 CHAPTER IV TAKING CARE OF A BICYCLE When Aurora paints the dawn and the fields are bright with dew, when the fleecy mists of morn rise and thin and melt from view, o what ecstasy to feel with the wind against your face, miles slip by beneath your wheel, cares out distanced in the race. LGC. 4. What his piano, his violin, his flute is to the accomplished musician, what his locomotive is to the railway engineer, his wheel is to the enthusiastic cycler. Quote, 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, end quote. It seems to him not a lifeless conjuries 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 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 for 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 carrying 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 rider lately rode a wheel which, for ease of propulsion and straight steering, seemed perfect, and which he found had been ridden 3,000 miles during the season of 1894. It was equipped with single tube tires which were inflated but three times during the season, and the bicycle, having been carefully and intelligently cared for, was, to all intents and purposes, as good as new. I assume that you are riding about 100 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 woolen 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 protected 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 whiting will remove incipient 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, especially 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 nickled, rub them occasionally with a woolen cloth moistened 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 wheel, there should appear only just enough lateral motion on the axle to be perceptible. If the bearings are in good order, each of them, in running, should give a soft, continuous click. If your machine makes a sharp or irregular noise on the road, ascertain it 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 adjustment, the machine will run badly and wear out at the bearings. 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 sprockets, 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 the 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 the tires, wipe it off quickly. The coal oil products are, more or less, solvents of rubber. Kerosene however being a much less powerful solvent than benzene, and therefore a safer and nearly as effective an agent for cleaning the bicycle. Clean the machine about once a month. First sling it up as directed above. Clean the bearings slightly, and fill each bearing with kerosene from a squirt can, and work the bearing rapidly. Do this until the kerosene runs 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 woolen cloth, and hang the chain up to dry out. Rub the sprocket teeth clean with a woolen cloth moistened in kerosene. Take advantage of the chain being off the machine while the wheel is suspended in the air 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. Revolve each wheel, and listen to its bearing. The wheel, if the bearings are rightly adjusted, should, under a smart impulse, revolve for several minutes, and in stopping 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 aliet or other self-oiling block chain, on its side on a board or a table. Put not more than one good drop of oil in each block, being careful not to omit a block. If oil appears on the outside of the chain, wipe it off as cleanly as possible with a woolen 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 allowed to work into the insides of the blocks before replacing the chain. Preparations of the 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. Beware, however, of compounds of grease and 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 making 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 driest 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 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 enameled 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. 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 possible 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 inflation desirable for the pneumatic tire varies with the weight of the rider. A tire which is hard enough for a rider weighing 150 pounds will flatten badly under one who weighs 200. If your tires flatten very slightly under your weight, no harm is done. Your wheel 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 lighter the machine becomes. Your metal 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 whistles, this shows that some foreign substance has gotten 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. The obstacle in the valve will probably work out of itself. So long as the cap holds the air, you need not trouble yourself about the interior leak. A little oil applied 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 nipple 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 the tire wherever any scratch or abrasion appears with the blunt head of a large needle or with the instrument provided for the purpose 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 apparent 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 constant 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 solution of pure rubber and other ingredients in benzene. After which the tube and tire are to be replaced and the tires inflated. Ordinary 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 rubber plugs made for the purpose, either of these being well covered with the rubber solution and forced into the puncture, when the benzene evaporates 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 fellow tightly with hemp twine. All the parts to which the solution is to be applied must be perfectly clean and dry. A piece of sandpaper for cleaning the rubber may be a useful part of the equipment. General Repairs 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 understand that spokes may be loosened or tightened by turning to right or left the nipple set on the spoke at the junction with the fellow. This may be done with a spanner or monkey wrench, or with a special tool furnished 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 wheel 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 a 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 slightly all around with a hot iron so that the cement may stick to the rubber. Remove the tire, pour heated cement into the fellow and distribute it evenly. Then replace the tire on the fellow, seared side in, and if the wheel rim is steel, heat the fellow from underneath 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 constantly so as not to burn it. You will find on your machine appliances by which the tension of the chain may be increased or