Betsey Jane On Wheels - Fiction & the 1890s Cycling Craze

Betsey Jane on wheels; a tale of the bicycle craze. - I found this online recently, digitized for preservation (and access) reasons at the Library of Congress.


Title page for "Betsey Jane on wheels," published in 1895

Online record for this book
Personal name: Brown, Herbert E.
Main title: Betsey Jane on wheels; a tale of the bicycle craze. By H. E. Brown.
Published/Created: Chicago, W. B. Conkey company, 1895.
Description: 285 p. incl. front., plates. 19 1/2 cm.
Subjects: Cycling--Fiction.

PDF of the entire book

Set of many of the illustrations from the book


The heroine in her bloomers

This book was apparently part of a subscription series that readers would receive "issues" of as one subscribes to a magazine - but each would be a different book. (Oddly this title was deposited on copyright promptly after publication in 1895 but apparently not cataloged for ten years. Keep in mind that I'm also a librarian, so such things are of mild interest - if only to me.)

This work of fiction, over 200 pages, describes a family and then town's infatuation with bicycles and cycling. It precedes from one son taking it up, to the daughter (who wears risque bloomers), to the father and then finally the title character, the mother of the family, Betsey Jane. Issues such as whether women should ride bicycles (and if so, what they should wear) and the views of churches and government on cycling are dealt with directly (more or less - considering it is a work of fiction). Written in 1895, before the cycling craze hit its peak and was then overcome by the automobile, some of the suggestions about the future of cycling are optimistic or anyway didn't come to pass - are the suggestions about uses of bicycles on farms at all serious? I don't know.

The author steps out of his fictional role (as Betsey) and has the following conclusion, which is editorial in its tone.

IN CONCLUSION.

As the most interesting part of a book is usually the conclusion I have concluded to finish this work by writing a conclusion, but will leave the reader to form his or her conclu­sion in regard to its merits.

I have attempted to give some idea of the bicycle craze which is now so prevalent, and although some cases may be slightly over­drawn, I think that I am justified in such overdrawing, as the bicycle craze will undoubtedly reach more alarming proportions another season.

The large manufacturers of buggies, wagons and street cars having noticed a decided fall­ing off in the demand for their goods, and, profiting by this experience, have concluded to meet the popular demand by converting their plants in bicycle factories. They have declared their intention to place wheels on the market at less than one-half the present prices, which will bring them within the reach of nearly every­one. When a good wheel can be purchased for twenty-five or thirty dollars, few people will be without one, for as a means of conveyance the cycle eclipses all four-footed beasts, as it is cheaper, safer and faster.

That cycling is a healthy and profitable recreation, none can deny, but, like all other good things, there will be plenty of people who will carry it to the extreme, and many others who will condemn the whole business on account of the injurious use which is made of it by a few.

Cycling is one of the few sports in which ladies can indulge with the same freedom and good results as the more fortunate masculine element of society. There has long been a want of something which will afford the ladies both sport and exercise, but so far nothing has been introduced which equals the cycle. Men can play base ball, run foot races, hunt, fish, box, wrestle and jump, but poor woman has so long been debarred from any active amusement, that, physically, she has been deteriorating, and now the cycle comes in as a good Samaritan. It affords an asylum, a refuge, a sort of fire escape, and gives the gentler sex an oppor­tunity to build up their well nigh lost physical powers.

What if some do abuse the sport and themselves also? It does not follow that cycling is wrong, any more than a great many other institutions which have suffered from the same cause, or that because a few church members do not live up to what they profess, that the church is entirely wrong, yet there are people who will argue on this basis, and tell you that cycling is not right, and that no intelligent or sensible person will ride a wheel. But the world would not be able to move in its accustomed orbit without some cranks, as the millenium would soon arrive and put an end to cycles, cranks and all.

The coming "car craze" had not yet tempered this fanciful view of the future

Seasonal Cycling Attire (1895)

All these are taken from the August 11 1898 issue of the Washington Times. This newspaper later cultivated its cycling readership with stories on cyclist matters, but at this point apparently the paper was still unsure how seriously to take the topic, resulting in these somewhat less than flattering illustrations with the caption, "Experience with a garment."


Winter


Rainy weather


Summer (in Washington)

Driving, Smartphoning, Biking

OK, at this point we were both stopped

A bit east of 14th St, traveling west on Independence Avenue SE (in Washington DC), I found myself pacing alongside a new-ish Mercedes with a fellow driving and typing on his phone.

People in cars should keep in mind that for a cyclist, nothing can be worse than finding oneself "sharing" the road with a driver whose attention is diverted in this way. This guy is an accident waiting to happen - and if it's with a cyclist, the Mercedes wins (and the cyclist loses).

I'll confess - I didn't take this while we were still moving but only after he stopped and I stopped alongside. But it tells you something about his engagement with the outside world that he was oblivious to me alongside while driving and when I stopped and took his picture.

What I really don't get is when people like this guy, in order to (sort of) do two things at once do them both poorly - or at least the driving part. It's a dead giveaway that you don't have your mind on the task at hand when an old guy like me can keep up with your Mercedes.

Belling the Bike (Not the Cat)

With the trails busier, some use bells to indicate they are passing but most don't (where I ride, anyway). I saw someone the other day with "jingle bells" on his handlebars, ringing more or less continuously, although not very noticeably.

I then happened upon this ad from 1898 - for the the Saks [chain] stores, in Washington DC. "Looking towards spring season sales of bicycles and bicycle 'sundries.'"


Full ad is here, with many bike accessory prices from 1898 (not just bells)

The "continuously ringing bicycle bell" is apparently not a new idea.

