have 
 an opinion as to which is the best bicycle in 
 the market, but, for obvious reasons, he does 
 not intend to obtrude his opinion here. 
 
44 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 Get that machine which you are con- 
 vinced, upon careful inquiry, is the best 
 of the high-grade wheels ; and do not, 
 if you can help it, let the matter of price 
 influence your choice. Money is better in- 
 vested in a good wheel in the first place, 
 than in repairs or surgeon's bills afterwards. 
 Many of what in the trade are called second 
 class wheels do good work, but the test of 
 these has apparently to be made upon the 
 road at the risk of the rider, not in the man- 
 ufactory. Thus of two bicycles of a certain 
 manufacture, one has done excellent service 
 for two seasons and appears still to be in 
 fair condition ; the other went to pieces run- 
 ning down a moderate declivity a week after 
 it had been put upon the road. Another 
 machine of a widely advertised make, run- 
 ning at an eight-mile rate on a smooth road, 
 after a month's satisfactory service, broke 
 suddenly at the head, throwing and severely 
 injuring its rider. 
 
 Moreover, as between the high grade and 
 second class wheels, there is generally in 
 favor of the former a distinct advantage in 
 greater ease of propulsion and more sensitive 
 steering. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 45 
 
 A bicycle of the best manufacture, prop- 
 erly cared for, is not likely to get out of 
 order, unless as the result of accident or of 
 long use. Others are always in the repair 
 shop. [N'othing, unless it be a lame horse, 
 or a watch that refuses to run, is more vexa- 
 tious to its owner than a wheel that is half 
 the time unfit for road use by reason of some 
 constitutional infirmity. 
 
 The notion that the " life " of a bicycle is 
 ordinarily but one season is altogether wrong. 
 A first class wheel, well taken care of, should 
 be good for half a dozen seasons' work at 
 least, with slight expense for repairs or 
 renewal of parts. 
 
 Excellent second-hand machines are often 
 to be had which practically will do as good 
 service as new ones ; especially wheels which 
 their former owners have discarded, after a 
 season's use, for the latest pattern. But, 
 unless you are able to trust your own judg- 
 ment as a mechanic in the choice of a bicycle, 
 do not buy a second-hand wheel except of 
 the manufacturer of the machine, whose in- 
 terest it is not to send out a bicycle which 
 has not been carefully overlooked, its worn 
 
46 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 bearings replaced, and the machine properly 
 set up and adjusted. 
 
 Weight of Wheel. 
 
 For road-riding, the machine should be 
 adapted to the weight of the rider. If your 
 weight is from one hundred and forty to one 
 hundred and seventy-five pounds, you may 
 be absolutely sure that a wheel weighing 
 about thirty pounds will do good and per- 
 manent service. A lighter wheel may be 
 trusted on asphalt roads or race-tracks. 
 This rule assumes that you ride a wheel 
 with steel rims. If you use the wood rim, 
 or an all wood wheel, you of course get rid 
 of more weight. 
 
 The safety bicycle, in the first years of 
 its use, weighed from seventy to eighty 
 pounds, which weight by the application of 
 ingenious devices and improved methods of 
 manufacture was gradually reduced, until in 
 the season of 1893 we find the standard 
 road wheels weighing from thirty to forty 
 pounds. The notion has grown that, com- 
 paring wheel with wheel, the lighter is ab- 
 solutelv the better, and it is obvious that, 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 47 
 
 other things being equal, the lighter wheel 
 can be propelled with less expenditure of 
 force than the heavier one. The adoption 
 of the wood rim and tlie paring down of the 
 parts of the machine have at length produced 
 the road wheel of 1895, which weighs from 
 twenty to twenty-two pounds. 
 
 If you intend to follow the fashions in 
 bicycles, as in clothing, that is, if you are to 
 buy a new machine each season, you will of 
 course test for yourself each new construc- 
 tion ; and what follows is not intended so 
 much for your benefit as for the information 
 of those who intend to stick by their old 
 wheels so long as these do satisfactory 
 service. 
 
 As to the wearing qualities of the wood 
 rim, it is at this writing, January, 1895, too 
 soon to speak, and the writer leaves the 
 question to the reader as one only to be 
 answered by experience, merely remarking 
 that, bulk for bulk, steel is stronger than 
 any known wood, and that a steel rim, well 
 lacquered, will always remain unaffected by 
 dampness or weather conditions. But it 
 may be considered as demonstrated that a 
 
48 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 set of the best wood rims, carefully used, 
 will stand two seasons' wear at least. The 
 advantage in weight to be gained by the 
 use of the wood rim is from two to three 
 pounds. 
 
 Within certain limits, the importance of 
 a greater or less weight in road riding exists 
 rather in the imaginations of riders than in 
 reality ; as is illustrated in the story of the 
 wheelman who stopped on a hard road to 
 strip his machine of foot-rests and lantern- 
 clip. These he stowed safely in his pocket, 
 and, remounting, rode away with renewed 
 spirit. After a mile or two, he observed 
 complacently, with a sigh of satisfaction, 
 that he would not have supposed that so 
 small a redaction in weight would relieve 
 him so much. 
 
 The rider for speed and the pleasure 
 cycler, whether in neck and neck racing or 
 to break records, work under wholly different 
 conditions. Upon the racer, the slightest 
 unfavorable conditions may have the most 
 damaging results. His time may be materi- 
 ally reduced by a wet or rough track, by a 
 head wind, or by half a dozen other circum- 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 49 
 
 stances. He is to exert himself to the limits 
 of physicial endurance, and he naturally will 
 reduce his impedimenta to the utmost, since 
 with him every extra ounce of weight carried 
 tells. All superfluous clothing he will cast 
 aside, and he may even shave his head. He 
 will of course choose the lightest wheel that 
 can stand the strain of his work with a 
 probability of not breaking down ; and the 
 number of wheels that do break down under 
 the strain of track or road racing shows that 
 sometimes he risks too much. The rider for 
 pleasure seeks first in the sport safety, and 
 then comfort. Unless upon some very long 
 hills, he will not feel the difference between 
 a twenty-five and a twenty pound wheel. 
 He has to propel the weight of his own body 
 plus the weight of his machine, say, gen- 
 erally, about one hundred and seventy-five 
 pounds, and he will find that a few pounds 
 more or less will not appreciably increase or 
 diminish the work he has to do. The truth 
 of this assertion may be tested by taking 
 a twenty-mile run, first without any load, 
 and then with a handicap of five pounds. 
 You will find that the difference in load has 
 
 4 
 
50 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 not made the second run appreciably slower 
 or more fatiguing than the first. 
 
 It is obvious that the rider never really 
 " carries " the weight of the bicycle and its 
 load, since the greater part of the weight is 
 supported on the ground, and the force 
 exerted by the rider is only that necessary 
 to propel it. When you walk, pushing your 
 bicycle before you, this force is of the slight- 
 est, — only a few ounces measured in pounds. 
 In the saddle, the propelling force, in other 
 words the force necessary to overcome the 
 resistance presented by the pedal to the foot, 
 is measured by a very few pounds. The 
 ratio of increase, as between two machines 
 weighing respectively twenty and forty 
 pounds, is probably not more than two 
 pounds. It follows that, within reasonable 
 limits, the ease of propulsion depends more 
 in keeping the machine accurately adjusted 
 and well cleaned and oiled, than in decreas- 
 incf its weight. 
 
 The momentum of a heavy bicycle will 
 help it to overcome obstacles which will 
 stop or overthrow a lighter machine. Thus, 
 where two wheels weighing respectively 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 51 
 
 thirty and twenty pounds were run at a 
 slow gait against a curbstone at right an- 
 gles, the heavier machine easily made the 
 lift of four inches to the level of the side- 
 walk, while the lighter wheel was stopped 
 short. So the heavier wheel will run more 
 smoothly, and consequently with less jolting, 
 over a rough road. Upon the whole, if you 
 do not ride for speed, and if you have in 
 good order a thirty or even a thirty-five 
 pound wheel, which does your w^ork with 
 ease and satisfies your requirements, you may 
 as well stick to it, at least until it wears out. 
 
 Gear. 
 
 By the "gear" of a bicycle is understood 
 that application of chain and sprockets by 
 which the speed of the rear or driving wheel 
 is increased so as to make it the equivalent 
 of a wheel of larger diameter. Thus, to say 
 that a wheel has a " sixty " gear is to say 
 that the rear wheel is the equivalent of a 
 wheel of sixty inches in diameter, run with- 
 out crear; that is, each revolution of the 
 sprocket sends the bicycle a distance equal 
 to the circumference of a sixty-inch wheel. 
 
52 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 The gear of a bicycle may be determined 
 as follows. Divide the number of teeth in 
 the forward sprocket by the number in the 
 rear sprocket/ and multiply the quotient by 
 the diameter in inches of the rear wheel. 
 Thus, supposing the number of teeth in the 
 front sprocket to be seventeen, and in the 
 rear sprocket eight, and the diameter of the 
 rear wheel to be twenty-eight inches, 
 
 17 -^ 8 = 21 X 28 = 591 
 
 which is the " gear " of the bicycle. Multi- 
 plying the gear by the ratio between the 
 diameter and the circumference of the 
 wheel, 
 
 591 X 3.14= 186.83 inches, or 15.57 feet, 
 
 which is the distance which the bicycle will 
 travel for each complete revolution of the 
 sprocket. It is evident that, with the above 
 gear, for each revolution of the sprocket the 
 rear wheel makes 2J revolutions. 
 
 As the distance between the teeth of the 
 sprockets is made invariable, so as to fit the 
 
 1 This is of course equivalent to dividing the circum- 
 ference of the larger by the circumfei'ence of the smaller 
 wheel. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 
 
 53 
 
 chain whatever the gear, it is evident that, 
 the higher the gear, the larger the sprocket, 
 the longer its radius, and the greater the force 
 to be applied from the pedal to the sprocket- 
 bracket. On the other hand, the higher the 
 gear, the greater the distance which the 
 bicycle will travel at each revolution of the 
 sprocket-wheel. 
 
 With the twenty-eight inch rear wheel, 
 and the number of teeth in the rear sprocket 
 eight, the application of the above formula 
 gives the following table of possible gears, and 
 the distance which the machine will travel 
 with each revolution of the front sprocket 
 for each gear respectively : 
 
 15te3th, 
 
 gear 52|-, distance, 164.85 in. 
 
 or 13.75 ft. 
 
 16 " 
 
 
 56 
 
 ' 175.84 in., 
 
 or 14.64 ft. 
 
 17 " 
 
 
 59i 
 
 186.83 in., 
 
 or 15.57 ft. 
 
 18 " 
 
 
 63 
 
 197.82 in. 
 
 or 16.48 ft. 
 
 19 " 
 
 
 66i 
 
 208.81 in. 
 
 or 17.40 ft. 
 
 20 " 
 
 
 70 
 
 219.80 in. 
 
 or 18.32 ft. 
 
 21 " 
 
 
 73i 
 
 230.79 in. 
 
 or 19.23 ft. 
 
 22 " 
 
 " 
 
 77 
 
 241.78 in. 
 
 or 20.15 ft. 
 
 It will be observed that the ratio of in- 
 crease in nominal gear for each additional 
 tooth is 3i, and of increase in distance 
 
54 
 
 PLEASURE- C YCLING. 
 
 travelled for each revolution 10.99 inches, 
 or about 0.92 of a foot. 
 
 It is evident that by increasing the di- 
 ameter of the rear sprocket the leverage 
 applied to its rim, through the power trans- 
 mitted by the chain (see page 41), will be in- 
 creased ; but with such increase of diameter, 
 the front sprocket must be made correspond- 
 ingly larger so as to attain the desired speed, 
 thus requiring additional propulsive force to 
 be applied at the pedal. As the weight of 
 parts has been lessened, it has become pos- 
 sible to increase the size of both sprockets 
 with a net gain of power in the rear sprocket, 
 as also to build the machine with a higher 
 absolute gear. With nine teeth instead of 
 eight in the rear sprocket, the formulas 
 given above will give a different table of 
 gears, as thus : 
 
 With 18 teeth front, gear 56. 
 '■' 59i 
 '' 62|. 
 ' 654. 
 
 '' 19 " 
 
 " 20 " 
 
 " 21 " 
 
 " 22 " " 
 
 '' 23 " 
 
 " 24 " 
 
 " 25 " 
 
 71|. 
 74f. 
 77|. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 55 
 
 111 choosing a gear, much depends upon 
 the individual taste and comfort of the rider. 
 Use the gear which you find the easiest on 
 the road. Judging from his own experi- 
 ence, the writer believes that for ordinary 
 reading a gear of about 63 is best ; and that 
 with a thirty -pound wheel of that gear, with- 
 out conscious speeding or extra effort, on a 
 long run over ordinarily good and moder- 
 ately hilly roads, an average speed of from 
 ten to twelve miles an hour may be made. 
 It is obvious, on consideration, that the 
 higher the gear the greater the difficulty in 
 hill climbinc^. 
 
 The " round " gears are now almost exclu- 
 sively used. The experiments with an ellip- 
 tical sprocket have not proved satisfactory. 
 
 A bicycle with a changeable gear has 
 lately been invented ; the device consisting 
 of an arrangement of toothed wheels set in 
 front of the rear axle, and which may be 
 thrown into or out of the chain connection 
 by means of a lever within the control of 
 the rider. 
 
 Ladies' wheels are not ordinarily geared 
 above 59, and the "throw," or length of 
 
56 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 pedal crank, in these is generally not more 
 than six inches. The longer the throw, the 
 greater the leverage to be obtained at each 
 pedal-stroke, and the higher the lift of the 
 foot. Some wheels are fitted with slotted 
 cranks, so as to be adjusted for a longer 
 or shorter throw. 
 
 Tires. 
 
 As to the merits respectively of the dou- 
 ble and single tube tires, each rider must 
 form his own conclusions. For his own use, 
 the writer prefers a single-tube tire of the 
 best make, believing that it is the easiest to 
 repair when repairs are needed, and that it 
 needs repair or adjustment less frequently 
 than the double tire. It cannot " creep " on 
 the wheel if properly cemented, and it is 
 almost impossible for it to leak about the 
 valve, the valve nipple and tube being made 
 in one piece. On a bicycle having the sin- 
 gle tube tire, which was run nearly two thou- 
 sand miles during the season of 1894, there 
 was not once occasion to deflate a tire, and 
 but some half-dozen times to pump up the 
 air tension, this operation in each case not 
 
CHOOSI^^G A BICYCLE. 57 
 
 consuming five minutes. Observation among 
 friends using the same or similar makes of 
 machines fitted with double tubes led to the 
 conclusion that they experienced much more 
 trouble than this, especially from " creeping " 
 tires, or leaks about the valves. The writer 
 has never met a wheelman using the single 
 tire who would willingly abandon it, while 
 he has listened to many bitter complaints 
 from the owners of " double tubes." ^ It is 
 to be observed that there is a great differ- 
 ence in the wearing qualities of different 
 tires, some in the market being of material 
 or workmanship so bad that they will not 
 easily resist tearing and puncture. 
 
 Brakes. 
 
 The " spoon " brake, or, indeed, any brake 
 which is applied directly to the circumfer- 
 ence of the pneumatic tire, is destructive to 
 
 1 It is a noteworthy fact that, in the prospectus for 
 1895 of a leading company manufacturing high-grade 
 wheels, and which supplies either single or double tube 
 tires to suit customers, it is stated that during the first 
 part of the season of 1894 the demand for single tubes 
 was in the proportion of 40 per cent of the whole number 
 
58 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 the tire, and should be used only in emer- 
 gencies. Many such brakes, if not all, are 
 uncertain in their operation, and so not 
 trustworthy. Many wheelmen prefer to 
 ride without a brake, checking speed by 
 the friction of the foot against the tire, in 
 " coasting," and at other times trusting en- 
 tirely to " back-pedalling " to stop or check 
 speed. The " band-brake," first used during 
 the season of 1893, is a leather-lined steel 
 strap applied to a drum set on the rear axle 
 of the bicycle, and connected with the brake- 
 handle set on the handle-bar by a train of 
 wires and springs. It is invariable in its 
 operation, and cannot injure the tire. It 
 will stop the wheel shortly on level ground, 
 or on a moderate declivity ; like the spoon- 
 brake, it will slip on a fast run down a steep 
 road, but it may always be relied on to check 
 speed on any grade, and, with the help of 
 back-pedalling, to stop the wheel in a few 
 moments. With a little care in handling 
 the machine, so as to avoid bending or 
 
 of orders received by the company ; but that during the 
 latter part of the season, this proportion was increased to 
 90 per cent. 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 59 
 
 otherwise injuring tlie brake connections, 
 it is practically impossible for it to get out 
 of order, and it has been found to do as good 
 work at the end as at the beginning of the 
 season, and this on a machine in constant use. 
 Upon the whole, this brake is worth the 
 extra weight which it adds to the machine, 
 which is hardly to be said of any other 
 bicycle brake yet invented. " Eacers " are 
 run without brakes, and it is understood 
 that these will not appear in most of the 
 models of road wheels for the season of 
 1895. 
 
