The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-11
CYCLING WITH HOUNDS.
Pleasure and Excitement In q Foxhunt
 Awheel

old proverO; and adopting 1t for ser vice in these cycling days, there Is middle course open to those who can not afford to ride and do not care to fol- low on foot. Running with hounds Is all very well for those indomitable per sons who can face the sensation of find ing themselves some seven or eight miles from home in open country, the hounds and fields gone clean away, a stone or so of heavy clay on each boot and the prospect of steady plod home ward With the excitement of the chase gone, and the weariness very much in deed remaining.
 Now, how much or how little one sees on cycle-back with hounds largely de- bends on various circumstances. There are road riders on horseback who hunt and talk, but do not go straight, or, in- deed. ever jump anything bigger than a drain. There are cyclo-hunters who speed oil gayly 50 long as the course is turnpike road, but for cross-country cuts and fords, or even level turf, they have no inclination; they are of the kind who put the bicycle in corner Of warm room and cover it with an em- broidered dust sheet to keep it from dust or cold, to whom every splash of dirt Is a def1lement to be mourned over, and 0 muddy road is the acme of all horrors. Cyclo- hunting is not for them. To zee anything of the fun means. in the first place. absolute control over the Wheel, ability to keep the machine up right in anything, be 1t clay, mud or frost bound ruts, to crash over stones, rising in the saddle to break the jar to the machine, to enjoy the rush of the wheels over the high backed, drained fields oe the Midland counties, not to shirk a water splash, but to take all things possible. rough or smooth turn pike or lane. Under these conditions a great deal car be done
 At almost every meet may now be seen detachment of cyclists-that is, if the roads be moderately good and firm. It Is of no use for the hardest road-rider to turn out when the surface Is slippery, as it has been for the great CT part of the passing season. It Is dangerous to other people besides the rider to have a cycle slipping and wob- bling about in front or among the legs of horses. The mounted members of the hunt have no wish to pound the off, lending cyclist under their hoofs, yet in greasy weather 1t is a downright impos sibility for cyclist to get ahead fast enough to make tolerably certain of evading danger.
 On a dry morning matters are very different. It will always be found a good plan to keep an eye on second horse men. Their standing orders are to be near the hunt but on the roads,
 
 when one does not know the country; but the best way to see is to get on an upland road, parallel with the line, and then, keeping out of the traffic, obtain birds-eye view of the whole run. There is plenty of exciting work in this mode of action. For one thing, 1t Is not easy to watch the chase and keep an eye on the road at the same time. It can be done, though it is not included in the cycling instruction of any profess sor. We may turn out and growl at the cold, the mud stones and ruts, but once at the meet, and fairly started, most people find riding at all sorts of obstacles on cycle-back is mere bag atelle. The instinct most in evidence is a determination to go as long as the rider can keep going.
 The description of one run may serve for all. Runs vary in detail, of course, but the broad outlines are the same. A fine crisp morning; a blue haze hanging over the far distance, but in the nearer foreground everything bright and gay under a watery pale sun. The hounds are up, and are grouped round the way side signpost, sitting and standing about, parti-colored, ever-moving crowd Members of the hunt in pink and black; grooms with their whips slung en bandolier over one shoulder to leave their hands free; ladies in tall hats-most workmanlike looking of headgear-or in the crowned bowler: large sprinkling of men in cords and butcher boots, tweeds and gaiters; horse breaker or two schooling a young one (of whom the cyclists had best be- ware, young ones having trick of be- ing handy with their heels), and group of cyclists we'll in the reaA. The more provident of these last arc fully equipped with the same lunch case as their horsey brethren. Some who mean spending a day in the open have lamps and local map to boot So, spark ling fringe to the crowd, they stand at ease till the signal Is given to start. On streams the train, reinforced by late ccmers who canter up behind, to the demoralization of nervous cyclists, for of all norrid things, hoofs In the rear are most unsteadylng. At a gate di- vision takes place. The mounted sec ton go to the border Of the covert across the fields; the followers on wheels, propelled or drawn, stick 70 the road The latter think they can Ego one better and make for the highlands, A halt at the top to lister to the varied cries and whip cracks coming from the thicket below, as well as to get breath. While glancing down, a long, low, red brown fox, with dropping white-tasged brush, sneaks from the undergrowth, crossing the hill below; boy sees him. and in a second strident series of Gone always!" wakes the echoes. few seconds more and spied hound springs head first into the lane, fol- lowed by others, all in full cry. After them come figures in pink and black, then a surge of the field sweeps up the hill. and away they all go through an opposite gate, helter-skelter up wind to the north The cyclists have the whip hand over the other followers here. The hill made most horses with traps