Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1898-06-30
LETTER FROM PARIS.
Charles u. sasse writes something About
Cycling In France.

NHhIicb bs SHhNe WriEeH something ABOUT
Cycling In France.
Charlea II. Sasue, private secretary
TO Ferdinand Blumentha. has written
from Paris mn interesting letter TO his
fellow members of the Wilmington
Bicycle Club. which contains great
deal Of general interest. In the letter
he says:
BICYCLE clubs seem 10 DO scare urti-
Gle in France as far as can learn, and
the people are moro given to riding
around in "bundles'' of twos, threes
and fours than ia larger parties. A
club run 10 an unheard Of thing. ex-
Copting IN raro instances, and IN the
nearly two montbs have boon 10 Paris,
j haven't run across one. The few
clubH that exist have no clubhouses,
but | noticed card In one Of the
pnpcrs tho other day calling upon tue
members to meet al u certain cafe az a
given hour, when the captain would
let them know where they were going
aside from instances such as this.
thoy have no runs, although am sure
that il they ever tried one 0f uur
johnson Farm Tripsi they would at
once change tbeir methods:
The Impression received concerning
don is that nothing could he finor, hut
IL only takes ono glance Mt them in
Paris to convince you TINT you are mis-.
taken. Imagine to yourselves we'll.
laid out and nicely kept cyclic track.
and you can form some idea of a Paris
highway, excepting you muat add to it
the inrarihhla line Of beautiful shafle
treea gu oiIher side and the fact that
IL Ia neyOr dusty. Practically IN urmy
of mon iB continually employed sweep
ing and sprnkling these roads, cFen to
u considerable distance outside of tho
city itself. 10 be aure, there is u small
tax on every bicycle, hut this certainly
IN uat be insufficient to meet such an
enormous expenee.
Whenever you want to take a spin
you always head in one direction,
namaiy, to tho Bots do BoulORne WoodH
OF Boul0gnol, which is large shady
park, probably three miles long and two
vida, ingeniously intersocted with the
must glorious avenues, lanes and alleys,
large and small, you ever saw, many
even exclusively for the uRv OF cyclists
Hero also ARE many bride pathH for the
use Of horsemen, 30 there is aba0lutely
nothing to destroy the smooth surface.
Add to thin very comfortable benches
at intervals Of abuut q hundred feet and
you have tho Hnis. Couldn't be much
b0ttar, think you
The wheels themselves are, in tho
main, disgracoa. OF courBe, mean
those ridden by people In moderate cir
cumstancea. People who can afford to
pay 100 francs can boast of better wheels.
[ have seon quito u number Of Ameri
can wheels, COlumDins, HRrtfords and
Clevelands particularly, but, as you may
imagine, these aro greatly in the mi
nOrlty.
This interesting portion of the popu.
lation in Francs mean, naturally,
the ladins) are much given to this form
OF exercise and pleasure, and while
they may not out number the mon,
hoy equal them at any rate. You have
to sac their costumes to aprrsc late
them.
The other ilay | Witnessed French
bicycle race. ln one event there were
so contestants. Thia was run in eight
heats, III men in each, two men in eaoh
heat to qualify for the beginning Of
the finals, thus leaving 16 men for tho
preliminary finals, who were divided
into two crowds Of eight, making two
heats in which only the first man was
20 qualify for the final. Fortunately,
the two diaputing champions Of
France, Bourilon and Jacuuelin, hav.
ing won their respective beats, had a
tussle for tho semi finals, and, each-
coming in frat in his heat, were
thrown into tho real final This
couldn't have happened better il it had
been GO arranged and it may have
heen), but promise you it made
beautiful race. On the home stretch,
however, Jacquelin. in hugging tho
pole too closely, ran himself an tho
grass, as Bourbon won by two or throo
lengths. Bourillon rcueived 100 and
Jacquelin 80 fraucs for all this hard
work 40 you can see what prizes they
have. II they kept any time on tho
races, nobody knew it, as it was never
announced, but, nevertheless, it was
good sport.
As an instance of ths good condition
Of tho roads here, whils it has been
raining every day since tho LIST OF May,
it has never yet heun too muddy to go
cycling, or, To mako a comparison, as
good rs the road TO Now Castle.