The autumn months are by far the most comfortable for bicycling, and unless the winds are high, the only months in which the short-breathed, stout, hot-blooded people may ride comfortably.  Life, viewed from a bicycle on a crisp October morning, when the sky is as blue as a June sky, when the breeze is gentle and the warmth of the sun a goodly thing and the air is like wine, is well worth living, and the rider envies no person who breathes.  We have tried it and we know.

Bicycle Costume – French Style

The subject that agitates the feminine mind at present is first, if a wheel is a possibility.  After that becomes tangible the costume is next in importance.  The wheel should be the best that money can buy.  It is impossible for a cheap wheel to possess the merit of the high-priced one, and like any other good article, is worth a fair sum of money.  For, remember, there are no frills in bicycles, no cushions, no gold mountings, no filigree that shall make your neighbor’s wheel a fairer sight than yours, and for what you put into the price you usually receive an equivalent in value.  There is pedigree in bicycles, and happy are you if your steed possesses the longest one attainable.

But first catch your bicycle, and take good care of it after you have learned to ride it, and it will be the best investment you ever made.  right here it may be well to advise the woman who has just bought a wheel to learn to ride on some one else’s, as it is not particularly wholesome for a new wheel to be the victim of the beginner.  For that reason, as for others equally good, it is by far wiser to have an instructor or go to a bicycle school for lessons.  At the school the wheels are used to the hard treatment they receive, and the would-be rider receives fewer black-and-blue spots than the home-taught rider.  Experience keeps a dear school,: and the shortest way to good bicycle riding is around the track of a good school.  Be well accustomed to mount your wheel and to step lightly from it before you leave your teacher’s guiding hand, and then the world is before you and you may safely be trusted at large.

It is surprising how people vary in their ability to understand the ways of a bicycle.   Some can take to the road in three lessons, and last summer a poor unfortunate left her twenty-sixth lesson in tears, no better able to manage her wily steed than in the beginning.  Five or six lessons usually make a woman fairly able to undertake a short straight ride on a wide road, where she gets on and off only once or twice; many do much better than this, so if you are an uncommon woman, don’t blame the average woman who gives this advice from a well of experience.

About the clothes.  The community is divided into three parts on the subject of costume.

There is the bloomer, the short skirt, and the French costume.  All of these should be worn by thin women.  Stout women have no place on earth, apparently, in fashion magazines or in the sight of propriety, and it behooves the woman who weights 150 pounds or more to be cautious in what costume she appears before the public, either on or off her wheel.

Serge, cravenette, cheviot, from the various materials most in use for costumes.  Light colors show the wheel grease that often touches the skirt, and are likely to spot.  Dark-blue, black or gray are inconspicuous and serviceable and always becoming.

A jacket of some shape, in material like the skirt, should be part of the costume.  A shirt waist of cotton or silk may be worn beneath it, so that the jacket may be removed on a warm day.  Be sure and have some pockets for watch, handkerchief and change for these are indispensables.

Bicycle Costume – Short Skirt

There is no question but that the bloomer dress, made very full, with long leggins, and any jacket that may be comfortable and becoming, is the proper costume in which to ride a wheel.  If this much-discussed garment is properly made, full enough to fall in graceful lines, it is becoming and comfortable.  No wind retards the rider any more than it does her masculine escort.  No breeze blows it up around the handle bars, and it cannot catch in pedal or in chain.  To our mind it is the most modest garment worn.

The short skirt we illustrate is a compromise, and the most stylish and comely costume in appearance that has yet been given to the public.  It is worn with scanty bloomer of same material beneath the skirt, and leggins to the knees.

The French dress, or long coat, with knickerbocker to the knees, is a beautiful dress for a very slender figure, and very chic and becoming if the rider is modest in appearance and rides in a quiet and lady-like way.  A lady never shows her right to the title better than on a wheel, for it is her manner than tells the story, even though her face is flushed and her locks a trifle disordered.

Ladies Bicycle Sweater

Sweaters of cotton, silk and wool are made for ladies’ wear, as well as for men’s.  They are made with high or with rolling collars, large sleeves, and button upon the shoulder.  Sleeveless sweaters may be obtained to be worn beneath the Eton jacket.  By some ladies the garment is much liked, as it is jersey fitting and becoming.  They vary in price, being from $3 to $5, while the silk ones are much more expensive.

Bicycling is warm exercise, and a person of avoirdupois cannot expect to have a good time and be fair to look upon.  But is is worth the sacrifice, unquestionably, and the added strength and vigor that it gives should make the exercise more popular than it is.  Like all other things it may be overdone, often is; but that should not prevent every woman who is physically able to ride from owning a wheel, if she is able to procure the necessary sum that will purchase it.

Reference:

Moore, Myra Drake (1895, October). Bicycling. The Ladies World, XVI(10), 10. Retrieved from http://victoriantimes.us/fashion/bicycling. ^

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