I suppose that the bicycle has given, and gives, as much pleasure to
fairly active people as any machine ever invented. I must have been
one of the first cyclists in England, as my experience dates from the
days when bicycles were first imported from France. The high bicycle
appeared later, but the earlier machines were about the height of the
present safety, with light wooden wheels and iron tyres. The safety,
with pneumatic tyres, did not arrive till nearly thirty years later,
and it was the latter invention that brought about the popularity of
cycling.

The difference between cycling and walking has been stated thus:

"When a man walks a mile he takes on an average 2,263 steps,
lifting the weight of his body with each step. When he rides
a bicycle of the average gear he covers a mile with the
equivalent of 627 steps, bears no burden, and covers the
same distance in less than one third of the time."

People constantly tell me that cycling is all very well for getting
from place to place, but otherwise they don't care about it, which I
can only account for by supposing that they find it a labour more or
less irksome, or that they have never developed their perceptive
faculties, and have no real sympathy with the life of woods and fields
or the spirit of the ancient farms and villages.

Cycling to me is a very easy and pleasant exercise, but it is far more
than that; it is like passing through an endless picture-gallery
filled with masterpieces of form and colour. The roads of England not
only present these delights to the physical sense, but they stir the