People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1895 — Why the Bicycle is so Popular. [ARTICLE]

Why the Bicycle is so Popular.

The evolution of the bicycle from the original idea of rhanumotion down to the present diamondframed rear driver has been by certain positive steps, each step marking a distinct advance in the grand march of improvement. In schools are taught something of the revolutions wrought by the steam engine, the telegraph and the loom, but the schools of the future will surely take notice of the wonders wrought by the bicycle, and will teach something about the Draisine or “go-devil,” the velocipede, the bicycle and all such inventions of whatever name, by which man is enabled to travel quickly, merely through the application of his own muscular powers. What makes the bicycle so popular with all classes of peo-

pie?. Cheapness? No. the trolley or cable is cheaper. Speed? No. If one merely wants to travel fast there is the railroad. Luxury? No. The brougham is far ahead of the bicycle on that score. And yet people with all these things at their command have taken to bicycling with great fervor. Tt must be because of the outdoor exercise, you say. No, again. The term outdoor comprehends infinite space, and as for forms of exercise—well, they are without limit. There never was a complaint of the lack of either outdoors or methods of exercise in it. The secret seems to lie in the fact the wheel has revealed to us that our natural powers of locomotion have been multiplied. “Two blades have been made to grow where but one grew before.”

The draught.upon our strength necessary to walk a mile is sufficient to enable us on wheel to travel five miles or more. Astride of it "magnificint distances” become insignificant. What a glorous feeling of freedom comes over us when the countryside, smiling and gay, brings to the rider a sort of contagious happiness! What independence! We have not had to be carried thereby the horse or the railroad and we are proud to say, "I did it!” Inventors of auxiliary power appliances for bicycles should take notice of the fact that the secret to-day of the bicycle’s popularity is not merely because a person is enabled to ride fast or far, but because the riding was without foreign assistance. Vanity and egotism cut a considerable figure in the wheel’s popularity. To say "I rode on an electric motor bicycle to Albany to-day.” would mean the same as to say, "I rode on a railroad train to A'bany to-day.” But to say, "I rode my -wheel to Albany today,” means something entirely different. The rider who did this in fast time would be hailed with great applause. and the telegraph would announce the fact to the world. In improving the bicycle the main idea is to get rhe most results out of the least power applied by mau to the pedals. Auxiliary power has nothing to do with bicycle improvement. It belongs to a class of inventions designed to carry or convey, not to those by which man carries himself. —The Wheel.