THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG OF IT.
There is perhaps a question as to what is the proper position for the best and healthiest bicycle riding. Some good riders sit in one position, have one length of pedal stride, and use one kind of ankle motion, and others—just as good riders—believe in something entirely different, and prove it by riding long distances or at great speed without either injury or discomfort to themselves. The suggestions given below must stand, therefore, only as suggestions, which can only be proved by you yourself to be correct after you have followed them for some time, and found them of benefit to yourself. They are followed by many good road riders and racers, and that is some recommendation, and for the practical pleasure of wheelman they are probably the best that can be had.
In the first place, it is taken for granted that you are riding a bicycle for pleasure, not as a business: that you ride of an afternoon say thirty miles or so, not much more, that occasionally you make a day's trip to some place and do fifty miles, and that perhaps you take a fortnights trip of five or six or seven hundred miles. In other words, the readers of the Round Table, both boys and girls, are the subject of this article. They do not ride five hundred miles in twenty-four hours on a track on thousand-dollar wagers, and they refrain from trying to do a mile in a minute and fifty seconds. They do not "train" for their trips, but they treat their wheels as they would cat-boats or horses or tennis, or any other healthy out-door sport.
For such people bicycle riding is not by any means the healthiest exercise that could be found. In the first place, it is an extraordinary stimulus to the heart. If you dismount after working up a bad hill you may very possibly find your pulse at 150—something unusual in almost any running game. Then again, while riding exercises certain muscles of the legs admirably, the shoulders and back muscles are not only not getting much training, but in certain too common positions they are actually being distorted. Still again there is a constant tendency to overdo the thing, to ride too much, and especially in the case of girls to tire yourself out, and bring a strain on the system that may result in something more or less permanent in the shape of injury.
All this is not set down at the beginning to scare any one away from bicycling. Imperfect exercise is better than none, and many people ride a wheel religiously who would not be persuaded to take any other regular exercise. The hours in the open air on a wheel are far better than nothing, therefore, and then, too, a good many other exercises which are far more general, are for one reason or another beyond the reach of some of us. Horseback riding, for example, is a much more general and temperate exercise, but we cannot all support a stable. Walking is no doubt better than bicycling; but few of us will walk regularly day after day ten miles in the proper form and costume, while just now we are all willing to do twice that amount on a wheel and in correct costume. So that bicycling, in spite of its drawbacks, is distinctly to be encouraged. There is, however, a right way and many wrong ones, and though people may disagree on some of the details, they do not fail to agree on general principles.
CORRECT ROAD POSITION.
Bicycling for boys is different in most details from bicycling for girls, and we must speak separately of these, as indeed the two should be enjoyed separately generally. A boy always has more endurance, and can tire out a girl in four miles. He should therefore either ride only in company of his own sex, or he should, when riding with a girl, keep to her standard rather than try to bring her up to his. This is hard work for the boy, and needs his constant attention during the ride, so much so, indeed, that he will do better not to ride with girls at all.
To begin with, then, let us take the ordinary upright position, such a position as will correspond to the upright position assumed by any one who is walking, by a good horseman in the saddle, by a cross-country runner in his run. There are rules for all these, and they are relatively the same. You want to give yourself plenty of room to breathe in. The chest ought to be well out, therefore, the shoulders thrown back, and the head up, so that you will not be crowding all the veins that send blood into your head by letting your neck sink into your shoulders. This is the same in horseback riding, running, walking, and rowing. You can assume this position while sitting and reading this article by following this simple rule: Sit squarely on the chair. Then fix your mind on an imaginary spot in your chest bone or "sternum," just half-way between your pectorals and on a line with them. Then try to "lift" this point up as high as you can. Your abdomen will naturally be contracted, or will "go in," as you say. The small of your back will curve in, and the back of your neck at the base of the brain will press backwards, while your chin is brought in close to your neck in front, at the same time the shoulders are pressed back. When this position is exaggerated, it looks somewhat pompous and idiotic, but it is the correct position for the trunk of the body, and when it becomes natural it looks natural.