SOME DON'TS FOR BICYCLERS.
BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.
Don't try to do too much. Ambition to shine as a "scorcher" has seriously injured the health of many a good, strong rider. Probably no form of exercise is so full of temptation to over-indulgence as is wheeling. Except during the moments of hill-climbing, it is so easy to send the machine spinning along.
How often you hear riders say, "I'm feeling languid and draggy to-day. Can't imagine what's the matter. Had a splendid ride of sixty miles yesterday." Isn't that explanation enough? The effects of too great fatigue often last as long as life itself. If the muscles alone were concerned it wouldn't matter so much, but the great trouble lies in another quarter. There is always danger of injuring the heart. One can recover from a strained muscle or sprained joint or broken bone, but let the heart be once badly strained, and you may be sure that the evil effects will last a lifetime.
Is there a way of knowing when one has ridden enough? Yes. Whenever you feel that you couldn't dismount and run a quarter-mile at good speed, it is time to stop wheeling. Better get off and take a rest. Better still, put away the wheel for the day. There will be many other days, and you can enjoy them all the more if you have a sound heart.
Don't wheel up a steep hill. Leave that sort of thing to fellows who haven't enough sense to go in when it rains. What gain is there in it, anyhow? You can walk up and push your wheel just as fast, and with one-quarter of the exertion. If too much wheeling on the level road is bad, too much hill-climbing is ten times worse. If you could look into the minds of the smart hill-climbers, you would find that they half kill themselves to make bystanders think they are wonderful riders. Really, that sort of thing is too silly to talk about with patience.
Don't coast too much. If you feel that life without coasting is a mockery, then go to some hill that you are thoroughly familiar with, where there are no crossings, where you can watch the road for at least one hundred miles ahead, and then take care. No matter whether you have coasted down the hill a hundred times before or not, the danger is always just as great. Perhaps we are never in so great peril as when we think we know it all.
Don't "scorch" in the streets. At any crossing you are liable to run over some pedestrian or to collide with a big truck or carriage. Either one may mean a life lost, or at least broken bones. You wouldn't drive a horse at a 2.40 gait through the streets. Remember a bicycle is quite as dangerous.