IX
Selby’s drive was very widely chronicled. The elaborate reports and extensive preliminary arrangements compare oddly with the early sporting events undertaken on the spur of the moment and recorded only in meagre, unilluminating paragraphs. What would we not give for a report of the Prince of Wales’s ride in 1784, so elaborated.
A great drive, and a great coachman, worthily carrying on the good old traditions of the road. It has, however, been already pointed out that neither on his outward journey (3 hrs. 56 mins.), nor on the return (3 hrs. 54 mins.), did he quite equal the record of the “Criterion” coach, which on February 4th, 1834, took the King’s Speech from London to Brighton in 3 hrs. 40 mins.
Selby did not live long to enjoy the world-wide repute his great drive gained him. He died, only forty-four years of age, at the end of the same year that saw this splendid feat.
Selby’s memorable drive put cyclists upon their mettle, but not at once was any determined attempt made to better it. The dwarf rear-driving “safety” bicycle, the “Rover,” which, introduced in 1885, set the existing pattern, was not yet perfected, and cyclists still rode solid or cushion tyres, instead of the now universal pneumatic kind.
THE CYCLISTS
It was, therefore, not until August, 1889, that after several unsuccessful attempts had been made to better the coach-time on that double journey of 108 miles, a team of four cyclists—E. J. Willis, G. L. Morris, C. W. Schafer, and S. Walker, members of the Polytechnic Cycling Club—did that distance in 7 hrs. 36 mins. 19⅖ secs.; or 13 mins. 40⅗ secs. less; and even then the feat was accomplished only by the four cyclists dividing the journey between them into four relays. Two other teams, on as many separate occasions, reduced the figures by a few minutes, and M. A. Holbein and P. C. Wilson singly made unsuccessful attempts.
It was left to F. W. Shorland, a very young rider, to be the first of a series of single-handed breakers of the coaching time. He accomplished the feat in June, 1890, upon a pneumatic-tyred “Geared Facile” safety, and reduced the time to 7 hrs. 19 mins., being himself beaten on July 23rd by S. F. Edge, riding a cushion-tyred safety. Edge put the time at 7 hrs. 2 mins. 50 secs., and, in addition, first beat Selby’s outward journey, the times being—coach, 3 hrs. 36 mins.; cycle, 3 hrs. 18 mins. 25 secs. Then came yet another stalwart, C. A. Smith, who on September 3rd of the same year beat Edge by 10 mins. 40 secs. Even a tricyclist—E. P. Moorhouse—essayed the feat on September 30th, but failed, his time being 8 hrs. 9 mins. 24 secs.