The Man with Rubber Pedals

[Nick Payne]

It seems narrow Q (tread) was a thing even 125 years ago. This poem is from the October 17, 1896 issue of the Australian magazine "The Bulletin":

The Man With Rubber Pedals
 
 by Montague Grover
 
 It has all the latest fixings — barrel hubs and narrow tread;
 It weighs twenty pounds or under, is as rigid as the dead;
 It’s the very newest pattern, and the very latest grade,
 And it cost you all the cash that in the last three months you made.
 You lead it from the agent’s, and your bosom swells with pride
 As you lift it from the kerbstone and you start its maiden ride...
 Like the lightning past the tram-cars, cabs, and everything you’ve sped,
 When you see a man with rubber pedals plugging on ahead.

 He is forty years of age, and on an antiquated crock,
 Sitting upright as a soldier and as bandy as a jock;
 He is wobbly, he is shifty, and he scarce knows how to ride;
 His gear is less than fifty, and his handle-bars are wide.
 From crank to crank his tread is eighteen inches, and his frame
 Is a pattern that was popular when first the safety came;
 And as you gain upon him you are thinking, “I must show
 How a good man on a jigger that is up to date can go.”

 You fold your arms and pass him in an attitude of grace,
 When the beatific smile upon his open whiskered face
 Makes your conscience somehow smite you as across his track you whiz
 Lest you show him p’raps too cruelly what an utter mug he is;
 And when you think that he’s about a hundred yards behind
 That man with rubber pedals goes completely from your mind,
 Till a darkness at your elbow and a rattling on your ear
 Shows the man with rubber pedals still is battling in the rear.

 Then you think with some resentment, "This is not as it should be;
 This man with rubber pedals taking all his pace from me;
 Such presumption is opposed to all the canons of the game,
 And if I show him up he’s only got himself to blame.”
 So you drop your arms and lightly touch the neatly-nickeled head
 With some ankling calculated just to kill that fellow dead,
 But after half-a-mile you are astounded still to feel
 That man with rubber pedals hanging calmly on your wheel.

 You argue out the question and you’re bustled to confess
 That the man is what is technically known as N.T.S.
 Still for such as he to push you is a thing you can’t allow—
 He has asked for pace, and, Holy Moses, won’t he get it now?
 You drop your head twelve inches, grip your handles tight and lift,
 And as your calves and biceps swell, by Jingo, don’t you shift!
 Then you reckon that you’ve left him and it’s nearly time to slack
 When you hear the cursed rattle of his mud-guards at your back.

 He can hold his own at sprinting—that is proved beyond a doubt,
 So the only way to beat him is to simply wear him out.
 You set a nice two-forty beat, and to yourself you hiss:
 "That man with rubber pedals can’t stand many miles of this."
 Then the townships travel past you and the mile stones rise ahead
 Till your thighs are working stiffly and you’re feeling pretty dead;
 Still you force your ped’ling even and your handlebars you clinch,
 But that man with rubber pedals hasn’t shifted—not an inch.

 At last, in view of “business” and the “fast approaching night,”
 You decide ’tis best for you to take the turning to the right;
 And as you swing around he passes upright as the just,
 With that beatific smile of his still glowing through the dust.
 Are you riding to Sans Souci? He’ll be there to “do you bad.”
 He is on St Kilda Road; and on each Western camel pad.
 Be you cycling in the country, be you cycling in the town,
 That man with rubber pedals will be there to take you down.

[Christopher Cote]

That is great! Truly nothing new under the sun. Did they really have bikes that weighed less than 20lbs in 1896? I wonder if that is as much hyperbole as " From crank to crank his tread is eighteen inches"? Also wondering what NTS means.

Chris

[lconley]

I love it.

The 2nd time that I rode the Cross-Florida ride (170 miles in one day) back in the eighties, there was a guy on a single speed beach cruiser in flip-flops. He had a case of Mellow-Yellow and a case of beer bungee tied to his rear rack. He finished the ride, he was not the last to finish, but both cases were finished.

Laing

[Nick Payne]

I don't know what NTS means either. As for weight, yes some bikes of that time were very light - I think Dursley-Pedersens could be well under 20lbs.

Nick

[Joe Bernard]

Not Too Slow?

[Craig Montgomery]

The Smithsonian has an 1884 Colombia Racer (a high wheeler) that weighs in at 24 pounds. 

Craig in Tucson