Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1885 — The Unsociability of Bicyclists. [ARTICLE]

The Unsociability of Bicyclists.

The bicycle lias doubtless become one of the greatest promoters of healthy out-door exercise among our young men, as well as some of the older ones —but there is necessarily nothing social in it; in fact, it is the most selfish conception possible. Think of a family man buying a bicycle and starting off' to ride while the wife and children are left at home on the veranda to admire the grace and ease with which their lord and master wheels off to get exhilarating whiffs of fresh country air. The economical young man mounts his wheel on a fine afternoon, and whirls off to the residence of his lady love, leans his steed against the front fence, and spends the summer evening on the piazza, while the young lady is, no doubt, thinking of her possibly oldfashioned but more fortunate companion, who has gone out on the road behind a good trotter, to breathe the refreshing evening air. The one wheel is far more economical in every way, and its enthusiastic if not fanatical admirers, no doubt, get much good from it; but, in an article on social recreations, they can not hope for high praise for their favorite machine; it certainly is not a family invention. When Mr. Edison will invent a motor which may be hung beneath the seat of a social tricycle, with a small seat behind for the children, and by which the whole load may whirl off to the country without danger of running away at the first railway crossing, or the necessity for grooming and feeding on the return, then the family may sing the praises of the “cycle.”— Milton Bradley, in Good Housekeeping.