diminished. As the chain wears, it will 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 ascending a hill. If your chain shows a slack between the tops of the sprockets of not more than a quarter of an inch, the tension is probably right. Bending a pedal crank is the accident likeliest 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 at one pedal. Bend cranks are repaired at the shops by putting them under strong pressure in a vise. But you may generally 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 will rest firmly, leaving the bent piece free of the block. Set a billet of oak wood 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 impression on the crank, desist from further attempts lest you break the crank and send it to the repair shop. Never let a hammer touch directly any part of the machine. If you have a pin to drive out, interpose a copper wedge or a 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 kerosene allowed to work into the screw bearing 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 interchangeable 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 those ahead on the route that the transcontinental riders, notably Messers Allen and Soctelben, in their trip across Asia, were able to complete their arduous journeys. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of Pleasure Cycling by Henry Clyde. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. Dress and Equipment. She met me on the river road beyond the pasture bars, with wind-blown hair, with cheeks aglow, with eyes that beamed like stars. Oh, what a flash of youth and health, and all things good and leal! I'd give my all to spin beside that girl upon the wheel. LGC. There is no disputing about tastes, and the matter of bicycling 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 trousers will not again, unless in case of necessity, mount his wheel in long ones, nor if he has once substituted a belt for his suspenders 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 cycling suits the rider 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 woolen stockings and a lightweight 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 handlebar 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 deficiencies of some lean and slippered pantaloon. Jerseys or sweaters, so-called, are very comfortable, but off the wheel are not desirable wear. Fine woolen stockings are much preferable to cotton. The best stockings the rider has seen were hand knitted of soft scotch-grey wool. Keep two or three sets of gossamer underwear for summer riding. A cap with a visor to match the costume is the best headwear. 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 headgear to be a large white handkerchief wrapped turban-wise around the head and capped wet. A black silk cap with a visor is very comfortable 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 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 Mirsham pipe. This color you probably will regard as ornamental. If not, and you wish to ride in gloves, choose those woven of lyle thread or silk rather than kid or dog skin. A pair of light leather straps, each about 14 inches long and fitted with buckles and eyes, which can easily be carried in the pocket or around the handlebar, 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 handlebar. Many devices for carrying a larger equipment 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. In fact, if you have strong muscles and ride fearlessly, you may carry almost anything on your wheel which you could carry walking. The writer knows a professional paper hanger, who for a whole season customarily carried with 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 balanced across the bicycle frame and the accompanying paste brush, scissors, et cetera, tied to the handlebars. Extra weight should be adjusted as far as possible to the front of the machine, as the center of gravity for 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 run out and home, intending to stop for the night at an inn halfway out. What shall be your kit and how will you bestow it? You will wear a medium weight, all wool flannel shirt or a jersey sweater, preferably for such a trip, the shirt, over light underwear, with sack coat, nickerbockers, leather belt, russet shoes, and cap. Take with you a large silk neck muffler. Leave at home all superfluities in the way 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 banknotes 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 nickerbockers, in a rubber or chamois case, and without the chain, which, however worn, will persist in catching on the saddle and mounting. A matchbox and a folding drinking 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 to the handlebar. Make into the closest possible roll a lightweight nightgown, a change of underwear, an extra handkerchief, and a comb and toothbrush. You may make the roll into a brown paper parcel, closely tied, or enclose it in a leather or rubber cover. Strap this to the front of your handlebar with the leather straps described 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 under clothing, button your coat snugly, and wear a silk muffler to keep the wind from the throat, and woolen gloves, or better, mittens. A man riding a bicycle in an overcoat is not only an absurd figure, but, which is more important, he carries unnecessary weight and a sail to catch the wind. You will find it interesting to keep a record of trips for the season. You may carry a notebook for the purpose, setting down the distances traveled as accurately as possible, or, if you want an absolutely correct record of miles run, use a cyclometer, getting 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 will always be a gentle conflict between the subjects of conventionality, on the one hand, and the advocates 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 lesson that what is not in fashion seems positively ugly, and we believe that whatever is, is right. But with all masculine diffidence, the writer ventures to sketch the outline of a 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 leggings to meet the trousers, loose-fitting blouse waist, with a wide collar to be worn under a Zouave jacket, which may on occasion be removed and strapped to the handlebar. Round cap with deep visor, all these from a soft texture of woolen cloth of uniform color, and a russet leather belt and shoes. In warm weather, duck leggings and a white duck cap might be worn. It will be said that this is the sketch of an Amazonian rider, but the answer is that only as an Amazon will the wheel-woman 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, enjoy all possible freedom of movement? Then she might discard the