“It was up Kingston Hill that he first noticed a peculiar feeling, a slight tightness at his knees; but he noticed, too, at the top that he rode straighter than he did before. The pleasure of riding straight blotted out these first intimations of fatigue.” (H. G. Wells: The Wheels of Chance: a Bicycle Idyll)
I had coffee out on the terrasse with the team manager of one of the big bicycle manufacturers. He said it had been a very pleasant race, and would have been worth watching if Bottechia had not abandoned it at Pamplona. The dust had been bad, but in Spain the roads were better than in France. Bicycle road-racing was the only sport in the world, he said. (Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises)
“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.” (Mark Twain: Taming the Bicycle)
“A solitary cyclist was coming towards us. His head was down and his shoulders rounded, as he put every ounce of energy that he possessed on to the pedals. He was flying like a racer.” (Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist) In this case of Sherlock Holmes a young music teacher woman is followed by a mysterious cyclist on the road between her workplace and the train station. When she appears at Baker Street 221/b seeking help from Holmes to solve the case, the detective recognizes instantly, that she is a cyclist too. The story was published in 1903 and insists that at this time riding a bicycle was already accepted and… Read More »“He was flying like a racer”