 Saddle. 
 
 Use the lightest saddle in which you can 
 ride comfortably, this being a matter which 
 will be determined only by experience on 
 the road. Some riders can endure sitting 
 the lightest "scorcher" saddle for a whole 
 day without the least discomfort, others will 
 find it intolerable even for a short run. If 
 you find that you must use a heavy saddle, 
 choose one of good length, set on front 
 and back springs, like the old standard 
 " Columbia oSTo. 10 " (than which no easier 
 saddle has ever been made), or, if you are 
 
60 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 a very lieavy weight, a " Garford," or one 
 substantially like it. The " Columbia No. 
 10" weighs about four pounds, the "Gar- 
 ford " even more, while the lightest scorcher 
 saddles (leather) now weigh from fifteen to 
 twenty ounces. If your light saddle hurts 
 you, discard it at once ; if you persist in 
 using it, you may lay the foundation of 
 a serious disease. It is a good plan to 
 have by you a light and a heavy saddle, 
 either of which you may use on occasion. 
 Saddles have been invented to be made 
 of woven wire, and perhaps of other materi- 
 als, including a pneumatic saddle of rubber, 
 which the rider may use if he wishes to run 
 the risk of its exploding under him ; but at 
 present no material seems to be so satisfac- 
 tory to most riders as good leather. 
 
 Handle-Bar and Handles. 
 
 As you will not ride with a stoop, you 
 will not use the " dropped " handle-bar. 
 (Some bicycles are fitted with an adjustable 
 handle-bar, which may be adjusted to the 
 upright position, or dropped, to suit the 
 wishes of the rider.) Use cork handles ; 
 
CHOOSING A BICYCLE. 61 
 
 these are easier and better than any others, 
 and, if they are broken, are easily replaced. 
 The height at which the handle-bar should 
 be adjusted depends much on the length of 
 reach of the rider, and it can only be said 
 that the handles should be set at such a height 
 that the rider, sitting erect in the saddle, 
 can easily grasp them without stooping. 
 Generally, it may be said that, with the up- 
 right handle-bar, the tip of the handle, on 
 the head of the machine being turned, should 
 pass about one and a half inches below the 
 forward tip, or pommel, of the saddle, if 
 this last is rightly adjusted. As to the 
 length of the handle-bar, the wTiter prefers 
 for his own use one which gives a distance 
 in a straight line, measured from tip to tip 
 of the handles, of from twenty -two to twenty- 
 four inches. 
 
 Pedals. 
 
 Light rubber pedals are the most comfort- 
 able, — rat-traps the lightest. "Toe-Clips" 
 may be servicable to the racer or time- 
 maker, but it is not worth while to use 
 them for ordinary reading. 
 
62 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 Wheel-Guards. 
 
 The use of these on men's wheels is not 
 now common. If you have them, keep them 
 at home for use in a possible emergency. 
 You will not^ ordinarily, ride in muddy 
 weather, and on a dry road they are a use- 
 less and weighty encumbrance. Ladies' 
 wheels are equipped with both wheel and 
 dress guards, the latter covering the chain 
 and sprockets. 
 
III. 
 
 HOW TO EIDE. 
 
" Some love to roam 
 O'er the dark sea foam, 
 Where the loild toinds whistle free ; 
 But a bright cool day-, 
 With a smooth hightmy^ 
 And a spin on the wheel for me ! " 
 
 F. M. Holland. 
 

 irT?~ 
 
 3:^^ 
 
 III. 
 
 There are two ways of learning 
 to ride a bicycle. You may 
 put yourself under the charge 
 of an instructor, either in the 
 open air or in a riding-school, 
 or you may go out alone with 
 your machine for a course of more or less 
 rough and tumble practice on the road. (It 
 is wholly or nearly impossible to learn riding 
 on the lady's common "loop-frame" wheel 
 without the assistance either of a profes- 
 sional instructor or of some practised ama- 
 teur rider.) 
 
 In the riding-school, you will first be 
 placed in the saddle, and, upheld by the 
 
66 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 instructor, be made to ride around the track 
 until you are able to balance, with an occa- 
 sional tumble, and to propel your machine ; 
 and you will afterwards be taught, princi- 
 pally by practice, to mount and dismount. 
 
 If, on the other hand, you are your own 
 teacher, you must learn first to mount your 
 wheel, since reaching the saddle is a neces- 
 sary preliminary to riding at alL Select a 
 smooth bit of ground, slightly inclining, and, 
 if you are a bashful person, as secluded as 
 possible from public observation, and begin. 
 Standing just astride the rear periphery of 
 the rear wheel of your bicycle, grasp the 
 handles firmly, holding the head of the 
 machine at right angles with the frame ; 
 the wheel pointing down the hill. Now 
 place the ball of your left foot on the step 
 of the machine, set your teeth, rise on the 
 left foot as nearly to a standing posture as 
 you dare, and as your grasp on the handles 
 will permit, and let the machine " go." It 
 is well to have the handle-bar set rather 
 high for this preliminary practice, and the 
 saddle low, and the machine should carry a 
 brake. You will get many a fall at first, 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 67 
 
 but will learn in a very few lessons to stand 
 on the step and balance in that position 
 while your wheel runs fifty or a hundred 
 feet ; and when you have learned this, you 
 have got a long way. 
 
 When you find that you can mount the 
 step and balance there with some confidence 
 for a hundred feet run, try for the saddle 
 from the step, and for the pedals from the 
 saddle. You will fail ignominiously the 
 first dozen times, and probably get several 
 falls, but your first successful *' mount " will 
 be an era in your cycling career, for you will 
 have gotten the knack, and your confidence in 
 your own ability will rise by many degrees. 
 After you are reasonably sure of making a 
 successful start and mount, aided by the force 
 of gravity, try the start on level ground, but 
 you need not make a special business of 
 this. You may go out upon the road, taking 
 advantage of convenient declivities to get 
 a start ; and practise the level start as you 
 find opportunity. This is of course made by 
 placing the left foot on the step, " hopping " 
 with the right foot so as to propel the bicycle 
 forward, and then rising on the step. 
 
68 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 As to balancing in the saddle, you will 
 be told, and it is true in fact, that the equi- 
 librium of the wheel is to be maintained by 
 turning the steering-wheel in the direction 
 towards which you are in danger of falling. 
 This, at first, seems inexplicable to you, and 
 you will persist in trying to save yourself 
 by turning the wheel the wrong way. At 
 length, in a happy moment the " knack " 
 comes to you, and thereafter you balance 
 unconsciously ; that is, the movements by 
 which you maintain your equilibrium are 
 nearly automatic, although none the less 
 actual and positive in their effect. 
 
 You w^ll learn to dismount in the first 
 place from the left pedal ; but for some little 
 time you will probably get off the machine 
 " anyhow," without attracting more observa- 
 tion than you can help. 
 
 But there cannot be a useful manual of 
 elementary instruction in cycling. A few 
 hours' patient practice will teach you more 
 than all the professors of the art can write. 
 So, in what follows, the writer assumes that 
 the beginner has learned already to balance 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 69 
 
 himself in his saddle, to propel bis bicycle 
 and in some fashion to mount and dismount. 
 But to those readers who have never ridden 
 and who contemplate learning to do so, a 
 single suggestion may be useful. Do not, 
 if you can avoid it, buy a new high-grade 
 machine and take it out upon a country road 
 for the purpose of learning to ride it. You 
 will misuse, and perhaps ruin it. If you are 
 within reach of a riding-school, learn there 
 at least to balance and ride after you are in 
 the saddle. 
 
 Do not be surprised if, on your first out- 
 door run, you get badly fatigued a mile out, 
 and return home in a bath of perspiration, 
 to get up the next morning with a pair of 
 lame or stiff legs. You have for the first 
 time in your life, perhaps, been really exer- 
 cising the pushing muscles, and these need 
 time to strengthen and develop. Eide at first 
 on smooth and level roads, then take some 
 easy ascent ; make a good start for it and 
 dismount as soon as you find that jo\x can- 
 not keep the wheel from wobbling. Turn 
 the machine, run down the hill, stop for a 
 good breath, and try it again. You will run 
 
70 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 farther the second time than the first, and, 
 if you are not tired out, farther the third 
 time than the second. Attack the same hill 
 the next day, and the chances are that you 
 will conquer it — if it is not too long. Do 
 not get impatient : you will not easil}^ get 
 discouraged, for you will find something in 
 wheeling, even in the learning of it, which 
 increases the neophyte's grit, and makes him 
 persevere. The writer has never known a 
 person attempting to learn riding who has 
 failed, in a longer or shorter time, to succeed. 
 
 After you have learned to ride with some 
 pleasure and confidence, you may find the 
 suggestions that follow, as to the manage- 
 ment of your machine, of use. 
 
 Most beginners are disposed to ride with a 
 low saddle, and with this pushed back as far 
 as the saddle-rod Avill permit. Thus, the 
 push upon the pedal is too much in a diago- 
 nal direction forward and downward, with 
 the result of a loss of power in propulsion, 
 and of speedily producing fatigue in the 
 muscles of the inside of the leg just above 
 the knee, and at the ankle-joint. It is 
 
no IV TO RIDE. 71 
 
 obvious that the most powerful and easiest 
 " push " is to be obtained by a motion of the 
 leg and foot nearly vertical; and with the 
 foot kept bent downward from the ankle, as 
 in the swimming stroke, rather than at an 
 upward bend, or horizontal with the ankle 
 bone. The rider using the faulty tread de- 
 scribed is like a swimmer who should keep 
 his body bent at the hips at an angle of 
 several degrees, and abridge each of his 
 strokes by an inch or two. The saddle 
 should be raised so high that, at the full 
 stroke of the leg, with the foot bent down- 
 ward as described, the forward part of the 
 foot will just rest easily and firmly on the 
 pedal. As a rough rule, it may be said that 
 the saddle should be so adjusted that the 
 point of the cantle will be in a horizontal 
 line w4th the top of the rider's hip bone, as 
 he stands beside it. At the same time, the 
 saddle should be brought forward so far that 
 the '' push " of the foot will be nearly ver- 
 tical, instead of diagonal ; and, with the leg 
 extended, the heel should just rest easily on 
 the pedal at its lowest point of revolution. 
 In those saddles which are set on a tilting- 
 
72 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 bracket, some small advantage may be 
 gained by tilting the saddle forward, but too 
 much tilt will render the seat uncomfortable. 
 Another advantage of setting the saddle well 
 forward is that by so doing the weight of the 
 load is more equally distributed between the 
 two wheels of the bicycle, — an advantage in 
 riding which is recognized by those wheel- 
 men wdio ride with a stoop. 
 
 With the L rod, or tubular seat-rod now 
 commonly used, (the " goose-neck," or curved 
 spring-rod, seems to have had its day,) it is 
 not possible to push the saddle so far forward 
 as to secure an absolutely vertical push on 
 the pedals. And if this were possible, it 
 would not be desirable. It is evident that, 
 if the push is directly vertical, there will 
 be a total loss of pushing power whenever 
 the pedal-cranks come to the direct vertical 
 position ; that is, there will be two " dead- 
 points " for each complete revolution of the 
 sprocket. On level ground, the momentum of 
 the moving machine will carry it over these, 
 and the momentary loss of power will not be 
 noticed by the rider. But in hill-climbing 
 momentum no longer aids the wheel, and in 
 
HO IV TO RIDE, 73 
 
 fact it becomes a retarding force to drag the 
 machine backwards, and then the " dead- 
 points " become very much in evidence, and 
 will be sure to stop tlie bicycle if the hill is 
 long enough. On the other hand, with a 
 push ever so little out of the vertical, there 
 can never be an absolute loss of power. 
 
 When you have once determined the best 
 adjustment for your saddle, it is a good plan 
 to indicate it on the saddle rod by making 
 some light scratches with a file, so that you 
 need not lose time in getting the correct 
 adjustment after you have removed the sad- 
 dle for any purpose. 
 
 Push hard on the downward moviuof 
 pedal, and let your foot yield to the upward 
 movement ; otherwise, you are making one 
 foot undo the work of the other. The re- 
 verse of this motion, that is, the push on the 
 upward moving pedal, with a release of force 
 on the downward movement, constitutes 
 " back-pedalling " ; an important, and, if you 
 ride without a brake, the only means of 
 stopping the machine quickly. 
 
 Let your foot always cling to, or " hug," 
 
74 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 the treadle, keeping the foot beut downward 
 as described both on the downward push and 
 on the return, unless when '' back-pedalling." 
 As to the handle-bar, it should be so ad- 
 justed that, sitting in the manner described, 
 you can just easily grasp it. 
 
 I assume that you ride for pleasure, not 
 to make records, nor to see what measure of 
 muscular effort you are capable of. If you 
 ride for pleasure, you will stop when you 
 are fatigued, walk when walking is easier 
 than riding, ride slowly or fast as you feel 
 disposed, coast or not when opportunity 
 offers. If your ambition is merely to make 
 a certain number of miles in a certain num- 
 ber of minutes, believe me you are losing 
 the best of a noble exercise. 
 
 If you would ride easily, gracefully, and 
 with the best results as regards your health 
 and comfort, avoid the " stoop " in ordinary 
 road riding. 
 
 Says a well known gymnasium instructor : 
 " Why will so many of you sit on your seats 
 like monkeys on a stick, and try to grind 
 your noses off on your front wheel ? All 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 75 
 
 this is wrong, and will only bring discredit 
 on the sport that we love so much. There 
 could no occasion arise that 
 would necessitate your sit- 
 ting on your seat with your 
 back humped up like a 
 camel. If the wind is blow- 
 ing strong and you must ride faster for a 
 time, you should bend your body forward 
 at the waist, carry your head well forward 
 and down, yet keep your back straight and 
 chest out. In this way you will not cut 
 such a ridiculous figure, and deep breathing 
 will not be interfered with." ^ It is pleasant 
 to know that the " stoop fad," which appar- 
 ently reached its height in the season of 
 1893, seems to be rapidly dying out. 
 
 Keep an erect position, like that which 
 a graceful equestrian maintains in his sad- 
 dle. Sit easily, letting the line of centre of 
 gravity of your body fall a hair's breadth to 
 the front of the saddle centre. Grasp the 
 handles very lightly ; you will soon learn that 
 a slight pressure of the hands, just at the 
 
 1 Robert J. Roberts, Young Men's Christian Associa- 
 tion, Boston. 
 
76 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 base of the fingers, on the handles of the 
 machine, is sufficient. After you have ridden 
 for a month or two, and so have acquired 
 some confidence, learn to steer with either 
 hand, leaving the other at liberty. 
 
 On nothing so much does the pleasure 
 of riding depend as on your keeping all the 
 muscles of your body relaxed, except, of 
 course, the propelling muscles of the legs. 
 You will understand this, if, when riding 
 with a rigid grasp of the handle-bar, with 
 your teeth grimly set and your back stif- 
 fened, you happen to remember that you 
 are riding wrongly, and let your muscles 
 relax. The relief will be instantaneous and 
 marvellous. 
 
 Learn to keep the handle-bar steady ; 
 thus you will describe a straight track, and 
 not a zigzag. If you watch the tracks made 
 by other machines on the road, you will ob- 
 serve that many of them run a more or less 
 crooked course ; that is, the riders of them 
 are unable to steer straight. The knack of 
 straight steering is wholly in the proper 
 management of the hands and arms. If 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 77 
 
 you will let your hands rest half open on 
 the handles, never grasping these hard, and 
 so permit the whole weight of the arms to 
 depend from the wrists, you will avoid all 
 involuntary motions of the shoulders or 
 elbow-joints ; and it is these involuntary 
 movements that produce wild steering. Sit- 
 ting in this way, a slight movement of the 
 body to right or left will take the corre- 
 sponding handle with it, and thus you will 
 steer by the body motion, and not from the 
 wrists. 
 
 Learn to dismount by either pedal ; then, 
 by reversing the motion of mounting ; that 
 is, by a slight bound backward from the step, 
 keeping a good grip on the handle-bar. 
 
 It is one thing to scram- 
 ble, more or less awkwardly, 
 into one's saddle, after an 
 exhibition of ungraceful 
 " hopping " along the ground, 
 and another to vault quietly 
 and surely to one's place, and easily catch the 
 pedals. Ease and skill in mounting and dis- 
 mounting show the accomplished rider, and 
 
78 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 it is worth while to practise these assiduously 
 in private. Do not be in too much haste to 
 catch the pedals. If the wheel has impetus 
 enough for a good start, you will have plenty 
 of time to adjust your feet to the pedals 
 gracefully, without fidgeting and paddling 
 about in search of them. 
 
 The following rules for mounting and 
 dismounting, as, given substantially in Gen- 
 eral Ord way's " Cycle-Infantry Drill Eegula- 
 tions," are worth keeping in mind : — 
 
 ^^ To mount. Grasp the left steering-handle 
 with the left hand ; raise the rear wheel slightly 
 from the ground with the right hand ; adjust the 
 pedals to a horizontal position with the left foot ; 
 lower the rear wheel, and, grasping both handles, 
 step to the rear of the bicycle ; place the right 
 foot on the ground and the left foot on the step. 
 Take three short steps forward with the right 
 foot and rise on the left foot ; let the body come 
 gently into the saddle, and place the feet on the 
 pedals. 
 