heavy loop-frame bicycle, with its wheel-guards and dress-guards. And it is pleasant to know 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 the 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, tis even chance she wins the day. A. L. Anderson 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 costume, figured in certain fashion-plates, that is, the combination of loose trousers and a tightly corseted waist and balloon sleeves, will find favor. In spite of the reasons of utility and comfort that make against it, the majority of wheel women will probably, for the present, continue to wear the ordinary skirt, making it as little obtrusive and troublesome as possible. By so much as you will abbreviate the length of your skirt, you will increase your own comfort and safety on the wheel. An experienced teacher of cycling, replying to inquiries by the rider, says, quote, In my experience, I have found that it is much easier for a woman to learn to mount a bicycle when arrayed in unconventional costume. The fewer underskirts the better, especially when one is learning to mount the wheel, and the outer skirt should be of lightweight material, made perfectly plain and without facing. The skirt should be made to reach a little above the ankles, end quote. Footnote Mr. L. B. Smith of the Columbia Riding School, Boston, the value of whose criticisms and suggestions, kindly given while this book was in press, the rider gratefully acknowledges, end footnote. As to the details of the ordinary dress, a lady writes, quote, 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 that there is no unnecessary fullness about the hips, and yet unpleasant scantiness should be positively avoided. To begin with, a union undergarment 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. Waists should never be worn on the wheel, while 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 petals or spokes. Shoes should be low and broad toed. For the head, a lightweight 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. Lyle-thread gloves are better than kid or silk. Every garment worn for riding should be kept exclusively for that purpose, end quote. Footnote, Mary Sargent Hopkins, and footnote. Tools and Repair Kit The regular outfit supplied with the wheel, usually consists of an air pump, a small monkey wrench, a screwdriver, and oiler, and, when the machine requires it, an instrument 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 screwdriver 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 necessary. 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, preferably of old woollen or silk, and plenty of 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 cans, one for kerosene and the other for lubricating oil. If your machine has a wood rim, some shellac finish may be useful. 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 the screwdriver, 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 using a woolen 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. End of chapter five. Chapter six of Pleasure Cycling by Henry Clyde. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter six, 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 drink 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. Lennox B. Smith. It has been wisely said by President Elliot that, quote, 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, tennis, 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 and moral stress. On the other hand, the games which demand so much practice and such severe training that the brain is temporarily 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 encounters can have no direct application to the afterlife of professional or businessmen. 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, end quote. The writer believes that of the list of sports which President Elliot mentions, considering 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 pleasure for the same modicum of exertion in its practice. The sport is to be differentiated 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 exercise 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 insufferably 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. Running is for most men past their youth an absolutely dangerous sport and one which few women at any time of life can safely practice. Most persons find walking for a length of time especially solitary walking extremely weary some. Gunning in the absence of game is merely walking with the handicap of a gun. To fence you must find an adversary of about your own degree of skill to make the sport enjoyable. Rowing requires 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 mother earth under his wheel is absolutely independent 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 athletics boards practiced in the colleges, surgeon Culp of the United States Army says, quote, 20 times as many men as formerly devote more or less time to athletics while at college. These, after developing cardiac pulmonary and muscular systems to the highest point but too often on the completion of their college life settled down to a sedentary existence absolutely without any form of active athletic exercise. 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, merchant 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 importance is the fact that consumption, Breit's disease and gout are almost unknown among wheel men and it has seemed to me that college athletes are particularly prone to the two former as they approach middle age, end quote. Cycling like rowing, sailing, football, baseball, riding and tennis is not now in the northern climate available to any extent as a winter sport but it is altogether 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 practiced in the winter to a much greater extent than at present. The rider looks forward hopefully to a time when the gymnastic training in the principal colleges shall include a course of bicycle instruction and when the apparatus of the gymnasium shall not be considered complete unless it include a sufficient store of bicycles which may be loaned or rented to all undergraduate commerce. Mr. C. B. Medding, a New York physician says quote, ride a bicycle for one half mile, 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? End quote. It has already been said that the positive tonic effect of this exercise upon mind and body both is marvelous. Just before these lines were written, a lady said to the rider quote, the bicycle has been the greatest of blessings to my husband. He has always seemed fairly well but always nervous 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, end quote. 