"The arrival at Blois was about 1.30 P. M. (170 kilometers—a little above 100 miles) and took about nine hours, including stops, to accomplish. The next morning we received your dispatch from Saumur, nearly another hundred miles down the Loire, telling us that the run to that point had been completed by 10.10 P. M. that night, and Mr. Fletcher returned the next day as fresh and as strong as I had ever seen him at any time during the summer.
"Starting the day following with wife and daughter for a bicycle ride through France to Switzerland I accompanied your party as far as Geneva, and the only thing I couldn't discover was how a man who ate so little could travel so far and seem never to get tired.
(Signed) "Very sincerely,
"E. W. Redfield."
"Sept. 17th, 1903."
TEST COMPLETED
The experience of the author on that eventful fiftieth birthday, as registered in the successive sensations, is worthy of record.
In starting out in the cool of the morning as the day was dawning, and speeding through the beautiful Forest of Fontainebleau, the feeling of exhilaration was indescribable. An hour or two passed before there was any sense of unpleasantness attaching to the steady grind of duty which led us to pass reluctantly by inviting spots and scenes without stopping. In the beginning there was the keenest feeling of pleasure in the mere movement, without any exertion, over and among an enchanting landscape. It was what one might call a birdlike sensation of freedom of movement which bicycling and skating, among the common means of locomotion, alone give.
Redfield did not let up on the pace and I was determined not to beg for respite. Between fifty and sixty kilometers of distance only had been made when I felt that the day was not propitious for an endurance-test, and I fully expected to be compelled to return from Orleans leisurely in the afternoon and evening by wheel with only a slight addition to the century-run of the preceding Fourth of July accomplished. Before Orleans was reached, however, all sense of strain passed, and second-wind and second-strength had become installed for the day. When I left Redfield at Blois I felt stronger than any time before, and as eager to kick the pedals as when we started in the morning and as one always is prompted to do when one is filled with surplus energy. I had no objective point and was guided only by tempting roads and favouring breezes. The river road down the Loire was most promising at first, but a head wind sprang up and made a détour the other side of Blois more tempting by argument of a fair wind that blew down one of the roads leading away from the river. For a time I made full twenty-five kilometers an hour, but the wind died out and I returned to the river road and reached Tours in time for the enjoyment of a magnificent sunset effect and a most appetising and satisfying table d'hôte dinner. Before dining I jumped into a tub and had a good refreshing dip and a vigorous rub which made me feel like going out to take a walk or mount my wheel again. My appetite for dinner was not large, centred on a salad richly dressed with olive oil, and was quickly appeased; immediately after which I mounted my wheel again and proceeded down the beautiful road towards Saumur. My ambition was here raised to complete 300 kilometers and the distance to Saumur just about filled that ambition. I rode leisurely for a time after dining and then gradually increased the speed to about eighteen kilometers an hour, which brought me to my destination a little past ten, with a feeling of sleepiness that invited to a hasty falling into bed, but with surprisingly little or no sense of muscular fatigue. My cyclometer registered a little more than 304 kilometers, or 190 miles; not much for experts, under the conditions, to be sure, but a revelation of possibilities to a man of fifty who had once, not many years before, been denied life insurance on account of health disability. This was worth more than millions of money to me; and no one knows how much it will signify to the human family when the knowledge of a truly economic nutrition is attained and established.
I was bright awake at daylight the next morning and had the impulse to mount my wheel and see how "fit" I was in consequence of my exertion of the day before. This I did, and rode eighty kilometers (fifty miles) before breaking my fast at nine o'clock. I believe I could have ridden as far that day had the conditions been favourable. My weight, on return to my balances at Brolles, was reduced two kilograms (nearly five pounds), but a generous thirst for a day or two, and a slightly increased appetite put the loss back again inside a week even while riding my wheel daily on the way to Geneva.