 '' Or, after having adjusted the pedal cranks, 
 step to the left side of the machine, facing front, 
 and place the left foot on the step, the left leg 
 crossing the right. Push forward on the steer- 
 
HO IV TO RIDE. 79 
 
 ing-handle ; rise on the left foot ; pass the right 
 leg with knee bent, over the rear wheel ; let the 
 body come gently into the saddle, and find the 
 pedals. 
 
 "To dismount, rise from the saddle on the 
 pedals, throwing the weight of the body on the 
 left foot ; pass the right leg, knee bent, over 
 the rear wheel ; descend lightly to the ground, 
 removing the left foot from the pedal." 
 
 " To dismount by the step, carry the left foot 
 to the step, rise from the saddle on the left foot, 
 and seek the ground with the right foot, at the 
 same time checking the machine." ^ 
 
 For a lady's mount and dismount the fol- 
 lowing directions may be studied. 
 
 Standing at the left of the machine, ad- 
 vance it until the right pedal begins to de- 
 scend. Then step into the space before the 
 saddle, place the right foot on the right 
 pedal, give a slight push on the ground 
 with the left foot, and rising on the right 
 foot take the saddle, and without haste 
 find the left pedal The weight of the body 
 pushes the right pedal ' down, as you rise 
 
 1 From Lieutenant May's Cyclists' Drill Regulations, 
 U. S. Army. 
 
80 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 upon it, and gives the bicycle an impulse, 
 and the left pedal rises to the place for its 
 push. 
 
 To dismount, slacken speed with the brake 
 or by back-pedalling, and when the left 
 pedal reaches its lowest position rise on it, 
 and, keeping a steady hold on the handles, 
 swing the body out and step off the pedal; 
 or, passing the right foot over the left, take 
 a slight hop to the ground. 
 
 In any form of dismount from the pedal, 
 be careful to take it at its lowest point, or 
 just as it begins to rise. If you rise on 
 the back downward movement, you will add 
 a sudden impulse to the machine and may 
 have to jump quickly to save yourself. 
 
 General Ordway thus describes the posi- 
 tion of the mounted cycler : — 
 
 " Head erect and square to the front. 
 
 " Chin shghtly drawn in. 
 
 " Shouklers square to the front. 
 
 "Back straight, with body shghtly inchned 
 forward. 
 
 ''Arms straight, but not rigid, 
 
 '' Legs straight, but stretched by their weight 
 alone. 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 81 
 
 " Feet parallel to the axis of the cycle, the ball 
 of the foot resting lightly on the pedal." 
 
 You will, where the ground permits, wheel 
 to the left, for a full turn ; but you should 
 learn to wheel either way with confidence. 
 When wheeling for a turn, choose level 
 ground if possible, as the bicycle is more 
 apt to slip when turning on a declivity, than 
 in forward riding. On the turn, always push 
 hard, particularly on the inward pedal, and 
 let a strong push accompany each inward 
 shift of the handle-bar when making a short 
 turn. If in making a short turn you lose 
 your confidence in your ability to make it, 
 you will probably go down. 
 
 Some teachers of cycling will tell you 
 that the machine is to be steered only by 
 the manipulation of the forward wheel; 
 others, that it is to be done by the motion 
 of the body. In a sense, both statements are 
 correct. The first seems obviously true, since 
 without the turn of the forward wheel you 
 cannot deviate from the straight line. But 
 if you will steer, not by a motion from the 
 6 
 
82 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 wrist, but by slightly swaying the body in 
 the saddle, you will find that the wheel 
 answers almost automatically to your move- 
 ments, the arm and wrist following the 
 movement of the body. And a certain, al- 
 though unconscious, motion of the body is 
 as necessary to the cycler, in order to keep 
 an easy balance in the saddle, as to the 
 equestrian. You will discover this if you 
 attempt to make a short wheel keeping the 
 body in an absolutely erect position. In 
 good riding, first comes the ^' knack " of 
 balancing, then, with more or less practice, 
 confidence, until at length you ride, steer, 
 and wheel almost automatically, and will 
 find it the hardest thing in the world to tell 
 another how you do it. 
 
 At this point in your experience, your 
 confidence in your bicycle will have become 
 perfect. You will as soon expect the arm- 
 chair by your fireside to rise up in revolt 
 and cast you from its embrace, as your wheel 
 to play you a trick, or to refuse to answer as 
 if by intuition to your slightest half-formed 
 wish. And the bicycle will answer your 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 83 
 
 confidence so long as you keep it going. 
 " Hear now/' says Eev. Charles F. Dole, " the 
 parable of the bicycle. The 
 thing goes as long as you keep 
 up the motion. It goes by go- 
 ing. Once stop working, once 
 begin to let it wobble, and ruin 
 faces you. A certain degree 
 of momentum is needful. So 
 everywhere, if you want to 
 succeed, or even to live, you must keep up 
 your momentum." 
 
 But there is more in steering than is 
 acquired by the proper management of 
 hands, body, and arms. You will have 
 noticed, as has been said, that, in short 
 wheels, you are aided by pushing strongly 
 on the inner pedal. The reason for this it 
 will puzzle the beginner to discover, but it 
 is really an application of " foot-steering." 
 If you lash or clamp the steering-fork of 
 your bicycle so that it cannot turn, having 
 the wheels in a right line, mount and start 
 as usual, and then, letting go of the handles, 
 fold your hands and push, you will, if the 
 
84 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 machine is in right balance, move on a 
 straight line forward just so long, and no 
 longer, as you exert an equal pedal pressure 
 with each foot. The stronger push, usually 
 that with the left foot, will drag the machine 
 towards the left, just as an oarsman drags 
 the bow of his boat about with his stronger 
 arm, and you will probably overturn in that 
 direction. But you will have learned that 
 the machine may be guided by the foot 
 movement, and you will unlash your steering- 
 head and go out on the road with that notion 
 in mind. Now bend your energies, say 
 during the first fifteen minutes of each run, 
 towards acquiring equal pushing power with 
 each foot. If you find the right foot the 
 weaker, practise wheeling to the right, push- 
 ing as hard as you can with the weaker foot. 
 From time to time let go the handles, on a 
 straight level course, and await results, trying 
 to push as evenly as possible. After many 
 failures, the time will come when you will 
 move straight on without a flinch, and you 
 will have begun to acquire the art of riding 
 " hands off." You will perfect yourself in 
 this by occasional practice on good ground, 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 85 
 
 and at length, by increasing pressure on one 
 pedal or the other, you will deflect the 
 course of your wheel to that side, — and 
 this is "foot-steering." It, of course, can 
 never be as reliable as body-steering, and it 
 can be safely practised only on fairly good 
 ground ; but there are emergencies in which 
 it is convenient to have the hands at liberty ; 
 and you will not rest until you have mas- 
 tered all the qualifications which go to make 
 up a good rider. 
 
 While the stoop is to be avoided upon 
 reasonably level ground, a leaning position 
 has obviously its place in hill-climbing. 
 This will be evident when it is considered 
 that in mounting a hill the centre of grav- 
 ity of the load is necessarily thrown back 
 towards the axle of the rear wheel, thus 
 increasing the difficulty of propulsion. To 
 counteract this, it is as natural for the rider 
 to lean forward as it is for the pedestrian 
 walking up a steep hill. At the same time, 
 you will as naturally keep a somewhat 
 firmer grasp than usual of your handle-bar, 
 both to support yourself and to prevent the 
 
86 PLEASURE- C YCLING. 
 
 forward wheel from wobbling, which it will 
 have a tendency to do if relieved from part 
 of its ordinary load. At times, you will 
 brace yourself by a strong upward pull on 
 the handle-bar. As you will naturally lean 
 forward in ascending a hill, so you will lean 
 backward in running down a steep declivity. 
 The elements of success in hill-climbing 
 are, first, good legs and lungs, secondly, knack, 
 and, thirdly, confidence. 
 Each rider must be a law 
 to himself as to the way 
 in which he will attack 
 his hills. Some take a 
 strong spurt at the foot of 
 the hill and depend on it 
 to carry them up ; others work themselves 
 up at a slow pace by sheer strength of leg 
 muscle. You will find that mounting the 
 same hill grows easier and easier the oftener 
 it is done, and that a " new " hill will often 
 get the better of you, although in fact you 
 have again and again ridden easily up harder 
 hills. You will of course gain something by 
 " zigzagging " a very steep ascent. 
 
 The actual muscular effort necessary to 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 87 
 
 ascend an acclivity on a bicycle is certainly 
 not greater than that required in walking up 
 the same hill, and the expenditure of breath 
 is less. The difference is (and this makes 
 the difficulty in hill-climbing) that, when 
 walking, you may stop for rest when you 
 choose, whereas on your wheel, working up 
 a steep hill, if you stop you may be unable 
 to get a new start, and so may be forced to 
 w^alk to the top of the hill. 
 
 If a hill distresses you, do not be ashamed 
 to dismount and walk. You are riding for 
 pleasure, not to make a record. With each 
 week of riding, you wdll find the w^ork easier, 
 and will smile to think how many a " Hill 
 Difficulty " which appalled you in the be- 
 ginning has seemed to level itself before 
 your flying wheel. But there are many 
 steep and stony or sandy hills up which you 
 should never attempt to force either yourself 
 or your machine. A high-grade bicycle is a 
 wonderfully strong and trusty machine for 
 its weight, but it was built to be used only 
 by reasonable beings ; and if you are a good 
 and well practised rider, you may be sure 
 that you should never drive your machine 
 
88 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 across ground to get over which distresses 
 yourself. (I do not refer to very long hills, 
 on good roads, where of course the endurance 
 of the machine will outlast that of its rider.) 
 A twenty-eight inch wheel, running at a 
 ten-mile gait, makes 7,240 revolutions per 
 hour, 120| revolutions per minute, or 2.01 
 revolutions each second. Supposing the 
 weight sustained by the two axle bearings 
 to be 165 pounds, this is distributed be- 
 tween the two bearings in about the ratio 
 of one third and two thirds,^ the rear axle 
 carrying the greater weight, that is, 110 
 pounds, and the front axle 55 pounds. 
 The proportion of weight sustained by the 
 rear axle is of course increased in hill- 
 climbing. The strain which the rear bear- 
 ing and spokes have to stand is obviously 
 very great, even in level roading. Not only 
 do the bearings carry weight in the propor- 
 tion stated, but the motive power is applied 
 to the machine, not by a front traction, as in 
 a vehicle drawn by a horse, but directly to 
 
 1 This assumes that the saddle is carried well forward. 
 As it is pushed backward, the proportionate weight im- 
 posed on the rear bearing is of course increased. 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 89 
 
 the axle of the wheel ; so that each spoke 
 becomes the long arm of a lever of which 
 the radius of the rear sprocket is the short 
 arm, at the end of which the power is ap- 
 plied to raise the weight, that is, the load 
 made up of the machine and its rider. It is 
 to throw the strain of the lift as much as 
 possible into a straight pull lengthwise 
 through the spoke, that the admirable tan- 
 gential arrangement of the spokes has been 
 devised, and applied to all the high-grade 
 machines. On a level road the momentum 
 of the moving machine helps the wheel; 
 but on an acclivity the wheel has both to 
 carry its load and to overcome the force 
 of gravity which drags it backward. It is 
 no wonder that spokes in sound wheels have 
 been known to snap like twigs at the felloes 
 under the weight of a heavy rider driving 
 his machine up a hard hill, and that such 
 accidents are not more common shows the 
 perfection to which the bicycle manufacture 
 has attained. 
 
 You will be told at the riding-schools to 
 look always straight ahead in riding, and 
 
90 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 never at the road in front of your wheel. 
 This advice is sound, theoretically, but it is 
 not always possible to follow it on ordinary 
 country roads. Sharp stones, little ruts, sand 
 or water holes, bits of broken glass, lie every- 
 where in wait for you, and you will learn 
 with practice to avoid them almost instinct- 
 ively, by a turn of the hand. While in the 
 beginning, if you fixed your eyes on a peb- 
 ble ahead of you, you would be sure, by 
 the force of some mysterious attraction, to 
 run your wheel over it, soon you will be 
 able to graze it by a hair's breadth on 
 either hand without touching it. Keep 
 then an easy outlook upon the road about 
 thirty feet in front of you ; and still farther 
 ahead if you are riding a bad road, over 
 which you have to pick a path for your 
 wheel. Avoid watching your front wheel. 
 It will take care of itself, and watching it 
 will tend to make you giddy or confused. 
 
 If you do not carry a brake, do not at- 
 tempt coasting until you have acquired the 
 fullest confidence in yourself and thorough 
 control over your machine. Without the 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 91 
 
 brake, the only means of checking speed is 
 by braking with the foot, which is an inef- 
 fectual resource, besides being injurious to 
 the tires ; or back-pedalling, to make which 
 effective on a steep grade requires great mus- 
 cular effort. In coasting, not only have you 
 to look out for possible collisions, but the 
 frame of a light weight machine cannot be 
 put to a severer test than it suffers in a run, 
 say at a twenty-mile gait, down a long hill. 
 The best place for the feet of the ordinary 
 rider, in his first season, is on his pedals ; 
 and the worst cycling accidents recorded 
 have occurred to riders coasting without 
 brakes, or in the night. 
 
 To check speed in coasting, do not apply 
 the brake too suddenly, if you would avoid 
 a bad " header." If you have a band-brake, 
 apply it gradually, let go of it, and in a 
 second apply it again. You may use the 
 same method with the spoon-brake, if it 
 works well and freely. 
 
 The night rider takes the risk of accidents 
 from bad roads, or obstructions which may 
 cut his tires or otherwise injure his machine 
 
92 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 or himself. But there is no den}dng the 
 strange fascination of night-riding. As you 
 swoop through the darkness lil^e a hawk, 
 unable to see the slight possible dangers 
 that lie in wait for your wheel, and so per- 
 force relieved of all responsibility for your 
 own safety, you experience an eerie sensa- 
 tion which must be akin to that which the 
 old New England witch enjoyed, as she 
 sped on her broomstick through the cloudy 
 night to a symposium of the " black man's " 
 disciples. 
 
 On dark nights, always carry a lantern. 
 
 Observe carefully the " law of the road " ; 
 that is, on meeting a carriage or another 
 wheelman keep to the right ; in passing, to 
 the left. If you will do this, even although 
 it may not be absolutely necessary, you will 
 avoid the responsibility of accidents. If you 
 ride in the dark, ring the bell freely. 
 
 After much conflict, it may now be consid- 
 ered as settled law throughout the United 
 States that the bicycle is a " vehicle," and that 
 its rider is possessed of the same rights and 
 charged with the same duties, so far as these 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 93 
 
 are applicable to him, as the driver of any 
 other vehicle. In the summer of 1894, the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts passed, and the 
 Governor of the State approved, June 14, an 
 " Act to regulate the use of Bicycles and other 
 similar vehicles," it beinsr understood that 
 the act had the approval of the League of 
 American Wheelmen. By the terms of the 
 fifth section of the act, it was taken out 
 of the power of local boards, such as the 
 street commissioners of towns and cities, 
 to prohibit the use of the wheel in the pub- 
 lic thoroughfares, — a power which had at 
 times been harshly, not to say unjustly used. 
 As the Massachusetts act may probably be 
 made the foundation of similar acts in other 
 States, it is printed below in full, for the in- 
 formation of cyclers in Massachusetts and 
 elsewhere.! 
 
 i Chapter 479 of the Acts of 1894 : — 
 
 " Section" 1. Whoever, without the permit provided 
 for in section three of this act, rides in a public highway 
 or town way, street, square, or park a bicycle or tricycle 
 at a rate of speed exceeding ten miles an hour, or rides 
 such machine on a sidewalk, or rides such machine in 
 the streets, squares, or parks of any city when the same is 
 not provided with a suitable alarm bell adapted for use 
 
94 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 It is a pretty custom, on meeting another 
 wheelman, to ring him a salute on your bell. 
 
 by the rider, or after sunset rides the same in any public 
 way, square, or park, whether within or without the 
 limits of a city, when such machine is not provided with 
 such suitable alarm bell, shall be punished by fine not 
 exceeding twenty dollars for each offence, and shall be 
 further liable for all damages occasioned to any person by 
 such unlawful act. 
 
 "Section 2. The term 'sidewalk,' as used in this 
 act, shall mean any sidewalk laid out as such by a city, 
 town, or fire district, and any walk in a city or village 
 which is reserved by custom for the use of pedestrians, 
 or which has been specially prepared for their use. It 
 shall not include cross-walks, nor shall it include foot- 
 paths on portions of public ways lying outside of the 
 thickly settled parts of cities and towns which are worn 
 only by travel and are not improved by such cities or 
 towns or by abutters. The terms ' bicycle,' and ' tri- 
 cycle,' as used in this act, shall be deemed to include all 
 vehicles propelled by the person riding the same by foot 
 or hand power. The terms ' park,' and ' square,' as used 
 in this act, shall not include any spaces under the con- 
 trol of park commissioners, or of a park board or a special 
 park department of a town or city having power to make 
 regulations relative to such spaces, and this act shall not 
 in any way abridge the powers of such commissioners, 
 board, or department. 
 