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 intense reaction. As regards cycling, the cause of this effect the rider believes is not far to seek. If one inhales a whiff of laughing gas that is atmospheric air a little overcharged with oxygen he experiences a momentary 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 oxygenation 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 sunrise to the sunset of a summer's day with very moderate periods of rest taking drafts of renewed health and happiness with each push of your pedals. Says Dr. Medding, quote, look at that man or woman applying to your immense knowledge for health. Born healthy, bred healthfully yet pale, dispirited, head achy, constipated without appetite, sound sleep and ambition. Try your iron, oxygen, arsenic and quinine, your bolus or your fiftieth dilution of a milligram. Bah, 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 oxygenate, to store up and then still more to increase residual capacity. Prescribe walking, such men and women 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 the teas made of their remains. Do I exaggerate? If I tell you many aches, real ones, many pains, sharp ones, many unnamed, unclassified, yet 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? End quote. Cycling then is not only the most available 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 temperament and it will be always the nervous enthusiastic rider who will be in danger of overdoing. For cycling, like every other athletic exercise, may be rankly abused. For instance, a rider has set for himself a 40-mile run over hilly roads, a trip which he is easily able to make under favorable conditions. 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 bearings 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, ravenously 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. Again, there is not anywhere a more foolish person than the amateur racer who without any real chance of making a distinguished 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 practice is the best and safest of outdoor amusements. Speaking of the possible abuses of cycling, it is said, quote, there are objections. What are they? The same that are greatly urged against extravagance, 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 and panting on a wheel, to hear of some clogged heart that for twenty years has objected to curb stones, 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, end quote. The rider has spoken of a road rate of from ten to twelve miles per hour as one easily to be obtained 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, stopping whenever you get out of breath and not 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 except 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 absorption of which you are capable. The fatigue or light 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 functions. 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 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 quietude of your obtrusive nerves. As compared with walking, cycling requires an increased action of the knee and ankle joints and in addition to the exercises of the muscles used in walking 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 50 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 practice there for an hour or two each week. The beneficial effect of cycling to cure incipient rheumatism or weakness of the knees or ankles is positive and wonderful. If you are afflicted with these ills or either of them and are able to ride without actual discomfort even for the shortest period of time, try the wheel and ride perseveringly. If you can keep the saddle at first but five minutes, 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 delightful that you have a bicycle too. I go every morning because doctor says I shall certainly grow stouter. To which the stout lady replies, perfectly lovely, we'll 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 dyspeptic, 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 himself to a comfortable leanness in the course of a season's persistent riding. Cyclers in their first season who are just beginning to take long rides may find the following suggestions 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 steering post of the machine. This position contracts the shoulders and so lessens the lung capacity, as does also the use of a very short handlebar. For a man of ordinary size, a bar measuring 24 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. 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 10 or 15 miles upon this and return with a marvelous 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, especially 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 climbing, horseback riding, or any other athletic exercise. That is, if you perspire freely, you may drink as freely as you choose so long as you do not drink ice water or other extremely cold drink. But if you do not perspire, you must drink with the greatest moderation. 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 excellent 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 chocolate, 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 interferes 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, 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 handlebar. If you are warm on dismounting, lose no time in unstrapping your coat and putting it on. No 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 gate. So you should never leave home without a silk or wool muffler for the throat. Wearing 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 bath and a hard rub with a coarse 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, change of under-clothing, 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 Rom. Some professional riders use freely and have a good sense of the movement made up of equal parts of alcohol and homomilus. In conclusion, give all your leisure for one summer to the wheel, ride wisely and moderately, and you will understand, perhaps for the first time in your mature life, the significance of the expression, a sound mind in a sound body, digestion, clear mental action, wholesome thoughts, and the relish for healthy pleasures. All these will be yours in full measure, and you will see that a new era, not merely a physical vigor, but also of mental and moral health, has been inaugurated by this light, swift, joy-giving, marvelous means of locomotion. Chapter 7 On the Road When all the world was free and not of care had we, each grassy blade, each forest shade, each winding stream, we thought was made for our long jubilee. J. Andrews Cohn 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 roadmap of the country for forty miles around your home, study routes and distances with its help, learn