Bicycle Bells. Easily the best, pronounced by all the most expert riders, is the Saks' Continuous Ringing Bell. It "winds like a watch," is simple of mechanism, nothing to get out of order, and will ring from 10 to 20 minutes with one winding .... $1.

A dollar for a bicycle bell is pretty pricey for those times. The ad lists a "single stroke, large size" bell for only 12 cents. More exotic "bell grips, a handy combination of grip and bell" were 25 cents (each - unfortunately no illustration of what these looked like). In general, by 1898 the prices for bicycles had collapsed to a considerable degree - the Spalding price was only $50 for their best bicycle, down from more like 100 dollars a few years earlier.

Weather to Bike ~

Today it was 95 in the afternoon, tomorrow it is supposed to be 100 (degrees Fahrenheit). As often happens at such times, people who know I commute by bike ask, "did you ride in this weather?" (Or some variant.)


I find the winter extremes more challenging than the summer's

For the past seven or more years, I have found it simpler to plan on riding my bike regardless of the weather except for very rare occasions. In particular, just heat (or well heat + humidity) isn't that bad except if it the first such day following a sudden swing from cooler weather and there isn't time to acclimate. I just don't push very hard.

Of course thunderstorms can be a bit tricky and require waiting out. But lately there haven't been so many, or so it seems to me.

Wintry weather, as opposed to the rather mild weather we had this past winter, can be more of a problem. I have this old mountain bike with studded snow tires, so I can ride in pretty icy conditions, but it is a lot slower and can be tiring. Heavy slushy snow on the trail can be worse than ice to try to push through. In short, some winters I have used transit a few days.

Turn Signals for Bikes; or, Bad Ideas Persist

I have a daily Google "news alert" that brings up random news items that are the equivalent of running a search in news.google.com on the keyword "bicycle" for the preceding 24 hours. It doesn't generate much of interest for the most part.

I was amused to see an item about bike turn signals in a blog called cleantechnica.com, the "#1 cleantech or clean energy site in the United States." The author asks the question, "Why didn’t someone come up with this a long time ago?! Turn signals for bicyclists would be very useful and could go a long way towards reducing bicycle-vehicle collisions." He then quotes from and points to a longer piece on some other site that gives more details about a do-it-yourself solution to this perceived problem. The inventor asserts that, "unfortunately, few people know hand signals anymore, so [he] decided to make his own wearable turn signals that he could put on his arms and turn on by lifting his arm up from his side." These signals "use a mercury tilt switch and some electroluminescent (EL) panels that light up to show big bright arrows every time he lifts up the arm that corresponds with the direction he wants to move."

This CleanTechnica site lets you embed an entire page (more or less) in your blog entry. So here is the page:

Turn Signals for Bicyclists! (DIY) (via Clean Technica)

  Why didn’t someone come up with this a long time ago?! Turn signals for bicyclists would be very useful and could go a long way towards reducing bicycle-vehicle collisions. From lifehacker: Unfortunately, few people know hand signals anymore, so Instructables user CTY1995 decided to make his…

Bike Tribes: A Field Guide to North American Cyclists (Book Review)

Bike Tribes: A Field Guide to North American Cyclists by Mike Magnuson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Magnuson is a writer for Bicycling Magazine, a (fairly serious, I guess) recreational cyclist, and has written several books, including his autobiographical "getting control of my life" Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180 that I read a few years ago. Heft on Wheels was a mighty peculiar book that was somewhat entertaining but often in a "too much information/I should avert my eyes from this train wreck" sort of way. Some of his writing for Bicycling Magazine has too much Mike Magnuson injected into it too, so if nothing else this is a change for him in that he is writing about cycling but leaving himself almost entirely out of the narrative.

Apparently Magnuson likes the phrase "field guide" since this is his second book with that phrase in the title, but this book (unlike his last "field guide") bears some resemblance to a field guide. As he says in the beginning, "this is a book about people who ride bicycles" - and according to him, most of these people fall into "tribes" that Magnuson proceeds to describe alternating descriptions of different "tribes" as such with vignettes that include composite characters (as he describes them) that are meant to represent the different tribes.

There are 22 chapters and since their are full-page drawings as illustrations and a certain amount of white space when chapters end in mid-page and the book is only 200 pages long, it reads quickly and really, there isn't much too here. But then what are we talking about - the main types of cyclists. So should this be War and Peace? Hopefully not.

The last few books I have read about cycling has led me to wonder, "who did the author think this books was for?" Presumably nobody imagined that this book would have much appeal beyond the cycling community. For someone who knows much of what the author describes, his presentation is amusing - I would not agree with the blurb on the back cover that it is "hilarious." For newer cyclists there is probably enough context provided that one can learn a few things about those different cyclists one would be seeing out and about. For people who aren't familiar with any of this I would guess this is all a bit too obscure.

I was personally saddened not to see myself in any of the archetypes Magnuson created. His three "commuters" include a serious steel bike person with fenders who rides in his work clothes, a young guy who is becoming enamored of cycling even though it was forced on him by DUI convictions, and a young woman who is a student for whom it is a green thing to do and fun. I suppose I am closest to the first one . . .

Because Magnuson himself used cycling as the centerpiece of a weight loss program, he talks about cycling as a way to lose weight a fair bit. Apparently he would disagree with Grant Petersen, who claims in his recent book that cycling is not a weight loss system. It's an interesting question. I don't regard cycling as a weight loss system but as a way to keep extra weight off. Mostly.

I gave this three stars in large part because of the slightly failed expectations - it was only slightly amusing. Usually short books like this I zip through but this didn't grab me much I guess because I had to remind myself to finish it.



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