OFF TRACK SPOKES Tyre kicking ain’t nothing new
This month’s Spokesman column is a tale from a Victorian bike shop, written in 1897, rediscovered by Carlton Reid. It shows that some things never change, unfortunately...
I’M HANDING over this month’s column to a guest author. I can’t tell you his name because he didn’t leave one and there’s now no way of finding it. He was writing in June 1897, in The Rambler. This was one of a number of weekly magazines devoted to cycling. 1897 was peak year of the Victorian Bicycling Boom. The article was headlined ‘Novices in Cycle Shops’ and sub- titled ‘Some Queer Questions asked by them.’ His prose has dated but perhaps not his view that, via some “delicate sarcasm”, some bike shop customers might be more troublesome than others.
Many and wondrous in their innocence are the questions wherewith it is the custom of would-be purchasers to worry the long-suffering salesman at the bicycle depot. Recently I was accosted by a
middle-aged customer of nervous manner who was evidently preparing himself for a plunge into the vortex of the fashionable sport and, who, out of his nervousness, seized upon me as one likely to enlighten him as to the mysterious qualities that made a difference in the price of the cycles displayed in the showroom. “Er, excuse me!” he commenced, diffidently pointing out a lady’s bicycle standing near at hand, which had evidently caught his eye. “Er, excuse me, but I should like to know if that bicycle is for sale!” With my customary praiseworthy desire to impart
information, I replied that I concluded that the bicycle was for sale, since the establishment in which it was exhibited purported to be neither a fried fish shop nor a drug store, and would therefore hardly exhibit bicycles with any deeper design than the selling of them. Unheeding of the delicate sarcasm of my reply to his
inquiry, the nervous individual at once reeled off in a breath a series of questions, that from his method of delivery he would seem to have got off my heart. “Is it a good bicycle?”
“Is it fitted with a strong brake?” I generally answered, “Yes,” with a vague but rapidly
growing idea that the lot of a cycle salesman, like that of Mr. W. S. Gilbert’s policeman, is not a “happy one”. The manager of the cycle depot [came] to the
spot…”Yes, sir, what can we do for you?” “I want to [buy] a bicycle!” reiterated the nervous individual. “For yourself, sir?” “Yes.”
“What sort of bicycle?” “A coloured one,” answered the neurotic
gentleman…”That seems a nice one!” “That is a lady’s bicycle,” protested the manager. “We do not stock gentleman’s machines in colours…” “But isn’t a she bicycle easier
to get on and off?” persisted the nervous individual. The manager rubbed his chin. “Popular prejudice,” he commenced sententiously, “runs in favour of a top-bar to a gentleman’s machine.” “Here is our, Model A,” said the manager, “an excellent machine,
fitted with hollow rims, pneumatic tyres, oil bath, gear case, and adjustable lamp bracket; fifteen pounds, nett.” “Goodness gracious! for fifteen pounds I could buy four
bicycles!” exclaimed the nervous individual, in horror. “Good afternoon, and thank you!” replied the manager,
with dreary anticipation, and the nervous individual backed out of the door. “A young lady came in yesterday,” said the manager.
“She wanted to buy a bicycle and sat on every lady’s machine in the show room, then informed me that her papa had just ordered her machine from a rival establishment, but that she had thought she would come in to see if ours were enamelled in more artistic colours!” Carlton Reid is writing a history book about the 1890s cycling boom.
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That time of year again in Australia. Just got dive bombed
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