Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Spalding's Official Bicycle Guide for 1896: Containing Portraits of All the Leading American Riders, and Valuable Instructions to Cyclists
Cycling, in view of its recent developments, cannot be ex-v cluded from a comprehensive list of athletic sports. But at the same time it must at once be admitted that it differs in many points from all other branches of athletics. Thus the runner, the jumper and all other votaries of pedestrian sport find their alpha and omega in public competitions, on the cinder path or the grass plot, and their exercise for the development of their powers, in one direction or another, are engaged in solely with a view to complete their preparation for some forthcoming contest. Although these exercises undoubtedly conduce to a healthy habit of body, sound mind and strong, muscular limbs, yet, beyond this very great gain, athletics as such fulfil no pur pose of value to the community at large, and, least of all, an economic one. The cycling sport, on the other hand, has an economic side, which in real value, in its relation to every-day life, far exceeds the merely competitive developments of the pursuit; and were cycle racing, in all its branches, utterly abolished to-morrow, the interest in, and more particularly the practical value of the sport, would still continue unabated, owing to the fact that it possesses certain solid advantages, which really constitute the life and soul of its particularly vigorous and healthy existence. The economic side of the sport so much insisted on may be found in the practical use of the Wheel in daily life; its hygienic value as a means primarily of healthy exercise is recognized and proved by the personal and practical experience of millions of people throughout the world, to whom a little exercise, combined as it is with a little pleasurable and stimulating excitement, is of the very greatest value from a medical point of'view. Last, but not least, must be considered its great convenience to the stern business of life, whether as a means of economy in time or money.
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