THE MOST PERFECT OF PENS.
This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain many valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L.A.W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.
There is an important feature of bicycling which comes, or should come, to the attention of every rider about this time of the year; that is, the question of a thorough overhauling of the wheel itself. This is of the greatest importance, and should be done whether the bicycle appears to be in good running order or not. For example, you have been riding a wheel in the country, or near the sea-shore, and though you have kept the wheel in good running order, the spokes are a little rusty, and the bearings must be more or less filled with dust and sand. The rust on the spokes not only looks badly, but tends to weaken the wheel. A little grit mixed in with the oil and the balls of the bearings is quite enough to wear the bearings themselves as well as the balls, and in a short time render the wheel practically useless, unless an entirely new set of bearings is put in. Even if you have not been in the country, the fact that you have used the wheel a little each day, and only wiped off the outside of the machine and reoiled the bearings occasionally, is enough to prove that the machine should be taken apart before you begin the fall and winter season. This particular time, however, of the year applies rather to those people who are returning from the country with their bicycles, and who are likely to use them to some extent during the fall. But it is a good time for any one. If you are somewhat of a mechanic yourself, you can take the wheel apart and do the cleaning yourself; and in this connection the article on "The Care of the Wheel," published in Harper's Round Table for March 31, should be read before taking the wheel apart, and kept near by while the work is being done.
An extra caution, however, should be given to all those who take their bicycles apart—and that is, take the utmost care of the little balls; for if one of these, for instance, is lost from one side of the front wheel-bearings, the wheel may run easily enough for a time, but the strain on the others and on the walls of the bearing will soon wear both. If any of these do happen to lose themselves (and it is very probable that they will), the wisest plan is to go at once to the maker of your bicycle and purchase enough extra balls to make up the required number. To a great many people, however, the cheapest method for overhauling bicycles is to take them to the manufacturer and request him to go over every part of the wheel—clean it, polish it, and replace any weak point, straighten any bent cranks, supply nuts that are gone, and in every way renovate the wheel—which, by-the-way, he can do far better than any amateur. If the wheel is not yet a year old, the average manufacturer will do this without charge, but in any case a few dollars is all that a maker requires. The point of this renovation is evident. If the wheel is thus examined twice a year—in the fall and the spring—any little irregularity which may be wearing away vital parts of the machine can and will be corrected; whereas many a fault in a bicycle is not perceptible to the average rider until the injury has actually been done, when an entirely new part is necessary; and the larger the number of replaced or new parts, the less stable and firm is the bicycle. It therefore pays to have this renovation done twice a year, whether the wheel appears to need it or not.
An Irishman took his watch to a jeweller's to have it repaired. The jeweller, after examining it, said the mending would amount to eight dollars, and he asked if the man was willing to pay that much.
"Sure," answered Pat, "if you're willing to take the watch in part payment."
[A FEW DON'TS FOR BICYCLE BEGINNERS.]
I.—Don't pay any attention to people who tell you that the best bicycle path for beginners can be made out of fifty or sixty mattresses set end to end and running in a circle. It may be pleasanter, when taking a header, to land on a mattress than on a macadamized road, but it is a curious fact in bicycling that the softest road is the hardest to ride on.
II.—Don't try to make a century run within two days of your first lesson. If, however, you are too ambitious to follow this rule, purchase a high-gear cyclometer which will register a mile for every ten feet you travel. And, speaking of cyclometers, don't forget that people who call them cycloramas are apt to be set down as wanting in intelligence.
III.—Don't think, if you are learning to ride on the sea-shore, that because your wheels have rubber tires on they won't get wet if the waves dash up over them. The worst mistake any one ever made in bicycling was that of the small boy who thought the rubber tires were put on the wheels to keep them dry, just as rubber overshoes were put on his feet to keep them from getting wet.
IV.—Don't try coasting down joggly hills. Get out of your father's library the copy of Dr. Holmes's poem which tells of the wonderful "one-hoss shay," which suddenly went completely to pieces one day. What has happened to a one-horse chaise might very easily happen to a bicycle, particularly on a joggly hill. Nothing will loosen bolts and screws more quickly than joggles, and if it should happen some morning that while you were coasting down a hill full of thank-you-marms your wheel should suddenly come apart in every bolt and bar, you would go sailing through the air like a cannon-ball just from the cannon's mouth, and alighting finally on the ground, while not at all difficult, might prove painful. Be careful, then, to keep your feet on the pedals while going down a hill of this character.
V.—Don't try fancy riding until you have studied the art of bicycling for at least a week. One young man who ignored this rule, and tried to ride his wheel side-saddle-wise at the end of his third lesson, left a goodly half of his left ear on the road-side as a result, while a small youth of our acquaintance, who tried to ride backwards on the afternoon of his fourth day of study, got into a dispute with a picket-fence, which tore his clothes, and made the back of his neck look as if seven hundred mosquitoes had lunched there.
VI.—Don't be absent-minded when riding. One of the rules of good playing in the game of golf is, "keep your eye on the ball." An equally good rule in riding your wheel is, "keep your mind on the wheel." The writer of these hints, while riding in the mountains during his first year of wheeling, got thinking of something else, and the first thing he knew, instead of being out wheeling, he was in swimming in a very cold and wet mountain lake.
VII.—Don't forget the rule of the road. This is a very old rule, but it cannot be too often repeated. Not more than two weeks ago the writer saw a young woman out riding on her wheel who had forgotten the rule of the road, and she was met by another young woman who was absent-minded in violation of our rule numbered six. They met very forcibly, and the result was that both of them not only had to buy new wheels, but the spring bonnets of both of them were irretrievably ruined.
VIII.—Don't mount with a jump, but slip lightly into the saddle. A gentleman weighing two hundred and twenty-three pounds leaped into the saddle of his wheel one day not long ago, and as a result the upper bar was bent into the shape of a hair-pin, the hind wheel was changed in its shape to that of an oval, and the pneumatic tire of the front wheel burst with such force that for a moment the gentleman thought somebody had fired a gun at him.
Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.