What is a Scorcher (of the 1890s)?

The question came up on another blog as to "what is a scorcher?" in reference to an 1896 pledge by a cyclist not to be one. A cyclist who was a scorcher was commonly understood to ride aggressively at high speeds outside of controlled races risking crashes with other riders, pedestrians, and others. The scorcher was also commonly criticized for his (or her) less than upright seat on the bicycle. (This posture, however, was perfectly OK during a race . . . ) Since the bicycles of the day either had no brakes at all or generally poor ones compared to what we are used to today, the potential for mayhem was that much greater.


A "scorcher" in costume in an 1896 parade in Washington DC

The phrase "scorcher" was well enough known that someone dressed as a devil riding a bike would be understood to be spoofing the idea of being one. This scorcher, however, is sitting up nicely. From the Washington DC Morning Times of July 15, 1896.



A woman could also be a scorcher

Note her aggressive position on the bicycle, not to mention her mannish attire, as portrayed in Dr. Neesen's Book on Wheeling.

And we have this poem from an 1896 issue of the L.A.W Bulletin and Good Roads.

THE INTROSPECTIVE SCORCHER.

I am the scorcher!
Please observe
The curve
That appertains unto my spine!
With head ducked low
I go
O'er man and beast, and woe
Unto the thing
That fails to scamper when I ting-a-ling!
Let people jaw
And go to law
To try to check my gate.
If that's their game!
I hate
To kill folks, but I'll do it just the same,
I guess,
Unless
They clear the track for me;
Because, you see,
I am the scorcher, full of zeal,
And just the thing I look like on the wheel!

The problem with this fellow is his less than upright posture

A rider's "incorrect position" as shown in The Bicycle: Its Selection, Riding and Care from 1892.

Yes, as much as anything, the problem with scorchers seems to have been their aggressive posture, although why it was OK for the race track but not OK on city streets is a mystery.

If You Ride the Wheel, You Have to Fix the Wheel

Title (apparently given to its by photographer) is "Paying for his fun"

Another photo (that seems to be the only other one digitized) by the mysterious 1890s photographer, F.T. Harmon, who took the two in yesterday's blog entry. I like his sleeve protectors keeping his shirt clean as he polishes up his spokes.

You can see the rear cog in on the wheel - chains were different at this time and there were only half as many teeth on a cog because the chain had a space for a tooth only between every other link.

From the Library of Congress.

1897 Photos Tell a Story

Something about these photos looks staged to me. Pretty surprising to have a fork stem break. Anyway, although probably posed, there he is with his broken bike.


From the Library of Congress

Now comes along this other fellow, but how he is supposed to help repair a problem like this is difficult to say.


From the Library of Congress

Taken by one F.T. Harmon in 1897.

Good Looking Classic

PerformanceBike has a nice looking all-weather traditional looking sort of steel frame road bike for only $999. The CroMo Tange steel frame is made in Taiwan and sold by the British company Charge Bikes. For $1,000 the component selection is excellent and it supposedly weights less (just) than 22 pounds with fenders. That's excellent.



A 2010 version of the same bike (with fenders removed)

Here's a typically laudatory review from the British cycling press.


Features good Shimano 105 and other components

About the only thing I don't find so attractive is that it isn't a lugged frame but that probably reduces the weight over my Bridgestone which in many respects is quite similar.

This is a more interesting bike than a lot of the stuff PerformanceBike carries.

Bicycle Parts Named, 1898 Version

Taken from The Modern Bicycle and its Accessories: A Complete Reference Book for Rider, Dealer and Maker. New York: Commercial Advertiser Association, 1898. Digitized version from Google, a rare example of a book digitized by Google from the Library of Congress General Collections.


Above, the title page

Note that Google only got the first part of the title correct ("The Modern Bicycle") and made part of the title into the author - "By Rider Dealer and Makerr". Oops.




A detailed listing of all the parts of the bike

If you click on the image you can get to a better version on Flickr. It is probably an artifact of Google's efforts that the text is straight but the image of the bicycle is not. Also, the poor image quality is another sign of Google digitization. I think this would have been done very early in their digitization efforts.



An amusing example of the most "up to date" model - a racing bike, presumably

Note the rather large front ring. This almost looks like a bike used with a lead bicycle (with three or four riders) that the rider of this bike would draft behind.

Arlington (VA) Survey of Area Cyclists

This short article summarizes a study of Arlington cyclists.

Here are the survey results. The survey results include information gathered in 2009 and 2011. Apparently they stopped riders on the trail to administer the survey.

The point of the survey, besides understanding who bikes in Arlington and why, was to assess the BikeArlington program.

BikeArlington scored high satisfaction ratings in the survey. 79% of respondents reporting they were satisfied with the service, and more than half (54%) of BikeArlington users have already recommended the program to someone else. Most importantly, almost half of those who used BikeArlington services reported making a change in their biking behavior!!

I confess I don't think of BikeArlington as a service and other than providing rider instruction and managing the bike trail system and bike lanes, I don't know what they do, in the sense of being able to "recommend the program to someone else." And making a "change in their biking behavior. . . ?" Hm.

Good List of New Cycling Books ~

Podium Cafe has a nice list of new books about different aspects of cycling. Something fun to peruse!

It mentions that there will be a fourth edition of The Dancing Chain! Who would have guessed there was so much about bicycle chains (well, and the rest of the drive train too) to update!