 " Section 3. The mayor of a city or selectmen of a 
 town may in their discretion, upon any special occasion, 
 grant permits to any person or persons to ride such 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 95 
 
 If in rapid roading you are confronted by 
 a sudden danger, you must decide on the 
 instant how you will meet it, — if you hesi- 
 
 machines, during a specified time, upon specified por- 
 tions of the public ways of such city or town, at any rate 
 of speed ; and may annex such other reasonable condi- 
 tions to such permits as they shall deem proper. The 
 city council of a city and the selectmen of a town may 
 also, under such conditions as they deem proper, permit 
 the use of velocipedes or other similar machines by 
 children on any sidewalk in any public way, square, or 
 park in such city or town. 
 
 " Section 4. Proceedings for the enforcement of the 
 penalties imposed by this act shall be instituted within 
 sixty days from the time the off"ence is committed. 
 
 " Section 5. No city or town shall have any power to 
 make any ordinance, by-law, or regulation respecting the 
 use of bicycles or tricycles, except as provided in section 
 three of this act ; and, except as provided in said section 
 three, no ordinance, by-law, or regulation heretofore or 
 hereafter made by a city or town in respect to bicycles or 
 tricycles shall have any force or effect." 
 
 The " Liberty Bill," so called, enacted by the Legisla- 
 ture of New York in June, 1887, and which has been 
 substantially re-enacted in several other States, provided 
 that ' ' commissioners, trustees, or other authorities hav- 
 ing charge or control of the highways or park drive- 
 ways " of Central Park, " shall have no power or authority 
 to pass, enforce, or maintain any ordinance, rule, or 
 regulation by which any person using a bicycle or tri- 
 
96 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 tate, you are lost. If you believe you can 
 stop in season to avoid it, you will of course 
 do so ; but if you cannot stop, do not slacken 
 speed except in the case that you have to 
 avoid an impact with some solid obstacle. 
 A fast wheel will skim through, sometimes 
 almost on a plank's edge, where a slow one 
 will go down. If you have a narrow passage 
 which you must make, do not think how 
 narrow it is, but rather how much room it 
 affords. Sight for the middle line of it, keep 
 cool and steer straight and push hard, and 
 ten chances to one you will be all right. If 
 you hesitate and let the bicycle lose speed 
 and wobble, you will certainly come to 
 grief. 
 
 In setting out for a ride, see always that 
 the nuts about the saddle connections and at 
 the axle-hubs are tight, and that the head is 
 firmly clamped to the fork. If, on the road, 
 the saddle begins to slip under you, check 
 speed, andj if necessary, rise on the pedals, 
 
 cycle shall be excluded or prohibited from the free use of 
 any of the park highways or driveways at any time when 
 the same is open to the free use of persons using other 
 pleasure carriages." 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 97 
 
 keeping a firm grip on the handles. If the 
 head turns in the tube while you are riding 
 at a good pace, you will get a fall so quickly 
 that you will not know what throws you. 
 Bicycle falls seldom result seriously, but if 
 you find that you must fall, say to the right, 
 throw the right foot off the pedal, keep a 
 good grip on the handles, and the chances 
 are that you and your machine will come up 
 standing. If you run nearly at right angles 
 against some solid obstacle, check speed as 
 much as you can, and dismount by the step 
 just as you strike. If you keep the saddle, 
 you may be thrown forward. 
 
 If you have ruts or street-car tracks to 
 cross, take them as nearly at right angles 
 as possible. If you swerve so as to let 
 your wheels fall into the rut or track, you 
 probably will get a bad fall. So if you are 
 riding on a badly rutted road, you may have 
 to save yourself by zigzagging from one side 
 of it to the other. 
 
 A very short experience upon the road 
 
 will teach you that a strong wind, if against 
 
 you, makes hard work of wheeling, while 
 
 if it is at your back it equally lessens 
 
 7 
 
98 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 the labor of propulsion. Your dress should 
 afford as little vantage for the wind as 
 possible, if you would ride easily. So you 
 will wear a cap instead of a hat, and, in a 
 windy day, keep your coat closely buttoned. 
 Among the other disadvantages of the long 
 skirt for ladies is that it catches the wind 
 so readily. 
 
 The greatest annoyance which besets the 
 cycler on the road is from the attacks of 
 ill bred dogs, who snap about his pedals 
 and may dart under his wheel and so throw 
 him. This is most likely to happen on back 
 country roads where the inhabitant curs 
 are unused to the sight of the wheel. If 
 you are attacked by a dog on a road com- 
 monly frequented by wheelmen, you may be 
 sure that the animal is vicious and deserves 
 to be put out of the way. If you are at- 
 tacked running down hill, throw your feet 
 on to the coasters. There will be a happy 
 chance that the pedal will strike the cur 
 on the head, and perhaps, as has once hap- 
 pened within the knowledge of the writer, 
 fracture his skull. If you can make a fly- 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 99 
 
 iug shot, and are attacked while on the 
 wheel by a vicious dog, intent on biting, 
 shoot him, — the law will justify you. 
 
 Not so dangerous as the dogs, but nearly as 
 annoying, are the flocks of hens or turkeys 
 which, when frightened by your approach, 
 invariably run in front of your wheel utter- 
 ing discordant cries and gobbles. But these 
 neither bark nor bite, and generally manage 
 just to escape being run down. 
 
 As regards the form and rate of riding, 
 the temperament of the rider counts as a 
 most important factor. A graceful walker 
 will be a graceful rider, and a rider who has 
 undergone the military drill will show it 
 upon the wheel almost as much as in w^alk- 
 ing. A nervous man, as he is sure to be a 
 fast walker, will make a rapid rider, and 
 will find it hard to keep a pace of less than 
 twelve miles an hour in ordinary reading. 
 Indeed, in cycling, nerve counts as much as 
 muscle, or even more. Most of the riders 
 who have made great records on the race- 
 track have combined to an unusual degree 
 the qualities of alertness, daring, and quick- 
 
100 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 ness of perception to see and take advantage 
 of an instant's opportunity. Study a group 
 of their photographs, and you see a set of 
 clean-cut alert faces, firm-set mouths, and 
 keen eyes. The figures do not show ex- 
 cessive muscular development, rather lithe- 
 ness and grace. For example, you v/ill not 
 find a more beautiful figure in its way than 
 that of Zimmerman on his wheel, but it has 
 the beauty not so much of a Hercules as 
 of the Flying Mercury. 
 
 Thus it is impossible to prescribe for 
 any one a '' rate " for road-riding. You 
 will find your wheel answer to your feeling 
 almost as if it were a part of your own 
 nervous system, and your temperament will 
 govern your pace. When you are sluggish 
 and weary, your wheel will drag under you ; 
 as the fresh air and rapid motion enliven you, 
 your wheel will seem to feel a new impulse. 
 Experience will soon teach you your pace, and 
 you will find that, taking one run with an- 
 other, you make an average hour rate which 
 will not much vary from day to day. 
 
 You will find it hard, particularly if you 
 are of a nervous disposition, to conform your 
 
HOW TO RIDE. 101 
 
 own pace to the different pace of another. 
 It is like trying to row behind an oar whose 
 style and stroke are different from your own. 
 Your tastes and feelings may be perfectly 
 congenial, and you may be the best of chums 
 off the wheel, but if your companion on the 
 road for a long run customarily rides at 
 eight miles while you ride at twelve, you 
 both will soon grow as restive as a pair of 
 ill-matched horses. The result may be to 
 develop a certain petulance of temper, 
 rather than indulge which you had better 
 "agree to differ," and each either take his 
 own pace or separate at the first cross- 
 roads. 
 
 At the end of the season, if you have 
 ridden prudently, and otherwise taken good 
 care of yourself, you should be in the best 
 possible condition of health and strength ; 
 able to take a fifty-mile run without appre- 
 ciable fatigue, as your once unaccustomed 
 muscles have developed and hardened by 
 the season's practice. In the I^orthern 
 climate, you will perforce abandon reading 
 during the winter, and when you mount the 
 
102 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 wheel for the first ride the next season, you 
 will probably be appalled and discouraged 
 to find how much strength you have lost. 
 But in a comparatively short time the 
 muscles for a time out of use will regain 
 their former elasticity and power ; and with 
 a couple of weeks' steady riding you will 
 regain all you have lost. If you are within 
 reacli of a riding-school, be assured that a 
 regular practice there during the off season, 
 say two or three rides each week of half an 
 hour each, will not only bring you pleasure 
 in the taking of them, but will count greatly 
 to your advantage when you take to the 
 road in the spring. 
 
IV. 
 TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE, 
 
" When Aurora paints the dawn 
 
 A?id the fields are bright with dew, 
 When the fieecy mists of morn 
 
 Rise and thin and meltfro?n view, 
 what ecstasy to feel, 
 
 With the wind against your face, 
 Miles slip by beneath your wheel. 
 
 Cares outdistanced in the race ! " 
 
 L. G. C. 
 
IV. 
 
 What his piano, his violin, 
 his flute, is to the accom- 
 plished musician, what his 
 locomotive is to the railway 
 engineer, his wheel is to the 
 enthusiastic cycler. " His 
 wheel and he are one. It 
 seems to obey his thought 
 and to share his emotions. It lives with 
 his life, it reflects his idiosyncrasies." It 
 seems to him not a lifeless congeries of steel 
 and nickel parts, but a thing of intelligence 
 answering to his own ; and, if it comes to 
 grief, he mourns for it as for a favorite horse 
 
106 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 or dog. So, if you are really fond of cycling, 
 you will take the same pride in a well-kept 
 and well-running machine that a horseman 
 feels in a well-groomed horse. 
 
 A bicycle frame, with its straight lines 
 and sharp angles, is not perhaps a thing 
 of beauty, although some of the models of 
 1893 and 1894 have a rakishness of design 
 which is very nearly graceful ; but it may 
 at least have the beauty of cleanliness and 
 brightness, and then when it flashes by in 
 the sunlight, a glitter of black and silver, it 
 will not want admirers. 
 
 Many bicycles, even of the best make, 
 become practically worthless by the end of 
 their first season of use ; but except in cases 
 where the machine has been exposed to some 
 severe accident, this is because the rider has 
 been too lazy or too ignorant to take care 
 of his wheel. If you will spend from five 
 to ten minutes at the end of each run in 
 caring properly for your bicycle, you will 
 find it always ready for use, and, barring 
 accidents, as good for road use at the end of 
 the season as it was at the beginning. 
 
 The ^vriter lately rode a wheel which for 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 107 
 
 ease of propulsion and straight steering 
 seemed perfect, and which he found had 
 been ridden three thousand miles during 
 the season of 1894. It was equipped with 
 single tube tires which were inflated but 
 three times during the season, and the bicy- 
 cle, having been carefully and intelligently 
 cared for, was to all intents and purposes as 
 good as new. 
 
 I assume that you are riding about one 
 hundred miles a week in fair weather, and 
 over ordinary roads. 
 
 After each run, look over your machine 
 carefully. If it shows mud-splashes, wash 
 them off with a damp, not dripping sponge. 
 If it is dusty, dust lightly with a soft cloth, 
 preferably woollen, or with cotton waste. 
 
 Some of the manufacturers advise cleaning 
 the bicycle with a hose, saying that water 
 will never injure their machine. But no 
 one would willingly expose his machine to a 
 heavy shower if he could find an opportunity 
 to house it, and there is a chance that a 
 smart stream of water from a hose will 
 strike some bearing which is not fully pro- 
 
108 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 tected by oil, and so perhaps cause rust. 
 It is a safe rule, never, if you can help it, to 
 allow water to touch the bearings of your 
 machine. 
 
 Wipe all oil and dirt from the outsides of 
 the bearings. 
 
 Be sure that the nickel parts are dry, and 
 rub them well with a chamois skin. This, 
 with a little fine whitino- will remove in- 
 cipient rust. 
 
 If you have to keep your machine in a 
 place accessible to dust, it is well to keep it 
 covered with a cotton cloth. An old sheet 
 will answer the purpose. It goes without 
 saying that a bicycle should never be kept 
 in a damp " stable," esj)ecially if it has any 
 wooden parts. 
 
 See that the axles, joints of tubing, and 
 outsides of the bearings are always clean 
 and bright. If the spokes are nickelled, rub 
 them occasionally with a woollen cloth moist- 
 ened in kerosene. Keep the chain as clean 
 and dry as possible. 
 
 Keep the bearings of your machine snug, 
 not tight. If too tight or too loose, they 
 will soon wear out. When you shake the 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 109 
 
 wheel, there should appear only just enough 
 lateral motion on the axle to be perceptible. 
 
 If the bearings are in good order, each of 
 therOj in running, should give a soft contin- 
 uous click. If your machine makes a sharp 
 or irregular noise on the road, ascertain at 
 once what the matter is. The noise may 
 be caused by a dry chain or axle, or by lost 
 motion in the brake connections. Listen 
 carefully to the working of each bearing, 
 and if the noise proceeds from it you will 
 conclude that a ball has become broken or 
 badly worn. In that case " take down " the 
 machine to the bearing, or have this done, 
 and have the worn or broken part replaced. 
 
 Some wheelmen are always taking their 
 machines to pieces ; but this is not often 
 necessary unless a part is broken, or the 
 machine has got badly filled up with mud 
 or water. In any case, unless you are an 
 excellent mechanic, it is better to send your 
 wheel to a repair shop when it needs taking 
 down. It is a nice job to "■ set up " a bicycle, 
 and if there is anything wrong in the adjust- 
 ment, the machine will run badly and wear 
 out at the bearings. 
 
110 PLEA SURE- C Y CLING. 
 
 The chain necessarily takes more wear 
 than any other part of a bicycle, and should 
 always be most carefully looked after. It 
 should be kept free from grit and dust, and 
 it is well to brush it well with a stiff brush 
 after each run. Every two or three months, 
 reverse it on the spockets, so as to distribute 
 the wear between the two sides. 
 
 Oil your bicycle, generally, once a week, 
 using rather a heavy oil and never enough 
 of it to run out at the bearings. The rear- 
 axle bearing, the bearing at the sprocket- 
 bracket, and the lower steering-head bearing 
 take the most wear, and are most carefully 
 to be looked after. Work each bearing well 
 after oiling. 
 
 You will find it very convenient to sling 
 up your bicycle to a hook in a ceiling, or to 
 tlie limb of a tree, before oiling or cleaning^ 
 so that you can get easily at all parts of the 
 machine and work the bearings freely. 
 
 Do not let the lubricating oil touch the 
 tires of your bicycle, as it is destructive to 
 rubber. If kerosene gets on to the tires, wipe 
 it off quickly. The coal oil products are, 
 more or less, solvents of rubber ; kerosene 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. Ill 
 
 however being a much less powerful solvent 
 than benzine, and therefore a safer and 
 nearly as effective an agent for cleaning the 
 bicycle. 
 
 Clean the machine about once a month, 
 rirst, sling it up, as directed above. Loosen 
 the bearings slightly, and fill each bearing 
 v^ith kerosene from a squirt-can and work the 
 bearing rapidly. Do this until the kerosene 
 I'uns out clean from the bearing. Take off 
 the chain and let it soak for fifteen minutes 
 in a liberal bath of kerosene. Shake it out, 
 rub the whole surface of each block clean 
 with a woollen cloth, and hang the chain up 
 to dry out. Eub the sprocket-teeth clean 
 with a woollen cloth moistened in kerosene. 
 
 Take advantao-e of the chain beinsj off the 
 machine, while the wheel is suspended in the 
 uir, to test the bearings and their adjustment. 
 Work the pedals, and listen carefully at the 
 bearing on each side of the sprocket-bracket. 
 If it gives out a soft, regular musical " click," 
 it is probably all right. Eevolve each wheel 
 and listen at its bearing. The wheel, if the 
 bearings are rightly adjusted, should, under a 
 smart impulse, revolve for several minutes, 
 
112 PLEASURE-CYCLING, 
 
 and, in stop^oing, should oscillate backwards 
 and forwards, until the weight of the valve- 
 nipple brings it to a rest with the nipple 
 about at the bottom of the circumference. 
 On revolving the sprocket, it should, if 
 the bearings are right, come to rest with the 
 pedal-cranks standing about in the vertical 
 line. 
 
 Place the chain — I assume that you use an 
 " Elliott " or other self-oiling block chain — 
 on its side on a board or table. Put not more 
 than one good drop of oil in each block, be- 
 ing careful not to omit a block. If oil ap- 
 pears on the outside of the chain, wipe it off 
 as cleanly as possible with a woollen cloth. 
 
