|
|
Post by brianbutler on Jul 21, 2023 0:47:15 GMT
Just read "Wheels of Chance; A Bicycling Idyll: by H. G. Wells, 1896. It is a great novel built around a 19th century bike tour, just the thing for summer.
Kindle version available free on Amazon Prime or at the library I'm sure.
Brian
|
|
|
|
Post by oldroadietehachapi on Jul 21, 2023 4:18:53 GMT
I was once a great fan of H.G. Wells science fiction stories. I had to look this one up and read the summary. I think I need a copy; there is a bit of Hoopdriver in all of us.
Cheers
Jim
|
|
|
|
Post by brianbutler on Jul 21, 2023 10:52:56 GMT
Another great novelist and bike fanatic was Jack London. I forget which, but in one of his novels the main character works in the laundry of a hotel in northern California and commutes back and forth to Oakland on the weekends, 75 miles each way on a high wheeler. Here is a quote from Jack London I found on Goodreads:
“Ever bike? Now that's something that makes life worth living!...Oh, to just grip your handlebars and lay down to it, and go ripping and tearing through streets and road, over railroad tracks and bridges, threading crowds, avoiding collisions, at twenty miles or more an hour, and wondering all the time when you're going to smash up. Well, now, that's something! And then go home again after three hours of it...and then to think that tomorrow I can do it all over again!”
Amen, brother.
Brian
|
|
|
|
Post by oldroadietehachapi on Jul 21, 2023 22:24:10 GMT
Bought an illustrated copy; looking forward to the read.
Jim
|
|
|
|
Post by brianbutler on Jul 21, 2023 23:16:13 GMT
Bought an illustrated copy; looking forward to the read. Jim The illustrations could be quite amusing if the text is a good guide.
Brian
|
|
|
|
Post by brianbutler on Jul 22, 2023 12:02:00 GMT
Here is a trove of early cycling literature. I'll see where this trail takes me, so to speak:
Brian
|
|
Jem
Viscount
?
Posts: 3,390 
|
Post by Jem on Jul 23, 2023 17:27:11 GMT
I think I have the ePub version of the HG Wells one if anyone wants a copy? (works on Kindle if you have the ability to 'send to Kindle')
|
|
|
|
Post by brianbutler on Jul 30, 2023 17:31:59 GMT
Just returned from a week-long bikeless camping trip where I read Three Men on a Bummell by Jerome K. Jerome, circa 1900. It was reviewed as a book about a bicycle tour but that was a very small part of the book. Aside from some prescient ramblings about what could happen if the Germans were ever ruled by a malevolent dictator, the book was rubbish - a sort of Victorian slapstick comedy, unfortunately not even funny.
Brian
|
|
