The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1894-08-29
The BICYCLE
Is Not a Toy or Plaything, But a
Vehicle to be Used for
Business.
As Well as Being a Most Enjoy
able dnd Beneficial Health
Giver.
1T HAS COME TO STAY.

OF character that the President of the
United States should intrust a message
to the Governor Of Colorado to the first
of series of relays of wheelman who are
/ endeavoring TO establish creditable rec
ord for a journey on bicycles from Wash
| ington to Denver. The wonder comes
from the assumption of the good people
that bicycling is mere sport. and the
bicycle mere toy. That was the truth
perhaps even ten yearg ago, but certain
| ly it is not the truth now. The bicycle
of these days is very much more than a
toy, which it required an athlete of high
training to operate, and which was good
for nothing except to be driven with
great speed around cinder track or
upon the smooth asphalt pavements of a
few cities. The modern bicycle is a We
hicle-a practical road machine, whereby,
upon decent roads, any able-bodied per
son of either sex can, with short APP
premiership, learn to cover at least three
times the distance that could be trav-
| ersed in the same time on foot, and with
no more exeition than is involved in
walking
Comparatively few people who do not
themselves ride wheels are aware of the
complete revolution in bicycling that has
been made by the introduction of the
modern safety machine. The danger of
"header," which was very imminent
with the old high wheel, is now almost
eliminated from the exercise. More
than that, the modern bicycle can be
propelled over any road over which a
horse ought to be compelled to travel.
The block pavement of cities and the
tolerably level and tolerably even dirt
roads of the country, which were i'm
practicable to the old wheel ARE perfectly
practicable to the new. The introduction
of bicycle corps into European armies,
where the conditions often causebicyclists
to travel where there are no made roads at
all, attests the enormous difference be-
tween the modern machine" and the
old.fashioned toy.
Bicycling has now become most en-
joyable and beneficial form of exercise,
in which everybody can take part who
can take any active exercise whatever,
and with no more danger than attends
any other form of active exercise. More
over, it is practical and useful mode of
locomotion, which has heretofore been
used mainly for exercise and pleasure,
but which may be used for ordinary
travel, with an immense gain in time,
money, and health for those who practice
it.
People who are not bicyclists do not
sufficiently consider the public benefits
which the bicyclists have already con-
ferred. The invention OF vehicle from
which the trotting sulky has borrowed
devices that have reduced the mile time
of trotting horses by four or five seconds
is only one of these benefits, and not the
greatest. Nobody who has occasion to
see the country roads OF New-England
and the Middle States can fail to notice
how very much better these roads are
provided with signposts and guides to
the traveller than they were few years
ago. This great improvement is entirely
the work of the wheelmen. In many
cases, perhaps in most, the work has
been done by the wheelmen, and the
signboards bear the monogram of their
league. When this is not the case, ii
will be found that it is the example and
the precept OF the wheelmen that have
shamed the rural communities into con-
sidering and providing for the needs OF
the traveller for accurate information of
where he is, how he is to get TO his des-
tination, and how far away his destina-
ton is. The wheelmen have similarly
stimulated the mapmakes, insomuch
that whereas ten years ago it was diff
cult to get good portable map showing
the common roads of any part of the
country, it is now easy to acquire such
map of almost any region that is attract
i've to TO tourists.
These are important material services,
but these services are of small impor-
lance compared with the agitation for
good roads, in which agitatation the
wheelmen have been the most constant
and the most important factor. Grad
ually the whole country is becoming
alive TO the disturbances OF good roads,
though very many parts OF the country
still insist that good roads shall be bro.
vlded for them at the expense OF some
body else. The actual improvement has
already been great, and there is a GER
tain prospect that, as the knowledge OF
what the difference between good roads
and bad roads practically means; the
roads throughout the whole country will
be impoved, until there is no longer
any agricultural community in which
DOGGY ditch, almost impossible for half
the year, win be accepted as road
When that time comes, the wheelmen
will be entitled TO congratulate them
selves upon result that will have been
20 very Largely due their insistence upon