Women must expect ridicule and little sympathy from experienced cyclists if they essay feats they should not attempt. Many decide that a thing must be easy of accomplishment because they have seen some one do it easily. Easy muscular work, however, is the result of strength, confidence, and precision of movement, which come only from practice. All new muscular movements and combinations of movements must be learned; they cannot be acquired hurriedly with good results. People who can work well are usually patient with a beginner who is doing his best, knowing themselves what it means to work hard and to face disappointment and failure and what is involved in repeated effort. The ambitious are liable to over-exertion, the timid not to practice enough.
There is much prejudice against athletic exercise for women and girls, many believing that nothing of the kind can be done without over-doing; but there is a right way of going about athletics as everything else. Prejudice can be removed only by showing good results, and good results can be accomplished only by work done under proper restrictions. To do a thing easily is to do it gracefully; and grace, without properly balanced muscular action, is impossible; grace is the embodiment of balance, strength, and intelligence. Jerky movement indicates lack of muscular development and training.
The human machine is capable of a seemingly unlimited series of muscular movements and combined muscular motions. Any training or practice of mind or muscles assists to fit them for new combinations. But little time is necessary to learn to know how to do and what to do, though the subjects to be considered, mechanics and physiology, are exhaustive and extensive in their range.
It is always a pleasure to do a thing well, whether it is handling a needle or using a screw-driver; and the art of using either successfully is not difficult to acquire. With the bicycle it is necessary to know what to do; the human motor, unless pushed beyond reasonable limits, is self-adjusting. Over-taxing is the result often of too great ambition, of failure to keep in view the proper aim of exercise, and sacrificing health and ultimate success for passing vanity. The bicycle is but the means to the end, first of all, of health—health of mind and body. The human mechanism is far more difficult to adjust when out of order than the mechanism of the bicycle. In bicycling, the two machines are one and interdependent. The foot on the pedal pushing the crank is but one point of application of power conveyed by a series of levers, actuated by muscles, controlled by nerves, supplied and directed by accumulated power.
ADJUSTING A WRENCH.
We hear of horse-power as a unit; we have also human power—the amount of power the average individual can exercise. Food supplies material to be converted into power, stored and transmuted in the human system either for use or waste, as the case may be. Energy or power, unless applied within a specified time, is given off as heat, etc. Less food is needed, loss of appetite follows, if too little work is done. The muscular tissues become almost useless, it is an effort to do any kind of work; the power is not there. By gradual and persistent practice, strength is acquired, and power stored in reserve. Exercise tends to strengthen, not to weaken; over-exercise uses up stored power and newly acquired power as well; longer periods of rest are needed to renew the wasted tissues than is necessary when exercise is not carried to excess. It must be kept in mind when bicycling that rider and wheel are a complete, compound, combined mechanism, and mechanically inseparable. The wheeler’s weight, when shifted or inclined, affects his equilibrium, and wheeler and bicycle are as much one as a skater and his skates.
Levers and their application; power, stored, distributed, or wasted; how to prevent waste and acquire reserve; proper adjustment to mechanical environment, translated to mean the use of a few common tools, and their application to the adjustment of the bicycle; and the care, adjustment, and proper preparation of the machine for work, are points of such importance that too much stress cannot be laid on them. A little thought, a little attention at the right time, prepares for emergencies, for cheerful work, and for the enjoyment of the exercise, and the health and accumulated benefits sure to follow.