THE CYCLE ART.
Posterity will always consider this the embryo generation of the
cycling art; it might well be termed the “living wheel age.”
A number of valuable books have been written on the fundamental
principles of locomotion by means of walking, riding upon animate
beings, flying and creeping, and also upon all kinds of inanimate or
mechanical motors, but little has been said about physical properties
underlying the intervention of a wheel between the body of man and the
surface to be travelled over, the motor being man himself.
The interesting art of man-motor carriages has already developed
an industry of such great importance that the certainty as to its
permanency is beyond cavil, and, believing that it will yet assume much
greater proportions and become of more and more absorbing interest,
there seems to be some excuse for an attempt to place even a limited
amount of personal information before those connected with the industry
and before the admirers of the art. There are few industries the
product of which is dispersed among so varied a class of patrons, and
scarcely none in which the patron takes so lively an interest in the
respective articles produced.
In most industries, where a machine is the product, the consumer is
expected to be an expert in the art to which the industry appertains,
and is therefore supposed to be capable of individual judgment as to
the merits of what he acquires; if a steam-engine is the object of the
purchase, it is expected that an expert of some ability in the art
will judge of and afterwards run and repair it; but how could this be
expected with a bicycle?
There is probably no other machine used by mankind, with the possible
exception of the watch, that does service to such a variety of
individuals as the cycle. Now, it would be of little use to write a
book for popular reading on the mechanical construction of a watch,
because from its very nature none but an expert could appreciate the
facts, if any were given; but greater hope might be entertained in
regard to a larger machine, because the buyer can at least see what
he is about. You never heard of a bicycle-rider blaming his repairer
for stealing the wheels out of his machine and substituting others,
because he can see, however inexperienced he may be, that this has
not been done. Now, if we all could, by a little observation, learn
one-half as much about our watches as we can about our bicycles, the
poor watch-maker would never suffer the indignities so universally
and unjustly heaped upon him. The primary knowledge above hinted at
as possible, among the hoped-for patrons of this work, seems to be an
auspicious circumstance in connection with an effort to teach them a
little more.