 If you use dry plumbago for lubricating 
 the outside of the chain, apply it on the 
 working side of the chain only, with a very 
 little kerosene oil, which should not be al- 
 lowed to work into the insides of the blocks, 
 before replacing the chain. Preparations of 
 plumbago, or graphite, are now sold in the 
 form of lubricating sticks, using which you 
 will apply the lubricant more evenly and 
 easily than by the use of dry graphite. Be- 
 ware, however, of compounds of grease and 
 
 :r,»<ti 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 113 
 
 graphite, sold for lubricants, which leave the 
 chain sticky, so that it will gather grit and 
 wear the sprockets. 
 
 Now replace the chain on the sprockets. 
 To do this place the joint ends of the chain, 
 respectively, over the upper teeth of the 
 sprockets and revolve the sprockets towards 
 each other until the ends of the chain meet, 
 or nearly so. If you have difficulty in mak- 
 ing the joint, as may be the case if the wheel 
 is suspended and you are working alone, 
 draw the ends of the chain together by 
 means of a cord inserted between the block- 
 joints until the joint is made ; fasten the 
 cord, and then put in the screw and nut to 
 fasten the chain. 
 
 Now oil each bearing, using a little more 
 oil than common. 
 
 At the end of the season clean the machine 
 carefully, oil it well, and sling it up or hang 
 it on the " rests " made for the purpose, 
 and cover it with a cotton cloth. Put it in 
 the dryest and cleanest place you can find 
 for the winter. At the beginning of the 
 next season, if the machine is not to be 
 taken down, clean out the old oil with the 
 
114 PLEAS URE- C YCLING. 
 
 kerosene, and give it a fresh oiling. It will 
 be well to work the bearings occasionally 
 during the off season. 
 
 Keep by you the black lacquer sold for the 
 purpose of repairing the scratches or worn 
 places which are sure to show themselves on 
 the enamelled parts of your machine. This 
 is not nearly so durable as the enamel, but 
 if applied whenever needed it will keep rust 
 from the frame and prevent the outfit from 
 getting shabby. 
 
 Inflating Tires. 
 
 In inflating a tire, it is of advantage, if 
 you have opportunity, to turn the machine 
 on its side on supports, or to sling it up, so 
 that the wheels can revolve easily. See that 
 the air-pump and connecting hose are clean 
 and free from dust, and that the closest pos- 
 sible connection is kept between the valve 
 and pump during inflation. At each stroke 
 of the piston, force it as nearly as possible to 
 its full length. 
 
 As the greater weight falls upon the rear 
 wheel of the bicycle, its tire should be kept 
 the most tensely inflated. The degree of 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 115 
 
 inflation desirable for the pneumatic tire 
 varies with the weight of the rider. A tire 
 which is hard enough for a rider weighing 
 one hundred and fifty pounds will flatten 
 badly under one wdio weighs two hundred. 
 If your tires flatten very slightly under your 
 weight, no harm is done, — your w^heel will 
 run with the less jolting, and you will incur 
 less risk of injuring the tire on stony ground. 
 On the other hand, if the tire flattens too 
 much, it may " cut " at the rim of the wheel ; 
 and it is probably true that "hard" tires 
 propel more easily than " soft " ones. 
 
 If you run a double-tube tire with a too 
 soft inflation, you will probably very soon 
 destroy the inner tube, which is exceedingly 
 fragile and easily injured. 
 
 The larger the tire, the less the degree of 
 inflation necessary to keep it safe, and the 
 easier the motion of the machine. But with 
 the decrease in diameter of the tire, the 
 lio'hter the machine becomes. 
 
 Never meddle unnecessarily with the 
 valves. The less often these are touched, 
 the less likely they are to leak. If, when 
 you remove the valve-cap, the valve " whis- 
 
116 PLEASURE-CYCLING, 
 
 ties/' this shows that some foreign substance 
 has got into the piston, or plunger, of the 
 valve, — probably from the air-pump. If the 
 leak is so slight that you can inflate the tire 
 so as to overcome it, do so, and replace the 
 valve-cap ; and the obstacle in the valve will 
 probably work out of itself. So long as the 
 cap holds the air, you need not trouble your- 
 self about the interior leak. A little oil ap- 
 plied to the washer of the valve-cap, or to 
 the threads of the screw-stopper, in the 
 valves made without washers, and wiped off 
 carefully, will help to keep the valve tight. 
 
 Mending Tires. 
 
 If your tire leaks, first see — if you are not 
 aware of having punctured the tire — whether 
 the leak is in the valve. Turn the wheel so 
 that the valve will come uppermost, and 
 hold a glass of water so that the valve-nip- 
 ple will be submerged in the water, and 
 watch for air bubbles, which will appear if 
 the valve leaks. If no bubbles appear, sponge 
 the surface of the tire liberally with water, 
 and watch closely for bubbles. If none 
 are detected, probe carefully the surface of 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 117 
 
 the tire, wherever any scratch or abrasion ap- 
 pears, with the blunt head of a large needle 
 or with the instrument provided for the pur- 
 pose in the repair outfit. If the leak is not 
 detected, remove the wheel from the machine 
 and immerse it in a tub of water. Then, if 
 the tire does not show bubbles to indicate 
 the leak, you have no resource left but to 
 send the wheel to the repair shop. 
 
 After a long run, you may find a tire 
 wholly or partly deflated without any ap- 
 parent cause. In such case, on examination, 
 you will find that the valve-cap has worked 
 loose, not having been screwed to a firm 
 " set " before you started, and that the con- 
 stant pressure on the tire on the road has 
 forced out the air through the valve-nipple. ■ 
 
 In mending the double-tube tire, the tire 
 must be deflated and removed from the 
 wheel at the place of the puncture. Then 
 the inner tube is to be taken out, or so much 
 of it as is necessary, and patched with the 
 pure rubber ribbon which makes a part of 
 the bicycle outfit and rubber cement (a solu- 
 tion of pure rubber and other ingredients in 
 benzine), after which the tube and tire are to 
 
118 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 be replaced, and the tires inflated. Ordi- 
 nary punctures in the single-tube tire are 
 easily and quickly repaired by inserting in 
 the puncture rubber threads in the ordinary 
 form of " snappers," or rubbber plugs made 
 for the purpose, either of these being well 
 covered with the rubber solution and forced 
 into the puncture, when the benzine evapo- 
 rates and leaves the rubber a solid mass, 
 adhering firmly to the tire and making it 
 air-tight. 
 
 Temporary repairs on the road may be 
 made by patching the punctured place on the 
 outside with the rubber ribbon and solution, 
 and binding the tire and felloe tightly with 
 hemp twine. All the parts to which the 
 solution is to be applied must be perfectly 
 clean and dry. A piece of sand-paper for 
 cleaning the rubber may be a useful part of 
 the equipment. 
 
 General Eepairs. 
 
 If your bicycle has a buckled frame, or a 
 warped wheel or broken spokes, you had 
 better send it to the repair shop, and so if 
 the tire wants cementing. But it is well to 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 119 
 
 understand that spokes may be loosened or 
 tightened by turning to right or left the nip- 
 ple set on the spoke at the junction with the 
 felloe. This may be done with a spanner or 
 monkey-wrench, or with a special tool fur- 
 nished for the purpose in some outfits. The 
 set or " true " of the wheel depends largely 
 on the tension of the spokes, and you will 
 not meddle with them unnecessarily. 
 
 Try your spokes from time to time, taking 
 each in turn around the circumference of the 
 T\^eel, to see that none of them have worked 
 loose. 
 
 It is said that a buckled or sprung wheel 
 may often be restored to shape by laying it 
 down and placing the foot on the higher 
 part of the bend in the rim, lifting with the 
 hands on the lower part, and so springing it 
 back ; but this would seem to be an heroic 
 remedy, and best let alone. There is little 
 danger of a wheel on a high-grade machine 
 buckling or springing, unless as the result of 
 a severe collision or other accident. 
 
 If you are obliged to cement a tire for 
 yourself, place the tire on the wheel, with 
 the side to be cemented outward. Sear it 
 
120 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 slightly all around with a hot iron, so that 
 the cement may stick to the rubber; re- 
 move the tire ; pour heated cement into 
 the felloe and distribute it evenly ; then re- 
 place the tire on the felloe, seared side in, 
 and, if the wheel-rim is steel, heat the felloe 
 from nnderneath with a spirit lamp, (which 
 will not injure the enamel finish,) and let 
 the cement " set " for several hours. Melt 
 your cement over a slow fire, stirring it con- 
 stantly so as not to burn it. 
 
 You will find on your machine appli- 
 ances by which the tension of the chain may 
 be increased or diminished. As the chain 
 wears, it v>rill grow slack on the sprockets, 
 but a chain well taken care of should run 
 well for two seasons without readjusting. 
 Too tight a chain causes the wheel to run 
 hard, and wears the sprockets ; if too loose, 
 there is a loss of power, and a likelihood of 
 stretching or breaking the chain on any 
 sudden application of power, as in ascend- 
 ing a hill. If your chain shows a slack be- 
 tween the tops of the sprockets of not more 
 than a quarter of an inch, the tension is prob- 
 ably right. 
 
TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE. 121 
 
 Bending a pedal-crank is the accident like- 
 liest to happen to a wheel in the hands of an 
 inexperienced rider, and many an old rider 
 has had, at one time or another, to work home 
 on one pedal. Bent cranks are repaired at 
 the shops by putting them under strong 
 pressure in a vice. But you may gener- 
 ally straighten the crank at home in the 
 following manner. Place the bent crank, 
 with the convex upward, upon an ordinary 
 chopping-block, slightly hollowed, as such 
 blocks generally are, by use, so that the 
 ends of the crank wdll rest firmly, leaving 
 the bent place free of the block. Set a billet 
 of oak w^ood endwise on the part of the 
 crank where the bend appears, and strike 
 one smart blow accurately upon the upper 
 end of the billet with a rather heavy 
 hammer. If the first blow only partially 
 corrects the fault, you may try a second; 
 but if the blows appear to make no im- 
 pression on the crank desist from further 
 attempts, lest you break the crank, and 
 send it to the repair shop. 
 
 ISTever let a hammer touch directly any 
 part of the machine. If you have a pin to 
 drive out, interpose a copper wedge or a 
 
122 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 bit of oak wood between the hammer and 
 the point of the pin. In using the monkey- 
 wrench, try to move it directly in the arc 
 of which it makes the radius, and so avoid 
 bruising the nut or damaging the screw- 
 thread. If a nut is set hard, a little kero- 
 sene allowed to work into the screw bear- 
 ing may relieve it. The little wrenches 
 furnished with the bicycle equipment are 
 useful, but an ordinary machinist's wrench 
 is best for loosening the nuts about the 
 saddle and saddle-rod, and the pedals. 
 
 The parts of the leading bicycles are in- 
 terchangeable, as between wheels of the 
 same model, so that any new part wanted 
 can be supplied. It was by carrying such 
 duplicate parts as would most likely be 
 needed, or by sending these ahead on the 
 route, that the trans-continental riders, 
 notably Messrs. Allen and Sachtleben in 
 their trip across Asia, were able to com- 
 plete their arduous journeys. 
 
V. 
 
 DEESS AND EQUIPMENT. 
 
" She met me on the river road 
 Beyond the pasture bars, 
 With toind blown hair, with cheeks aglow. 
 With eyes that beamed like stars. 
 
 what a flash of youth and health, 
 And all things good and leal ! 
 
 1 ^d give my all to spin beside 
 
 That girl upon the wheel ! " 
 
 L. G. C. 
 
There is no disputing about 
 tastes, and the matter of bicy- 
 cling costume must be settled 
 largely by the individual taste 
 of each rider. But there are 
 one or two axioms that may 
 safely be applied to the subject. 
 
 First, long trousers are an abomination in 
 riding. 
 
 Secondly, so are braces or " suspenders." 
 Thirdly, the looser the leg gear above the 
 stockings, the greater the comfort in riding. 
 
 The rider who has once worn short trou- 
 sers will not again, unless in case of neces- 
 sity, mount his wheel in long ones ; , nor, if 
 
126 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 he has once substituted a belt for his sus- 
 penders, will he willingly put these on again. 
 The knickerbocker trousers are much more 
 comfortable than the tight knee-breeches. 
 The latter, if buttoned at the knee, impede 
 the free action of the leg, and, if worn open 
 at the knee, catch the dust, besides presenting 
 a very slovenly appearance. 
 
 Cycling suits in great variety are to be 
 obtained of the dealers in sporting goods, or 
 the clothing dealers, in any large city, or 
 you may have a suit made to order to suit 
 yourself 
 
 Knickerbockers may easily be made by 
 adapting a cast-off pair of loose summer 
 trousers. Cut these off at about three 
 inches below the knee, hem them, and run 
 a strong elastic cord into the hem, and the 
 work is done. Of the cast-off part of the 
 trousers, you may have a cap made, and 
 waist-straps to keep the belt in place. 
 
 One of the best cvclinsr suits the writer 
 has seen was thus made out of a last year's 
 summer suit of a light texture of gray cloth. 
 The knickerbockers, sack-coat, and cap were 
 worn with gray woollen stockings and a light 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT. 127 
 
 weight flannel shirt of the same color, with 
 russet leather belt and shoes. 
 
 A sack-coat is preferable to a blouse, or 
 Norfolk jacket, as being more easily removed 
 to be strapped to the handle-bar in warm 
 weather. 
 
 The stockings should be long enough to 
 reach at least three inches above the knee ; 
 and the knickerbockers should be turned 
 under so that the elastic will clasp the leg 
 well above the knee joint, thus leaving the 
 action of the knee absolutely free. 
 
 As the unimpeded action of the knee 
 joint is an essential aid to comfortable 
 wheeling, nothing can be more absurd than 
 the English "cycling costume" figured in 
 the fashion plates for the season of 1894, 
 with its trousers buttoned tight just below 
 the knee, and its stockings laid fold on fold 
 over the calf of the leg. The costume would 
 seem to have been designed, not to promote 
 the comfort of the wearer, but to conceal the 
 physical deficiences of some lean and slip- 
 pered pantaloon. Jerseys, or "sweaters," so 
 called, are very comfortable, but off the 
 wheel are not desirable wear. 
 
128 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 Fine woollen stockings are mucti prefer- 
 able to cotton. The best stockings the 
 writer has seen were hand-knitted, of soft 
 Scotch gray wool. 
 
 Keep two or three sets of gossamer under- 
 wear for summer riding. 
 
 A cap with a visor to match the costume 
 is the best head-wear. On a hot day, the 
 white duck caps are very comfortable. 
 These, however, will very soon become 
 soiled. If it is desired to wear them, it is 
 well to buy several of the cheapest sort, and 
 throw them away as they become defaced. 
 If you are obliged to ride under an intensely 
 hot sun, and do not mind tan or sunburn, 
 you will find the best head-gear to be a. 
 large white handkerchief wrapped turban- 
 wise around the head, and kept wet. A 
 black silk cap with a visor is very comfort- 
 able in hot weather. 
 
 You may wear bicycle or tennis shoes, 
 with rubber soles, if you will ; but you will 
 find, after a little practice, that a leather 
 sole holds the pedal as well as a rubber one, 
 and that an ordinary low-cut russet shoe 
 answers every purpose. A low-cut shoe is 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT. 129 
 
 much better than a laced boot, unless you 
 have weak ankles. 
 
 In warm weather you will soon find the 
 backs of your hands tanning to a deep and 
 healthy brown, like a well colored meer- 
 schaum pipe. This color you probably will 
 regard as ornamental ; if not, and you wish 
 to ride in gloves, choose those woven of Lisle 
 thread or silk, rather than kid or dogskin. 
 
 A pair of light leather straps, each about 
 fourteen inches lone? and fitted with buckles 
 and eyes, which can easily be carried in the 
 pocket or around the handle-bar, form a very 
 useful article of bicycle equipment. With 
 these, your belongings necessary for a two 
 days' run, or any articles which you may 
 pick up on the road and wish to carry home, 
 may be conveniently strapped to the handle- 
 bar. 
 
 Many devices for carrying a larger equip- 
 ment are sold which answer their purpose 
 well. 
 
 Canes or umbrellas, if you have occasion 
 to carry them, or a fishing-rod or light rifle, 
 or a small camera, may be strapped to the 
 top bar of the machine. 
 
130 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 In fact, if you have strong muscles and 
 ride fearlessly, you may carry almost any- 
 thing on your wheel which you could carry 
 walking. The writer knows a 
 professional paper-hanger, who 
 for a whole season customarily 
 carried wn'th him to and from 
 his daily work a large pail of 
 paste, adroitly strapped to the 
 head of his machine, while his 
 paper-hanger's board was bal- 
 anced across the bicycle frame, 
 and the accompanying paste- 
 brush, scissors, etc. tied to the handle-bars. 
 
 Extra weight should be adjusted as far as 
 possible to the front of the machine, as the 
 centre of gravity of the whole load is thus 
 thrown forward, and the work is more equally 
 distributed between the two wheels. For a 
 like reason, the tool-bag is better carried on 
 the top bar close to the " head " than in the 
 rear saddle-spring. 
 
