It is almost laughable, now, to read how Spencer at first always rode on the pavement, and how politely everybody cleared out of his way. Even Policeman X helped to make a passage for him. Some wiseacre, on being quizzed as to the uses of this strange new machine, would reply, 'Why, it is a machine for measuring roads, of course;' and a street arab would shout, 'Oh, crikey, Bill, 'ere's a lark. A swell a ridin' on two wheels. Mind how you fall, sir,' &c. Spencer's speed at first was but five miles an hour. Soon there were many inquiries for this wonderful new aid to locomotion. Spencer and Turner entered heartily into the business. An order for 500 machines was given to the Coventry Machinists' Company in the end of 1868. This was the firm with which Mr James Starley, inventor of the 'Coventry Tricycle,' was connected, and this order helped the start of what has grown to be an enormous and beneficial industry to the town of Coventry.
The account of feats of long-distance riding, of forty and fifty miles a day, got abroad—the feat by Turner, Spencer, and Mayall particularly, in riding to Brighton and back in a day, in February 1869, further popularised cycling. Charles Dickens and James Payn were amongst those who were bitten by the velocipede 'mania.'
Yet the bone-shaker craze might have died a natural death but for the introduction of the rubber tyre and other improvements. Mr James Starley, of Coventry, through whose inventive genius the tricycle was evolved from the bicycle, was also an improver and pioneer. Starley says of his improvements: 'I regarded the rider as the motive force; and believing it absolutely necessary that he should be so placed that he could exert the greatest amount of power on his pedals, with the least amount of fatigue to himself—believing, also, that the machine of the future must be so made that such essentials as the crank-shaft, pedals, seat, and handles could easily be made adjustable—I decided to change my shape, make my wheels of a good rolling size, place my crank-shaft as near the ground as safety would permit, connect my back wheel with my crank by means of a chain, so that the gear might be adjusted and varied at pleasure, and a short, strong man could ride with a fifty, a sixty, a seventy, or even a higher gear, while a tall, weak man could ride with a lower gear than the short, strong one; to give my saddle a vertical adjustment so that it could be raised or lowered at will; so to place my handles that they could be set forward or backward, raised or lowered, as might be desired; and finally, to make it impossible for the pedalling to interfere with the steering.' In the 'Rover' bicycle he gave an impetus to the early history of the machine, which has been crowned in the pneumatic tyre, the invention of John Boyd Dunlop, born at Dreghorn, Ayrshire, in 1840. Mr Dunlop was engaged as a veterinary surgeon near Belfast, where he built himself an air-wheel from ordinary thin rubber sheets, with rubber valve and plug. Mr C. K. Welch followed with the detachable tyre. The big, ungainly looking wheels were at first laughed at, but when pneumatic tyred machines won race after race, they became the rage. And when the company formed to make the Dunlop tyre sold their interest in the concern, in 1896 it was worth about £3,000,000. The capital originally subscribed was £260,000, and £658,000 had been paid in dividends.
A cycling tour is health-giving and enjoyable when gone about rationally and prudently. It is pleasant to plan, and no less so to carry out, as it is always the unexpected which happens. There are halts by the wayside, conversations with rustics, fine views; and every part of the brain and blood is oxygenated, giving that kind of wholesome intoxication which Thoreau said he gained by living in the open air. One's own country is explored as it has never been explored before. Some wheelmen have been credited with seven and eight thousand miles in a single season. Others, more ambitious, have made a track round the globe. Mr Thomas Stevens, starting from San Francisco in April 1884, occupied three years in going round the world. Mr T. Allen and Mr L. Sachtleben, two American students, as a practical finish to a theoretical education, occupied three years in riding round the world—15,404 miles on the wheel. They climbed Mount Ararat by the way, and interviewed Li Hung Chang, the Chinese viceroy. The wheel ridden by these 'foreign devils' was described by one Chinaman as 'a little mule that you drive by the ears, and kick in the sides to make him go.'
Mr Frank G. Lenz, who started from America in June 1892 to ride round the world, was unfortunately killed by six Kurds, sixty-five miles from Erzeroum, between the villages of Kurtali and Dahar, on May 10, 1894. There have been many interesting shorter rides. Mr Walter Goddard of Leeds, and Mr James Edmund of Brixton, started from London and rode entirely round Europe on wheels; Mr Hugh Callan rode from Glasgow to the river Jordan; Mr R. L. Jefferson, in 1894, rode from London to Constantinople, between March 10 and May 19. In 1895 the same gentleman rode from London to Moscow, 4281 miles, and had nothing good to say of Russian inns or roads. A lady of sixty has done seventy miles in one day; while an English lady tourist did twelve hundred miles in her various ups and downs between London and Glasgow during one holiday.
The lighter the machine, the more expensive it is. Racing-machines are built as light as twenty pounds in weight. Some of the swiftest road-riders patronise machines of twenty-six or twenty-seven pounds; but for all-round work, one of thirty-three pounds, without lamp or bell, is a good average machine. As to speed, we have had 460 miles in the twenty-four hours on the racing-track, and 377 miles on the road. Huret, a French rider, has done 515 miles between one midnight and another; the Swiss cyclist Lesna has done 28 miles an hour; while Mr Mills and Mr T. A. Edge, in a ride from Land's End to John o' Groat's on a tandem, beat all previous records, doing the journey in three days four hours and forty-six minutes.
A very sensible American rider, when on tour, starts shortly after breakfast, and with a brief rest for lunch, has his day's work of about fifty miles over by four P.M. Then he changes underclothing—a most important and never-to-be-forgotten matter—has dinner, and an enjoyable ramble over the town or village where he stays over-night. But he is a luxurious dog, and not many will carry such an abundant kit in the triangular bag below the handle bar. Imagine three light outing shirts, three suits, gauze underclothing, a dark flannel bicycle suit, laced tanned gaiters, light-weight rubber coat, comb; clothes, hair, and tooth brushes; soap and towel, writing-pad and pencil, map and matches, and tool bag! Many a cyclist carries a hand camera, and brings home a permanent record of his journeys.
It has been well said that many a boy will start in life with a more vigorous constitution because of the bicycle, and many a man who is growing old too fast by neglect of active exercise will find himself rejuvenated by the same agency. Only let the getting over a certain distance within a certain time not be the main object. And winter riding, when the roads permit, need not be neglected, for nothing is more invigorating than a winter ride. The doctors tell us that as long as one can ride with the mouth shut, the heart is all right. A fillip should be given to the appetite; whenever this is destroyed, and sleeplessness ensues, cycling is being overdone.
Cycling, of course, as we have already said, is not all pleasure or romance. There is a considerable amount of hard work, with head-winds, rain, mud, hills, and misadventures through punctures of the tyre. This last may happen at the most inopportune time; but the cyclist is generally a philosopher, and sets about his repairs with a cool and easy mind.
A word in closing about accidents, which are often due to carelessness and recklessness. A cyclist has no right to ride at ten or fourteen miles an hour in a crowded thoroughfare. He takes his life—and other people's!—in his hands if he does so. No less is caution needed on hills, the twists and turns in which are unseen or unfamiliar, and where the bottom of the incline cannot be seen. As the saying goes, 'Better be a coward for half an hour than a corpse for the rest of your lifetime.' But experience is the best guide, and no hard-and-fast rules can be laid down for exceptional circumstances.