Cyclists I Have Met

From the October 1921 issue of Motorcyclist magazine

The first hundred years are the hardest, says Ebenezer Spriggins, who speaks from experience. Ebenezer turned l02 three weeks ago and finds the second century of existence much better than the first. Mr. Spriggins credits his longevity to his extensive use of the bicycle. Some time ago he experienced great difficulties in keeping his hirsute appendages from becoming entangled in his bicycle. By parting his flowing beard and tying it over his head, he has overcome even this annoyance. Who says invention is left to youth alone?

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, is Mrs. Fredonia Filchert’s motto. Mrs. Filchert believes that motorcycling will prevent her curving contour from degenerating into plumpness. Mr. Filchert now devotes two hours a day-morning and evening-to giving his beloved spouse her constitutionals.

Motorcycle racing on a dirt track is quite too hazardous, Joe Johnson, the star rider of the Washoe Cycling Club, has decided. Mother Earth is a stern and repelling parent at times, and heroes’ wreaths can’t be traded for ham and-at the White Lunch Plumbing is much more satisfactory where remuneration is to be considered

Aloysius Fitzmaurice, the Adonis who drives the motorcycle quick delivery car for Brown’s Bargain Bazaar, fears his sartorial tout ensemble may cause designing young females to approach him without proper introductions, under the impression that he is none else than the charming Wallie Reid

How to take the whole family along, a problem that, long vexed George Miffin, has been solved. Mrs. Miffin and two of the children now occupy the sidecar; two more are accommodated on the tandem, and the baby and the cat are taken care of in the baby buggy trailer

Fluffy Truffles, the pulchritudinous model of Stein’s Suit Salon, finds motorcycling a la tandem a most satisfactory opportunity to display her charms in the modes des homme. The-er-trousers quite fetching, eh

Herbert Cuthbert, II, who has forsaken his patrician motor for the plebeian cycle. Herbert feels that the spread of democracy requires American gentlemen to prove that they are not altogether a motoring aristocracy. It is rather a great sacrifice but Herbert bears his cross with great fortitude

From bartender to motorcycle policeman is Mike Gorman’s record. Now the cycle is about to turn back again. Mr. Gorman has discovered possibilities, from a bootlegger’s viewpoint, in the gasoline tank of his machine. Who can tell perhaps he’ll be following his old occupation again shortly

Fifteen miles from the closest habitation John Simple (his friends call him Simple John for short) finds his memory has played him false. Surely he filled that gasoline tank yesterday. But, no, it’s dry. Mr. Simple would like to talk to the man who persuaded him to buy “the damned thing anyhow.” But, also, his audience is limited to the denizens of the prairie who are unappreciative if not inattentive