 Suppose you are starting on an autumn 
 morning for a hundred-mile I'un out and 
 home, intending to stop for the night at an 
 inn half-way out. What shall be your " kit," 
 
DJiESS AND EQUIPMENT. 131 
 
 and how will you bestow it ? You will wear 
 a medium weight all-wool flannel sliirt, or a 
 jersey sweater, — preferably for such a trip the 
 shirt, over light underwear, — with sack-coat, 
 knickerbockers, leather belt, russet shoes, and 
 cap. Take with you a large silk neck muf- 
 fler. Leave at home all superfluities in the 
 w^ay of things carried in the trousers pocket, 
 which are always a nuisance on the bicycle. 
 Discard your pocket-book. If you carry a 
 cigar-case, wrap bank-notes in tissue paper, 
 and put them in the case as the safest place, 
 since, whatever else the smoker leaves or 
 loses, he will look out for his cigars. Put 
 your silver, loose, in your pocket. Your 
 keys, except perhaps a watch-key, you will 
 not want. The best way to carry your watch 
 is in the fob pocket of your knickerbockers 
 in a rubber or chamois case, and without the 
 chain, which, however worn, will persist in 
 catchino- on the saddle in mountincr. A 
 match-box and a folding drinkiDg-cup in a 
 leather case may be carried in your coat 
 pocket. Your sack-coat and shirt should 
 keep you sufficiently warm on the wheel ; if 
 you are too warm, you may relegate the coat 
 
132 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 to the handle-bar. Make into the closest 
 possible roll a light weight night-gown, a 
 change of underwear, an extra handker- 
 chief, and a comb and tooth-brush. You 
 may make the roll into a brown paper par- 
 cel, closely tied, or enclose it in a leather 
 or rubber cover. Strap this to the front of 
 your handle-bar with the leather straps de- 
 scribed above, or with an ordinary shawl- 
 strap. 
 
 If the weather is not too cold for pleasure- 
 riding, that is if there is not snow on the 
 ground, it is warm enough to dispense with 
 an overcoat, which is the most troublesome 
 of encumbrances on the wheel. If you must 
 dress warmly, put on extra underclothing, 
 button your coat snugly, and wear a silk muf- 
 fler to keep the wind from the throat, and 
 woollen gloves, or, better, mittens. A man 
 riding a bicycle in an overcoat is not only 
 an absurd figure, but, which is more impor- 
 tant, he carries unnecessary weight and a sail 
 to catch the wind. 
 
 You will find it interesting to keep a rec- 
 ord of trips for the season. You may carry 
 a note-book for the purpose, setting down 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT. 133 
 
 the distances travelled as accurately as pos- 
 sible, or, if you want an absolutely correct 
 record of miles run, use a cyclometer, — get- 
 ting none, however, but the best. 
 
 Do not leave your wheel alone where it 
 will be exposed to the depredations of 
 thieves, small boys looking to steal a ride, 
 or malicious tire-puncturers. The use of a 
 chain and padlock will at least compel a 
 bicycle thief to carry the machine away 
 bodily, if at all. 
 
 Ladies' Cycling Dress. 
 
 In the matter of a suitable dress for ladies 
 upon the bicycle, there w^ill always be a 
 gentle conflict between the subjects of con- 
 ventionality, on the one hand, and the ad- 
 vocates of positive comfort, on the other. 
 Fashion, not the absolute beauty or fitness 
 of things, prescribes the gowns of the day ; 
 and it has so thoroughly taught us its les- 
 son that what is not in fashion seems posi- 
 tively ugly, and we believe that whatever is, 
 is right. 
 
 But, w4th all masculine diffidence, the 
 writer ventures to sketch the outline of a 
 
134 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 costume for the wheel, which he believes 
 would answer all purposes of neatness, utility, 
 and comfort. Very full " Zouave " trousers, 
 made with an elastic band to be turned 
 under just above the knee; (the trousers 
 when worn to fall just below the knee ;) 
 long leggins to meet the trousers ; loose 
 fitting blouse waist with wide collar, to be 
 worn under a Zouave jacket, which may on 
 occasion be removed and strapped to the 
 handle-bar ; round cap with deep visor ; — 
 all these from a soft texture of woollen cloth 
 of uniform color ; — and a russet leather belt 
 and shoes. In warm weather, duck leggins 
 and a white duck cap might be worn. 
 
 It will be said that this is a sketch of an 
 Amazonian rider; but the answer is that 
 only as an Amazon will the wheelwoman 
 get the most of health and pleasure out of 
 cycling. To ride at all, she must sit the 
 saddle " like a man." Why should she not 
 mount her wheel like a man, and, like a man, 
 enjoy all possible freedom of movement ? 
 Then she might discard the heavy " loop- 
 frame " bicycle, w4th its wheel-guards and 
 dress-guards ; and it is pleasant to know 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT 135 
 
 that one manufacturer, at least, for the 
 season of 1895, will build a light wheel for 
 ladies on the exact lines of the men's model. 
 When such a wheel comes into general use, 
 these lines by a cycling poet will become 
 present truth, and not merely melodious 
 prophecy : — 
 
 " In older times the woman rode 
 As fitted one of subject mind: 
 Her lord and master sat before, 
 She on a pillion sat behind. 
 
 " But now upon her flying wheel 
 She holds her independent way, 
 And when she rides a race with man, 
 'T is even chance she wins the day." ^ 
 
 It is certain that women on the wheel 
 will generally wear either absolute trousers 
 or absolute skirts, for the " divided skirt " 
 appears already to be relegated to the limbo 
 of ugly absurdities ; and it is not easy to 
 believe that the hybrid monstrosity in cos- 
 tume figured in certain fashion-plates, that 
 is, the combination of loose trousers and a 
 tightly corseted waist and balloon sleeves, 
 will find favor. 
 
 1 A. L. Anderson. 
 
136 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 lu spite of the reasons of utility and 
 comfort that make against it, the majority 
 of wheelwomen will probably, for the pres- 
 ent, continue to wear the ordinary skirt, 
 making it as little obtrusive and trouble- 
 some as possible. 
 
 By so much as you will abbreviate the 
 length of your skirt will you increase your 
 own comfort and safety on the wheel. An 
 experienced teacher of cycling, replying to 
 inquiries by the writer, says : — 
 
 "In my experience, I have found that it is 
 much easier for a woman to learn to mount a 
 bicycle when arrayed in ' unconventional ' cos- 
 tume. . . . The fewer under-skirts the better, 
 especially when one is learning to mount the 
 wheel, and the outer skirt should be of light 
 weight material, made perfectly plain and with- 
 out facing. The skirt should be made to reach 
 a little above the ankles." ^ 
 
 As to the details of the ordinary dress, a 
 lady writes : — 
 
 1 Mr. L. B. Smith, of the Columbia Eiding School, 
 Boston, the value of whose criticisms and suggestions, 
 kindly given while this book was in press, the writer 
 gratefully acknowledges. 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT. 137 
 
 " The rider's comfort depends on what she 
 wears under the skirt, if the latter be properly- 
 lined and shaped, more than on the skirt itself. 
 The skirt should be cut so there is no unneces- 
 sary fulness about the hips, and yet unpleasant 
 scantiness should be positively avoided. To 
 begin with, a union under-garment should be 
 worn next the skin, varied in fabric and texture 
 according to the weather. Over this suit should 
 be worn equestrian tights in lieu of underskirts. 
 Corsets should never be worn on the wheel. 
 Well fitting waists should be substituted. 
 * Equestrian' stockings should be black, and 
 under a smoothly lined skirt, allowing perfect 
 freedom of motion with nothing to entangle in 
 pedals or spokes. Shoes should be low and 
 broad-toed. . . . For the head, a light weight 
 felt tourist's hat is almost universally becoming, 
 but whatever style of hat is worn it should be 
 entirely devoid of flowers or feathers. . . . 
 Jewelry should be left at home. . . . Lisle 
 thread gloves are better than kid or silk. . . . 
 Every garment worn for riding should be kept 
 exclusively for that purpose." ^ 
 
 ^ Mary Sargent Hopkins. 
 
138 pleasure-cycling. 
 
 Tools and Eepair-Kit. 
 
 The regular outfit supplied with the wheel 
 usually consists of an air-pump, a small 
 monkey-wrench, a screw-driver, an oiler, and, 
 when the machine requires it, an instru- 
 ment for adjusting bearings. There are also 
 included, when a separate repair outfit is 
 not furnished, a tube of rubber solution and 
 rubber tape for making temporary road 
 repairs. In addition to these things, you 
 will do well to keep at hand a larger screw- 
 driver and a machinist's monkey-wrench, a 
 tin or, better, sticks of graphite, a can of 
 lubricating oil, which is best bought of a 
 responsible dealer in bicycle supplies, and 
 enamel lacquer. Suitable brushes with which 
 to apply lacquer and dry graphite are neces- 
 sary. Spanners which fit the principal nuts 
 on the machine, and especially the spoke- 
 nipples, are useful; some outfits include a 
 special instrument for turning the spoke- 
 nipples. You will want an abundance of 
 kerosene oil for cleaning ; also two or three 
 chamois skins, sponges, soft dusters, pref- 
 erably of old woollen or silk, and plenty of 
 
DRESS AND EQUIPMENT. 139 
 
 woollen rags. Clean cotton waste is useful. 
 Add to your equipment some whiting with 
 which to remove rust. Keep a tin vessel in 
 which to soak out your chain, and two small 
 squirt-caDS, one for kerosene and the other 
 for lubricating oil. If your machine has a 
 wood rim, some shellac finish may be use- 
 ful. A sling, with hooks, with which you 
 may hang up your wheel, is indispensable, 
 and you will want a ball of strong fine 
 hemp twine, and a wooden pail or bucket for 
 water. 
 
 Keep your outfit together, and always in 
 order, so that you can get at anything you 
 need in an emergency, and save yourself 
 delay and vexation. 
 
 Experience will teach you what tools you 
 are likely to want on the road. With a 
 single-tube tire, on a short run, the necessary 
 things would seem to be the small wrench and 
 screw-driver, the air-pump, the rubber tape 
 and solution, and twine ; but you may wheel 
 for weeks without having occasion to open 
 your tool-bag. For a long run, particularly if 
 it is to be over country roads, take with you 
 the small oiler. Pack the tool-bag carefully, 
 
140 
 
 PL EASURR-CYCLING. 
 
 using a woollen wrapper for the tools, if 
 necessary, so that these may not rattle, nor 
 the tube of solution break and make a mess. 
 Turn out and examine the contents of the 
 tool-bag occasionally, as the steel tools, if left 
 lying in the bag, are apt to rust. 
 
VI. 
 
 CYCLING AND HEALTH. 
 
" Though near the top of life's long hill, 
 And ready for its slow decline, 
 I feel again my pulses thrill, 
 
 And drinli again youth's nerving ■wine.'" 
 
 "Beth Day." 
 
 *' I care not for riches or greatness^ 
 I bid dull care depart, 
 And laugh at dyspeptic sedateness, 
 
 As I spin through the air like a dart" 
 
 Lenox B. Smith. 
 
VI. 
 
 It has been wisely said by President Eliot 
 that " the athletic sports and exercises which 
 commend themselves ... are those which 
 can be used moderately and steadily, and 
 which remain available ... in mature life. 
 Such are gymnasium exercises, walking, 
 running, rowing, sailing, riding, cycling, ten- 
 nis, gunning, bowling, and fencing. The 
 youthful expert in any of these sports . . . 
 will carry into his strenuous professional 
 life a great source of enjoyment and a real 
 safeguard of health and of the invaluable 
 capacity to endure without injury mental 
 
144 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 and moral stress. On the other hand, the 
 games which demand so much practice and 
 such severe training that the brain is tem- 
 porarily dulled for all other use, or which 
 require a combination of many individuals 
 of like powers and tastes, or which contain 
 as essential elements violent personal en- 
 counters, can have no direct application to 
 the after life of professional or business men. 
 Moreover, all games which require intense 
 training for short periods present a serious 
 physical and moral danger for the players, 
 — the familiar danger of reaction when 
 training stops." 
 
 The writer believes that of the list of 
 sports which President Eliot mentions, con- 
 sidering these as aids to health and clear- 
 thinking, cycling easily leads, and is likely 
 to lead, until some sport shall be invented 
 which shall bring with it an equal pleas- 
 ure for the same modicum of exertion in 
 its practice. The sport is to be differen- 
 tiated from the others named, in that, first, 
 it is the most independent of sports except 
 walking or running, and, secondly, that 
 the amount of exertion applied to its exer- 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 145 
 
 cise may always be regulated by the strength 
 or taste of the individual, and this without 
 making the sport irksome. Gymnasium 
 exercises are available to comparatively 
 few persons, and to most soon grow in- 
 sufferably tedious when undertaken as a 
 duty. Tennis and bowling both require a 
 special equipment for the practice of them^ 
 and companions to join the sport, and the 
 minimum of physical exertion which each 
 calls for is beyond the strength of many fairly 
 healthy, but delicate constitutions. Eun- 
 ning is for most men past their youth an 
 absolutely dangerous sport, and one which 
 few women at any time of life can safely 
 practise. Most persons find walking for a 
 length of time, especially solitary walking, ex- 
 tremely wearisome. Gunning, in the absence 
 of game, is merely walking with the handi- 
 cap of a gun. To fence, you must find an 
 adversary of about your own degree of skill 
 to make the sport enjoyable. Eowing re- 
 quires water and a boat, and sailing a wind 
 as well, which may treacherously abandon 
 you or set its face against your plans. But 
 the cycler, with his wheel under him and 
 
 10 
 
146 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 mother earth under his wheel, is absolutely in- 
 dependent of circumstances, and may set out 
 alone or in company, with the world before 
 him where to choose. 
 
 Speaking of cycling as a supplement, in 
 later years, to the athletic sports practised 
 in the colleges, Surgeon Gulp of the United 
 States Army says : " Twenty times as many 
 men as formerly devote more or less time to 
 athletics while at college. These, after de- 
 veloping cardiac, pulmonary, and muscular 
 systems to the highest point, but too often, 
 on the completion of their college life, settle 
 down to a sedentary existence absolutely 
 without any form of active athletic exer- 
 cise. As a result of years of experience 
 among this class, I am perfectly convinced 
 that sooner or later they lose not only their 
 physical strength, but health and vigor as 
 well. To such persons the modern bicycle 
 becomes much more than a delightful mode 
 of recreation, and the lawyer, doctor, mer- 
 chant, or preacher finds that his short 
 daily ride enables him to do better mental 
 work, both as regards quality and quantity, 
 than before. Perhaps of even more impor- 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 147 
 
 tance is the fact that consumption, Blight's 
 disease, and gout are almost unknown among 
 wheelmen, and it has seemed to me that 
 college athletes are particularly prone to the 
 two former as they approach middle age/' 
 
 Cycling, like rowing, sailing, foot-ball, 
 base-ball, riding, and tennis, is not now, 
 in the Northern climate, available to any 
 extent as a winter sport ; but it is alto- 
 gether likely that, with the organization of 
 cycling clubs in the larger cities, and perhaps 
 in the principal colleges, covered tracks will 
 be provided for winter riding, so that the 
 sport as a means of exercise may be prac- 
 tised in the winter to a much greater extent 
 than at present. The writer looks forward 
 hopefully to a time when the gymnastic 
 training in the principal colleges shall in- 
 clude a course of bicycle instruction, and 
 when the apparatus of the gymnasium shall 
 not be considered complete unless it in- 
 clude a sufficient store of bicycles which 
 may be loaned or rented to all undergraduate 
 comers. 
 
 Dr. C. B. Meding, a New York physician, 
 says : " Eide a bicycle for one half-mile, 
 
148 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 notice the refreshed feeling, the quiver of 
 gentle tension, the enthusiasm of vigor ; 
 now try to recall your thoughts during the 
 half-mile. Am I not right when I say 
 that every care and weight has been lifted ? " 
 It has already been said that the positive 
 tonic effect of this exercise upon mind and 
 body both is marvellous. Just before these 
 lines were written, a lady said to the 
 writer : " The bicycle has been the great- 
 est of blessings to my husband. He has 
 always seemed fairly well, but always ner- 
 vous, and at times afflicted with the worst 
 attacks of ' the blues.' These never visit 
 him now in the wheeling season, and I shall 
 welcome for his sake the opening spring and 
 settled roads." Perhaps the exhilarating 
 effect of wheeling may be a little like that 
 produced temporarily upon a well-balanced 
 organization, unaccustomed to the use of 
 wines, by taking a glass of champagne, with 
 the difference that the effects of the wheel 
 exercise are natural and those of the wine 
 artificial, and that the stimulus produced by 
 the wine must be followed by an intenser 
 reaction. As regards cycling, " the cause of 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 149 
 
 this effect," the writer believes, is not far to 
 seek. If one inhales a whiff of " laughing 
 gas," that is atmospheric air a little over- 
 charged with oxygen, he experiences a mo- 
 mentary exhilaration, not unlike, while it 
 lasts, the exhilaration produced by riding. 
 On the wheel, riding in the pure air, if the 
 rider sits his saddle as he should, and 
 breathes deeply, as he should, the lungs are 
 constantly well filled and emptied; and at 
 the same time a rapid circulation of the 
 blood is induced by the steady muscular 
 motion. The body and brain-cells respond 
 at once to this quickened and perfected 
 oxygenization of the blood, with the result of 
 a renewed tone and vigor, both of mind and 
 body. 
 
