If you are a "scorcher" and are out to pass everything you meet, the less weight you carry the better time you can make. But the wheel is used by most boys for other purposes.
The pathway of the biker is not always straight and smooth, as every boy who has ridden a wheel knows. The collision can always be avoided by good eyes and reasonable speed, but no eyes are keen enough to note, and no skill alert enough to avoid the broken glass, or the bits of scrap iron that beset the path and puncture the tire.
REPAIRS
A friend assures me that he has mended a punctured tire with chewing gum. Now I do not think well of the chewing gum habit, but if the stuff can be found to have better uses, I am not the one to discourage it. So it might be well to carry a supply to fill punctured tires. This is said to be the way to use it. Let all the air out of the tire, then with a flat piece of wood force the gum into the hole—of course the gum must be "chewed" first to make it soft. Plaster some over the hole, then bind the place with a strip of rag on your handkerchief. This done, pump in the air and ride with care.
A broken handle bar is bad, but a substitute that will work can be made if you have some strong string and a stout pocket knife. Cut two sections of a springy sapling, and bind them securely to the front fork, one on either side, and sufficiently long to reach just above the broken bar. Next tie securely a stout stick of proper length to the broken bar, and tie to this the end of the uprights. If properly done, this will enable you to finish your journey, which for a long distance is much pleasanter than walking and leading your wheel.
A rope tire will often enable the rider to reach home. A few yards of clothesline, borrowed, begged, or bought from some wayside house, will enable you to make a solid tire. Remove the rubber tire, tie it to your handle-bar, and take the rope and bend one end diagonally across the hollow in the rim of the wheel. Wind the rope carefully around, over the bent end of the rope, around again alongside of the first length until the rim is covered. Keep the line tight, and wind it until it fills up the hollow and is considerably higher in the middle than at the sides. The neater this work is done, the more comfortable will be your ride home. When the rope tire is complete, pry up the side lap and force the free end of the rope diagonally under it until it comes out on the other side. Draw it taut and cut off the end flush with the outer wrapping. Now pour water all over the rope until it is thoroughly wet; this will cause it to shrink and become firm and hard.
Have a stand for your bicycle when not in use, and keep the wheel clean and well oiled. No boy is worthy to own a tool or a toy, or anything else that is perishable, if he is too lazy or too careless to have a pride in it, and to keep it in the highest state of efficiency.
The very best time to make needed repairs is when the need is discovered. Never wait until the time comes to use the thing again. The boy who gets into that habit is disqualifying himself for the battle of life, in which promptness, accuracy and energy are the prime requisites to success.
If you cannot take care of your things, or prefer to resign that duty to others, then resign your ownership too, and let some more deserving comrades own them.
I have often wondered why "the rope"—as our western cowboys call the lariat, and the Mexican lariata—has not become a national sport, for its proper use requires great skill, and it is distinctly an American institution.