where the comfortable country ends are, plan for each long ride or 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 in home, resting overnight at your fifty mile objective point. You may be happy enough to have secured a weeks or a fortnight's outing, and wise enough to devote it to the companionship 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 roadbook 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 roadmaps in the market, some good and some nearly worthless. For all round use in the country regions of Massachusetts, the writer prefers the plates of the standard Massachusetts Atlas published by George H. Walker and Company of Boston. These twenty-seven in number and covering the entire state are sold separately folded in stiff covers that 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 sea level. Railway 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 writer 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 substantial advantages which attach to a membership in the way of special rates at many hotels and the use of its excellent roadbooks, you will probably join the League of American Wheelmen. The League was formed at Newport, Rhode Island, May 31st, 1880. It grew out of suggestions made by Charles E. Pratt of Boston, who was its first president. The objects of it, as set forth in its original constitution, and which have been substantially adhered to since, were, quote, to promote the general interests of bicycling, to ascertain, defend and protect the rights of wheelmen, and to encourage and facilitate touring, end quote. 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 organization is the LAW Bulletin, and in January, 1892, it commenced the publication of the well-known magazine Good Roads. Footnote. The Bulletin and Good Roads are now April 1895 consolidated. End footnote. The roadbooks 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 the work. The books give in detail distances, character and grades of roads, landmarks 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 Massachusetts Roadbook 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 impedimenta to what may be strapped to the handlebar, 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 in 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 pushing on through wet and wind. If you are a good wheelman, you should be also an everyday 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, per force, a keen student of topography. In the course of a season on the wheel you will become intimately acquainted with every road within 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 and the summer thundershower beats hard for you and the wet, woodland byways that only weeks of sunshine will make tolerable. You note the changes which the hurrying season brings, the maple sapling prematurely 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 sent 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 overhanging 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 bend. For the beauty of wild landscapes, the hill-pastures, the thick woods and the tangle of golden rod and asters by the roadsides, you enjoy now the more conventional charm of well-kept lawns and flower gardens and instead of farmhouses and country schoolhouses you spin by queen Anne Cottages and shingle-sided villas all these scattered along roads over which your machine almost moves itself so that nothing 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 wheel-man 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, Riverside and Central Park, Druid Hill and Fairmount and the magnificent 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 dispatching with unwonted celerity the business of the day you will bless the beneficent and growing custom which is making a half-holiday on the seventh day of the week until at length you are ready to close safe door and roll-top with a clang in a slam and hasten to wear your patient wheel shining and well-oiled overnight 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 conventionality and slipping into your loose-fitting knickerbockers and flannels. You vault into the saddle and give your first push to the petals 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 the pleasures of it are also in memory and anticipation. To the wheel-man 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 humours and whimsicalities of everyday life and makes even a superficial study of them as they pass before him in the panorama 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 benefitting others while you are amusing yourself select some good route not yet described in your road-books and set yourself the task of thoroughly exploring and noting it at the end of the season notes into the form of the league routes and sending the result to the proper corridor. If you are a photographer you may make your camera a part of your bicycle outfit and it will preserve for your future enjoyment hundreds of souvenirs of men and things. If, better still you are an artist even if your capacity is limited to making a tolerable sketch in watercolor 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 seasons runs not only interesting as recalling the memories of pleasant days but full of bits of useful knowledge for the wheel man and the 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 and queer people whom you meet the acquaintances you make the ends 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 wheels 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 write it and all the world of reality lies before you to explore you are at least an oddity. Some good friend will tell you that wheeling is a selfish solitary sport another that it can only be practiced with pleasure in good company you will bear these slanders with equanimity while knowing that neither is true. Cycling is certainly the most independent 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 chaffering in the market or with the prospect before you 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 seashore with the wheel and cheerful 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 alongside that of some friend of like disposition and you both talk faster than you ever talked before or you may be disposed to join a merry company of cyclers and contented to set your pace to that of the weakest 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 you on and it is time to turn the cycle and to push soberly towards home and so to the fellow wheel men and wheel women who have made the afternoons run in his company and who he hopes have enjoyed it half as well as he has the rider wishing to each and every one of them more power to his wheel rings a farewell salute upon his bell Goodbye