 It may be said, and it is true, that a 
 similar effect is produced, for instance, by 
 rowing ; but there is this difference, that 
 rowing is of necessity a violent exercise, 
 which cannot without special training be 
 kept up for any great length of time, whereas 
 on your wheel you may ride from the sun- 
 rise to the sunset of a summer's day, with 
 very moderate periods of rest, taking draughts 
 
150 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 of renewed health and happiness with each 
 push of your pedals. 
 
 Says Dr. Meding : " Look at that man or 
 woman applying to your immense knowl- 
 edge for health. Born healthy ! Bred health- 
 fully, yet pale, dispirited, headachy, consti- 
 pated, without appetite, sound sleep, and 
 ambition. Try your iron, oxygen, arsenic, 
 and quinine, your bolus or your fiftieth 
 dilution of a milligram. Bah I As well give 
 them to the struggling rose-bush in your 
 parched back garden. Air is what they 
 need, — air in the lungs, — enough to oxy- 
 genate, to store up, and then still more to 
 increase the residual capacity. . . . Prescribe 
 walking ? Such men and w^omen don't walk, 
 they meander. ... Is it generally known 
 that flabby muscles are the enemy of beauty ? 
 Is it generally accepted that fresh air will 
 sweeten temper ? . . . These are gospel 
 truths. Hippocrates cried centuries ago for 
 less medicine and more nature. We want 
 less of the bark, resin, and extract of the 
 tree, more of its rich beauty. The bright 
 flowers and living green of meadow plants I 
 sometimes think would do more good than 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 151 
 
 the teas made of their remains. Do I 
 exaggerate ? If I tell you many aches, real 
 ones, many pains, sharp ones, many unnamed, 
 unclassified, but real complaints are to be 
 cured by riding a bicycle, will you deride ? 
 Not yet, I fancy, have extolling exclamations 
 for some recent coal-tar derivatives died out ; 
 you did not know even their formula; you 
 used them. I suggest a sure adjunct to 
 rapid cure, based on daily experience which 
 you can obtain for yourself, and I give you 
 the formula, — a good bicycle and common 
 sense. Can you ignore it ? " 
 
 Cycling, then, is not only the most avail- 
 able of sports, but, as regards its effects upon 
 the physical well-being, the best and safest, 
 because even a very moderate practice of it 
 brings, to most temperaments at least, a 
 pleasure equal to that which the most violent 
 exertion gives. Thus you will find that 
 many strong and accomplished riders prefer 
 for pleasure riding a gait of from six to eight 
 miles per hour. As has already been said, 
 one's riding rate will, other things being 
 equal, depend very much on his tempera- 
 ment, and it will be always the nervous, 
 
152 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 enthusiastic rider who will be in danger of 
 overdoing. 
 
 For cycling, like every other athletic 
 exercise, may be rankly abused. For in- 
 stauce, a rider has set for himself a forty- 
 mile run over hilly roads, a trip which he is 
 easily able to make under favorable condi- 
 tions. Two or three miles out the wind 
 shifts and blows lustily in his face from the 
 northeast, bringing with it cold and heavy 
 rain. He determines not to be stopped 
 by a " little thing like that," and pushes on 
 over roads growing heavier with every mile. 
 He gets wet through and chilled to the bone, 
 he and his machine are covered with mud- 
 splashes, and the wheel begins to run hard 
 as the bearino's fill with dirt and water. He 
 has to dismount and drag his bicycle up hills 
 that have never troubled him before. At 
 length, he reaches his journey's end, raven- 
 ously hungry, perhaps, but not in condition 
 to eat heartily. He will be pretty sure to 
 catch a bad cold, or a rheumatism, or an 
 indigestion ; and will be lucky if he has not 
 laid the foundation of some grave functional 
 disorder. 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 153 
 
 Again, there is not anywhere a more 
 foolish person than the amateur racer, who 
 without any real chance of making a dis- 
 tinguished record, and without either the 
 strength, skill, or training of the kings of 
 the track, exhausts himself in inglorious 
 contests never to be heard of out of a little 
 circle of equally foolish boys. Remember 
 too, that, as soon as you begin to make 
 cycling a business, you make a toil of a 
 pleasure and the best of the sport is gone, 
 and, which is worse, you may make that an 
 absolute harm which in its judicious prac- 
 tice is the best and safest of outdoor amuse- 
 ments. 
 
 Speaking of the possible abuses of cycling, 
 it is said : — 
 
 " There are objections. What are they ? 
 The same that are justly urged against ex- 
 travagance. The same objections that can 
 be brought against every article of food or 
 drink, . . . namely, against the abuser, not 
 the thing abused. Drunkards, gluttons, and 
 inveterates, are they legitimate arguments 
 against anything but themselves ? 
 
 " To see a rider bent into a tipsy W, flying 
 
154 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 and panting on a wheel, to hear of some 
 clogged heart that for twenty years has 
 objected to curbstones, having stopped after 
 a bicycle ride, to hear of the broken heads of 
 rash coasters, the hoarse voices of relay riders, 
 these are not objections. As well does the 
 victim of the morphine habit prove opium 
 a curse." 
 
 The writer has spoken of a road rate of 
 from ten to twelve miles per hour as one 
 easily to be attained by the average wheel- 
 man on good roads, such as for instance are 
 to be found in the radius of twenty miles 
 from Boston. But the capacity of making 
 this rate with comfort and safety depends 
 upon the condition of the rider, or rather 
 upon his constitution. If his lungs are 
 sound and strong, he may make and keep 
 such a rate, feeling pretty sure that he can 
 maintain it until his legs get tired, which 
 they will not do for several hours if the 
 rider takes five minutes every hour for rest. 
 If you have weak lungs, you should not ride 
 at such a pace as to get winded or attempt 
 hard hills. If you ride perseveringly, stop- 
 ping whenever you get out of breath, and not 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 155 
 
 taking the saddle again until you are fully 
 recovered, you will find at the end of each 
 week that your endurance and lung capacity 
 have sensibly increased. 
 
 If moderate exercise on the wheel develops 
 a palpitation or pain about the heart, stop 
 at once, and do not mount your wheel ex- 
 cept under the advice and direction of your 
 physician. It may be that the exercise in a 
 moderate degree will cure you, or it may be 
 that you must abandon it altogether, but 
 you should not be your own judge in the 
 matter. 
 
 If you have no functional disorder, you 
 may from the beginning safely put into your 
 work on the bicycle all the merely muscular 
 exertion of which you are capable. The 
 fatigue, or slight lameness, which hard work 
 may at first induce, will do you no harm, 
 and will be amply compensated by the tonic 
 effect of the sport on all the bodily func- 
 tions. If you sit your saddle rightly, that is, 
 in an erect position, you cannot help breathing 
 freely and deeply, and at the same time the 
 rapid action of the leg muscles will induce 
 a quick and full circulation of the blood 
 
156 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 throughout the system. You are getting 
 pure air and exercise as active as you choose 
 to make it, and the result will be a clear 
 head, a sound digestion, and an absolute qui- 
 etude of your obtrusive " nerves." 
 
 As compared with walking, cycling re- 
 quires an increased action of the knee and 
 ankle joints, and, in addition to the exercise 
 of the muscles used in w^alking or running, 
 it employs another set of muscles for the 
 " push " movement which ordinarily have 
 been but slightly developed. It is therefore 
 in the knee, the ankle, and in the pushing 
 muscles, that the beginner is most likely to 
 feel fatigue, and it may require several 
 weeks of practice to bring him into such 
 condition that he can endure a fifty-mile run 
 without some slight lameness of these parts 
 following. So, during the off season, you 
 will lose something of what you have gained 
 in strength in the muscles which are resting, 
 unless you are within reach of a riding- 
 school and practise there for an hour or two 
 each week. 
 
 The beneficial effect of cycling to cure in- 
 cipient rheumatism, or weakness of the knees 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 157 
 
 or ankles, is positive and wonderful. If you 
 are afflicted with these ills, or either of them, 
 and are able to ride without actual discom- 
 fort, even for the shortest period of time, try 
 the wheel, and ride perseveringly. If you 
 can keep the saddle at first but five min- 
 utes, you may be sure that in a week or 
 two your endurance will be doubled, and 
 that probably in a month your strong new 
 legs will laugh at the weak members which 
 they have displaced. 
 
 In a newspaper anecdote, the lean lady is 
 made to say to the stout one, " How delight- 
 ful that you have a bicycle too ! I go every 
 morning because doctor says I shall certainly 
 grow stouter." To which the stout lady re- 
 plies, " Perfectly lovely ! We '11 go together. 
 I go because the doctor tells me that it will 
 decrease my weight." The contradiction is 
 not so absurd as it seems, for the lean dys- 
 peptic, for example, as the exercise gradually 
 strengthens his digestion, will find his flesh 
 and weight increasing, while the fat and 
 hitherto lazy man will certainly reduce him- 
 self to a comfortable leanness in the course 
 of a season's persistent riding. 
 
158 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 Cyclers in their first season, who are just 
 beginning to take long rides, may find the 
 foUowinoj su^aestions of use. 
 
 When at work on the wheel, keep your 
 lungs always well inflated, breathing through 
 the nostrils and keeping the mouth closed. 
 Keep the chin up, the shoulders well braced 
 back, and, although you may have sometimes 
 to lean forward in the saddle, never stoop at 
 the shoulders. Do not acquire the bad habit 
 of riding with the hands close to the steer- 
 ing-post of the machine ; this position con- 
 tracts the shoulders and so lessens the lung 
 capacity, as does also the use of a very short 
 handle-bar. For a man of ordinary size, a 
 bar measuring twenty-four inches in a straight 
 line from tip to tip is not too long. 
 
 Do not ride with a saddle that persistently 
 hurts you. The difficulty may disappear 
 after a short rest ; if not, a slight change in 
 the saddle adjustment may relieve it. If 
 your saddle constantly troubles you, discard 
 it and try another pattern ; if you find 
 nothing but the old-fashioned hammock 
 saddle comfortable, use that in spite of its 
 weight. 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 159 
 
 Do not ride fasting. If you go out for an 
 early morning run, take a glass of milk, or a 
 cup of black coffee, and a roll, before starting. 
 You may ride ten or fifteen miles upon this, 
 and return with a marvellous appetite for a 
 more substantial breakfast. 
 
 If you can take but a short rest at dinner 
 time on a long run, do not eat a heavy 
 meal. A lunch of eggs or raw oysters, or 
 both, with milk or black coffee, will keep you 
 in good shape for road work, and you will 
 avoid the danger of the indigestion which a 
 heavy dinner without a rest after it may 
 induce. 
 
 It is much better to rest for an hour after 
 dinner than to resume riding at once, espe- 
 cially if you have eaten heartily, but a longer 
 rest than this is not necessary. If you are 
 obliged to ride immediately after a meal, ride 
 moderately at first. 
 
 As to drinking water on the road, the same 
 rule is to be observed as in mountain climb- 
 ing, horseback riding, or any other athletic 
 exercise ; that is, if you perspire freely, you 
 may drink as freely as you choose, so long 
 
160 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 as you do not drink ice-water, or other 
 extremely cold drink. But if you do not per- 
 spire, you must drink with the greatest mod- 
 eration. The use of alcoholic liquors while 
 actually engaged in riding, or any other active 
 exercise, is to be strictly avoided. It not only 
 utterly upsets the balance, so to speak, of the 
 physical system, but it has the immediate 
 effect of inducing a shortness of breath, and so 
 disabling the rider. Ginger ale is an ex- 
 cellent and most refreshing drink for a long 
 run on a hot day ; and this may be taken 
 rather freely by persons who are obliged to 
 drink very sparingly of water. 
 
 An excellent thing to carry in the pocket 
 on a hard ride is a stick or two of choc- 
 olate, sweet or not as you prefer, done up in 
 tinfoil, as it is sold in the shops. This, 
 with a hard biscuit or two, will make on a 
 pinch a very satisfactory lunch. 
 
 You may smoke, if you will, on easy 
 ground, and will not find that it intereferes 
 with your riding, that is, if your lungs are 
 strong, and the exercise does not " wind " 
 you. But if you have a hard hill to climb. 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 161 
 
 throw away your cigar. Your lungs are to 
 be taxed, and in cycling, as in mountain 
 climbing or rowing, good sound breathing 
 and smoking are incompatible. 
 
 Avoid, so far as you can, getting heated on 
 the road in cool weather. To this end, wear 
 the minimum of clothing while actually in 
 the saddle. Down to the end of October, 
 you will find that, generally, the best place 
 for your coat is the handle-bar. If you are 
 warm on dismounting, lose no time in un- 
 strapping your coat and putting it on. Xo 
 matter how cool the weather, you run little 
 risk of catching cold while actually riding, 
 the only real danger being in the exposure 
 of the throat to the wind, which will strike 
 keenly if you ride even at a moderate gait. 
 So you should never leave home without a 
 silk or wool muffler for the throat. Wear- 
 ing this, you may be sure that the rest of 
 your body will take care of itself, that is, if 
 you are in good condition. 
 
 If you are warm on getting in from a run, 
 lose no time in making a complete change of 
 clothing, taking, if possible, a rapid sponge 
 II 
 
162 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 bath and a hard rub with a cbarse bath 
 towel. Thus you will avoid a possible cold. 
 If you are to take a long run, carry with 
 you, no matter what else you leave behind, a 
 change of underclothing, and do not neglect 
 to change at once when you come to a long 
 halt. 
 
 The stiffness of the muscles and knee 
 joints which sometimes follows a long run 
 will generally yield to a warm bath and a 
 vigorous rubbing with a coarse towel, which 
 may be wet with a dilution of bay rum. 
 Some professional riders use freely a liniment 
 made up of equal parts of alcohol and 
 hamamelis. 
 
 In conclusion. Give all your leisure, for 
 one summer, to the wheel. Eide wisely and 
 moderately ; and you will understand, per- 
 haps for the first time in your mature life, 
 the significance of the expression, " a sound 
 mind in a sound body." Dreamless sleep, 
 unobtrusive digestion, clear mental action, 
 wholesome thous^hts, and the relish for 
 healthy pleasures, — all these will be yours 
 in full measure, and you will see that "a 
 
CYCLING AND HEALTH. 163 
 
 new era, not merely of physical vigor, but 
 also of mental and moral health, has been 
 inaugurated by this light, swift, joy-giving^ 
 marvellous means of locomotion." 
 
VII. 
 
 ON THE EOAD. 
 
" When all the world wasfree^ 
 And naught of care had we. 
 Bach grassy blade, each forest shade, 
 Each winding stream, we thought was made 
 For our long jubilee." 
 
 J. Andrews Cone. 
 
YII. 
 
 Cycling gratifies the love of 
 adventure which is latent in 
 everybody. You may make 
 a little journey into the 
 world on your wheel, and, 
 although you travel but a 
 ^^- hundred miles from your 
 
 home, you will be surprised to find how 
 much of interest and amusement you meet 
 along new roads, and among fresh faces and 
 unfamiliar landscapes. 
 
 Get a good road-map of the country for 
 forty miles around your home ; study routes 
 and distances with its help ; learn where 
 
168 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 the comfortable country iuns are ; plan for 
 each long ride a route in advance, and do 
 the whole region thoroughly. After a 
 month's or two months' practice, you will 
 be able easily to take a twenty or twenty- 
 five mile route out before dinner, dine and 
 rest, and run home easily in the afternoon; 
 or you may plan a hundred-mile trip out 
 and home, resting over night at your fifty- 
 mile objective point. 
 
 You may be happy enough to have 
 secured a week's or a fortnight's outing, 
 and wise enough to devote it to the com- 
 panionship of your wheel. In this case, 
 you will make deliberate preparations for a 
 long trip. You will arrange an itinerary, 
 or select one from the League " Eoad-Book," 
 showing routes and stopping places for each 
 day's run, and make your map a part of 
 your equipment. 
 
 The wheelman, at least in the east, will 
 find many road-maps in the market, some 
 good and some nearly worthless. For all- 
 round use in the country regions of Massa- 
 chusetts, the writer prefers the plates of the 
 standard Massachusetts Atlas, published by 
 
ON THE ROAD. 169 
 
 George H. Walker & Co., of Boston. These 
 twenty-seven in number, and covering the 
 entire State, are sold separately folded in 
 stiff' covers, and can easily be carried in the 
 pocket. The scale is an inch to the mile: 
 the roads are very accurately laid down, and 
 the character of them as being good or bad, 
 fairly well indicated. Contour lines in color 
 indicate heights above the sea level. Eail- 
 way crossings at grade, or over or under 
 grade, and churches, school-houses, and 
 cemeteries (which often serve as landmarks 
 in a strange country), are also indicated. By 
 the study of these maps, the rider may form 
 a reasonably good notion, in advance, of the 
 character of a proposed new route. 
 
