Читать книгу The Modern Bicycle and Its Accessories - Julius Wilcox - Страница 8

Table of Contents

“BONESHAKER”—1868.

(The Rider is John Mayall, who

made the first road record, by

riding (as shown in cut) from

London to Brighton, 53 miles,

in one day, February, 1869.)

So rapid has been the march of improvement in cycle-making during the last seven years that the approach to fixity and uniformity of pattern—all bicycles now looking alike to the casual glance—has almost lost to us one of our most charming senses, the sense of delighted surprise. The most ingenious efforts of our master mechanics, accomplishing what would have been impossible only a short time ago, are now received as matters of course. The crude conditions and mechanical product of no more than ten years ago are rarely recalled; the vast majority of riders do not even know about them. The strength, lightness and beauty of the later bicycle have come out of long and toilsome and costly evolution, in which many have fallen by the way, and reward has not always been according to real merit. The careful student of the principles of cycle construction—the making of “a poem of steel”—cannot appreciatively examine the details in the advance shown in this year’s models without being glad that he is permitted to see such achievements. It is one thing to push and misuse the bicycle, another to ride it with intelligent care, another to understand it, another to love it and to honor the long cumulative skill which has made it possible and practical. The rabid seeker for extreme and radical novelties in type, form and modes of propulsion may care little for the niceties of mechanical accomplishment and may declare that the standstill has been reached. But this pessimistic and blasé view is unwarranted, for undoubtedly many of the most perfected and nearest perfect details now in vogue will be used on the cycle of the future, regardless of its general type.