 If you wish to keep in touch with the 
 bicycling world, besides enjoying the sub- 
 stantial advantages which attach to a mem- 
 bership in the way of special rates at many 
 hotels, and the use of its excellent Eoad- 
 Books, you will probably join the League of 
 American Wheelmen. 
 
 The League was formed at Newport, 
 Rhode Island, May 31, 1880. It grew out 
 
170 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 of suggestions made by Charles E. Pratt, of 
 Boston, who was its first President. The 
 objects of it, as set forth in its original con- 
 stitution, and which lm¥©ibeen substantially 
 adhered to since, were "to promote the 
 general interests of bicycling, to ascertain, 
 defend, and protect the rights of wheelmen, 
 and to encourage and facilitate touring." It 
 is^largely owing to the efforts of the League 
 and its officers that the legal rights of 
 cyclers upon the road have been ascertained, 
 and clearly defined ; and its efforts directed 
 to the improvement of the public highways 
 of the country deserve grateful recognition 
 by all good citizens, whether cyclers or not. 
 The official organ of the association is the 
 ''L. A. W. Bulletin," and in January, 1892, 
 it commenced the publication of the well 
 known magazine, " Good Eoads." ^ 
 
 The Eoad-Books published by the League, 
 and not easily to be obtained except by its 
 members, are the result of infinite patient 
 disinterested effort on the part of wheelmen 
 and the officers of the League in charge of 
 
 1 The " Bulletin " and "Good Roads " are now, April, 
 1895, consolidated. 
 
ON THE ROAD. 171 
 
 the work. The books give in detail dis- 
 tances, character and grades of roads, land- 
 marks and stopping places along a great 
 number of the principal highways in the 
 different States in which they are severally 
 issued, and include maps giving the general 
 course and direction of the roads. The 
 seventh and latest edition of the Massachu- 
 setts Eoad-Book was issued in 1894. 
 
 Your outfit, if small, you may take with 
 you in a "luggage carrier," or in a valise 
 made to fit within the frame of your bicycle, 
 or you may reduce your irii'pedimenta to 
 what may be strapped to the handle-bar, 
 sending on other baggage from point to 
 point by express. 
 
 If you start for a long trip, make up your 
 mind not to be annoyed by trivial things, 
 nor to fret if your plans are deranged by bad 
 weather or unforeseen happenings. A rainy 
 day in a country inn may indeed be dull, 
 but this like everything else will pass, and 
 you will only add to your own discomfort 
 and that of others, by taking it hardly. 
 Above all, do not get obstinately bent on 
 
172 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 pushing on through wet and wind. If you 
 are a good wheelman, you should be also 
 an every-day philosopher, and, as such, 
 superior to all petty vexations. If you 
 will take things as they come, and refrain 
 from fidgeting and worrying, you will find 
 your week on a bicycle a bright spot in 
 your remembrance as long as you live, and 
 when your faithful wheel brings you back to 
 your own door, you will dismount from it 
 feeling yourself a giant refreshed. 
 
 The diligent cycler becomes, perforce, a 
 keen student of topography. In the course 
 of a season on the wheel, you will become 
 intimately acquainted with every road with- 
 in a reach of twenty miles from your home. 
 You will know the hard hills and the easy 
 ones ; the troublesome ruts in one road, the 
 smooth hard-beaten footpaths that border 
 another for miles ; the sandy roads that are 
 impassable in dry weather, but which a 
 summer thunder-shower beats hard for you ; 
 and the wet woodland byways that only 
 weeks of sunshine will make tolerable. 
 You note the changes which the hurrying 
 
ON THE ROAD. 173 
 
 season brings, — the maple sapling, pre- 
 maturely scarlet, in the marsh, the ripening 
 of the hops upon the farmer's vine, and the 
 purpling of the wild grapes in some thicket 
 of which in July you discovered the secret. 
 In the season you scent the laden hay- 
 rigging by the fragrant wisps that it drops 
 behind it along the road, long before you 
 hear the creaking of its laboring wheels. 
 The Indian corn you watch from its youth 
 of silky greenness to the day of its solid 
 golden maturity ; and you anticipate the 
 coming time when the surly green apples 
 overhanc^ino; the road shall soften to a 
 mellow crimson. 
 
 But the pleasures of cycling are not to be 
 obtained only from long runs and country 
 rides. You may choose for your riding the 
 suburban parks and " boulevards," which, 
 on a summer afternoon, you will find dotted 
 all over with the swift-gliding wheels of 
 others, like yourself on health and pleasure 
 bent. For the beauty of wild landscapes, — 
 the hill pastures, the thick woods, and the 
 tangle of golden-rod and asters by the road- 
 
174 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 sides, — • you enjoy now the more conventional 
 charm of well kept lawns and flower gar- 
 dens ; and instead of farmhouses and country 
 school-houses, you spin by Queen Anne 
 cottages and shingle-sided villas ; — all these 
 scattered along roads over which your 
 machine almost moves itself, so that noth- 
 ing diverts your attention from the beauty 
 in nature and art which surrounds you, or 
 from the living beauty which meets you on 
 the way. 
 
 The city wheelman has offered him for 
 exploration miles of park and suburban 
 beauty. The wonderful zone of gardens, 
 hills, and villages that surrounds Boston ; 
 the noble asphalted streets and avenues of 
 Washington ; Eiverside, and Central Park, 
 Druid Hill and Fairmount; and the mag- 
 nificent chain of boulevards and parks that 
 girdles Chicago ; — any of these furnish room 
 for a season's cycling. 
 
 On a bright June Saturday, as you sit 
 at your desk, despatching with unwonted 
 celerity the business of the day, you will 
 bless the beneficent and growing custom 
 which is making a half-holiday on the 
 
ON THE ROAD. 175 
 
 seventh day of the week, -antil at length 
 you are ready to close safe-door and "roll- 
 top," with a clang and a slam, and hasten 
 to where your patient wheel, shining and 
 well oiled over night, is waiting for you. 
 You grudge the accustomed delay of the 
 steam or electric line that takes you 
 home, and, once there, you 
 lose no time in discarding the 
 starched garments of conven- 
 tionality and slipping into 
 your loose-fitting knickerbock- 
 ers and flannels. You vault 
 into the saddle and give your 
 first push to the pedals, and the cares that 
 have infested the week are forgotten and for 
 an afternoon you are a boy again, as you join 
 the crowd on the suburban roads, or in 
 the driveways of the neighboring park, or 
 run a half-score of miles to some unexplored 
 village, or perhaps spin over the long stretch 
 of a hard sea-beach within easy reach of the 
 city. 
 
 Not all the enjoyments of a healthy sport 
 are to be found in its present exercise, but 
 
176 PLEASURE-C YCLING. 
 
 the pleasures of it are also in memory and 
 anticipation. To the wheelman who loves 
 Nature, — who keeps his eyes open to the 
 pictures that she paints for him, his ears 
 alive to the symphonies of the winds and 
 the brooks, the songs of the birds, and the 
 whisperings of the sea, — who appreciates 
 the humors and whimsicalities of every-day 
 life and makes even a superficial study of 
 them as they pass before him in the pano- 
 rama which he watches from the saddle, — 
 the adventures and happenings of a season 
 on the wheel may, in the retrospect, enliven 
 many a dull day or winter evening. 
 
 You may, if you crave the satisfaction of 
 benefiting others while you are amusing 
 yourself, select some good route not yet 
 described in your Eoad-Books, and set your- 
 self the task of thoroughly exploring and 
 noting it, at the end of the season making 
 up your notes into the form of the League 
 routes, and sending the result to the proper 
 quarter. 
 
 If you are a photographer, you may make 
 your camera a part of your bicycle outfit, 
 and it will preserve for your future enjoy- 
 
ON THE ROAD. 177 
 
 ment hundreds of souvenirs of men and 
 things. 
 
 If, better still, you are an artist, even if 
 your capacity is limited to making a toler- 
 able sketch in water color 
 or black and white, you 
 may carry along your 
 sketching materials, sure 
 of abundant opportunity 
 for using them. If you 
 can make clever sketches, 
 truthful or whimsical, of 
 the persons you meet, so much the better. 
 
 If you can do none of these things, you 
 can at least write, and you will find a book 
 of notes of your season's runs, not only inter- 
 esting as recalling the memories of pleasant 
 days, but full of bits of useful knowledge 
 for the wheelman and local topographer. 
 
 Note each run of any consequence that you 
 make ; the distance of it by the cyclometer, 
 if you use one, — if not as nearly as you can 
 by the map and scale ; and the time made 
 from point to point. Note the weather, the 
 character and condition of the roads over 
 which you travel. Mention the odd things 
 
 12 
 
178 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 and queer people whom you meet, the ac- 
 quaintances you make, the inns at which 
 you stop and what they serve you for dinner. 
 Do not say, " This or that is trivial, it would 
 be childish to note it." You are not at work, 
 but at play, and to the child at play nothing 
 is childish. It is the best of this noble 
 sport that, to the busy man, it brings back, 
 while his wlieels whirl, his lost youth ; and 
 if you are to be young, you may as well 
 begin as near the beginning as possible. 
 
 You may come home with your pockets 
 ballasted with geological specimens, or with 
 your machine loaded with bunches of golden- 
 rod and swamp pink ; if you 
 have any special interest that 
 connects you with the world of 
 outward nature, you will find 
 something to interest you. You 
 may if you like take out with 
 you a book to read ; but you 
 probably will not read it. If you can be 
 content to lie under a tree and take the 
 world at second hand from the pages of a 
 book, while your wheel waits impatiently 
 at your feet begging you to ride it, and all 
 
ON THE ROAD. 179 
 
 the world of reality lies before you to ex- 
 plore, you are at least an oddity. 
 
 Some good friend will tell you that wheel- 
 ing is a selfish solitary sport ; another, that 
 it can only be practised with pleasure in 
 good company. You will bear these slanders 
 with equanimity, well knowing that neither 
 is true. Cycling is certainly the most inde- 
 pendent of sports. There are times when 
 you want no companion but your silent 
 wheel, and then it will not fail you. A 
 solitude in which you cannot brood or fret 
 may be just what appeals to you after a 
 week of wrangling in the courts, or chaffer- 
 ing in the market, or with the prospect 
 before you of facing a sea of faces, dull or 
 attentive, in a pulpit on the morrow. At 
 such a time you will turn from the haunts 
 of men to wheel over miles of country road, 
 through the woods perhaps, or along the 
 autumn sea-shore, with the wheel and cheer- 
 ful thoughts for your only companions. 
 Again you will want company, considering 
 that a pleasure shared with another is a 
 pleasure doubled ; and then your cycle runs 
 
180 PLEASURE-CYCLING. 
 
 alongside that of some friend of like disposi- 
 tion, and you both talk faster than you ever 
 talked before. Or you may be disposed to 
 join a merry company of cyclers, and, con- 
 tented to set your pace to that of the weak- 
 est wheel, go out for a day's prescribed run. 
 Thus it is the prime advantage of the sport 
 that it suits almost any mood of mind in 
 which you can approach it. 
 
 But the twilight draws on, and it is time 
 to turn the cycle and to push soberly towards 
 home. And so to the fellow wd:ieelmen and 
 wheelwomen who have made the afternoon's 
 run in his company, and who he hopes have 
 enjoyed it half as well as he has, the writer, 
 wishing to each and every one of them " more 
 power to his wheel," rings a farewell salute 
 upon his bell and says good-by. 
 
INDEX. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 American Wheelmen, League of, 169. 
 
 Ankle movement, 71, 73. 
 
 Back-pedalling, 73. 
 
 Balancing, 68. 
 
 Ball-bearings, 39 ; adjustment of, 109, 111. 
 
 Bell, 38. 
 
 Bicycle. See Safety Bicycle. 
 
 Block Cliain, 43. 
 
 Body-steering, 81, 82. 
 
 Brakes, 38 ; " Spoon " and "Band," 57. 
 
 Bulletin, L. A. W., 170. 
 
 Celeripede, The, 33. 
 
 Central Park, riding in, permitted, 95, n. 
 
 Chain, 38, 43; oiling and lubricating, 112; cleaning, 
 
 111 ; tension of, 120. 
 Cleaning and oiling, 110. 
 Coasters, 38. 
 Coasting, 90, 91. 
 
 Costume, for men, 125 ; for women, 133. 
 Creeping Tires, 56, 57. 
 
 Cycling, as a sport, 13 ; in its relation to health, 143. 
 Cyclometer, 38. 
 Dead-points, 72, 73. 
 Dismounting, 68, 77, 79, 80. 
 
184 INDEX. 
 
 Drasine, the, 33. 
 
 Dress, 98, 125, 133, 161. 
 
 Dress-guards, 62. 
 
 Eating and drinking, 159, 160. 
 
 Enamel, repairing, 114. 
 
 Equipment for run, 129, 130, 131, 132 ; repair, 138. 
 
 Foot-rests, 38. 
 
 Foot-steering, 83, 84, 85. 
 
 Fork, the, 38. 
 
 Frame, 37, 42. 
 
 Gear, what, and effect of, 39, 51 ; how calculated, 52 ; 
 
 tables of, 53, 54 ; choice of, 55 ; round and elliptical, 
 
 55 ; rigid and bevelled, 37 ; changeable, 55 ; of ladies' 
 
 wheels, 55. 
 Good Roads, magazine, 170. 
 
 Handle-bar, 60 ; adjustment of, 74 ; length of, 158. 
 Handles, dropped and upright, 60. 
 Hands off, riding, 84, 85. 
 Head, the, 37. 
 Head-wear, 128, 134. 
 Hill-climbing, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89. 
 Hobby-horses, 33. 
 Inflation of tire, 114, 115, 116. 
 Joints of frame, 42. 
 Knickerbockers, 126. 
 Lantern-clip, 3& 
 Lap-joints, 42. 
 Law, of the road, 92; "Liberty," of New York, 95, n. ; 
 
 regulating use of bicycles, 92, 93 and n. 
 League of American Wheelmen, 169. 
 Luggage equipment, 129. 
 
 Massachusetts, law as to use of bicycles in, 93, n. 
 Momentum of wheel, effect of, 50. 
 Mounting, ^^, 11, 78, 79, 80. 
 New York " Liberty Law," 95, n. 
 
INDEX. 185 
 
 iSTiglit -riding, 91. 
 
 Oiling and cleaning, 110. 
 
 Pedal- crank, 37 ; repairing when bent, 121. 
 
 Pedals, 37, 61 ; how suspended, 39. 
 
 Pneumatic Saddle, 60, 
 
 Pneumatic Tires, 38, 40; inflation of, 114 ; repairing, 116. 
 
 Position of mounted rider, 75, 80. 
 
 Power, how applied, 40. 
 
 Pushing-stroke, 40, 70, 71, 72, 73. 
 
 Rate of riding, 99, 100 ; regulated by law, 93, n. 
 
 Rat-trap Pedals, 61. 
 
 Rear-fork, 38. 
 
 Repair-kit, 138. 
 
 Repairs, general, 118 ; of tires, 116, 117, 118; of pedal- 
 crank, 121. 
 
 Road-books, 170. 
 
 Road-maps, 168. 
 
 Saddle, 38, 59 ; adjustment of, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 158. 
 
 Saddle-post, 38. 
 
 Saddle-rod, 38. 
 
 Safety Bicycle, military use of, 15, n. ; history of, 33 ; 
 parts of, 37 ; mechanical principles of, 40 ; life of, 45 ; 
 second-hand, 45 ; weight of, 46 ; racing, 48 ; gears of, 
 52 ; is a vehicle, 92 ; care of, 107 ; general repairs of, 
 118 ; parts of, interchangeable, 122. 
 
 Shoes, 128. 
 
 Single-tube Tires, 56. 
 
 Smoking, 160. 
 
 Spokes, tangential arrangement of, 41 ; testing, 119. 
 
 Spring-forks, 40, n. 
 
 Sprocket, 37. 
 
 Sprocket-bracket, 37. 
 
 Steering, 76, 77, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85. 
 
 Steering-post, 38. 
 
 Step, 38. 
 
186 INDEX. 
 
 Stockings, 127, 128. 
 
 Stoop, the, 74, 75, 85. 
 
 Tension, of spokes, 119 ; of chain, 120. 
 
 Throw, the, 55. 
 
 Tires, 38 ; single and double, 56 ; creeping, 56, 57 ; infla- 
 tion of, 114, 115, 116 ; mending, 116, 117, 118. 
 
 Toe-clips, 61. 
 
 Tools, 138. 
 
 Valves, 38, 115. 
 
 Vertical Push, 72, 73. 
 
 "Weight, distribution of, between bearings, 42 ; of load, 
 what, 50 ; of bicycle, 46 et seq. 
 
 Wheel-guards, 62. 
 
 AVheeling for turn, 81. 
 
 Wheels, 37. 
 
 Wood Rim, 47. 
 
mm^i