Why Not Cycle Abroad Yourself?
Cite this book
Citation
Clarence Stetson. Why Not Cycle Abroad Yourself? 1898. cyclearchive.com, https://cyclearchive.com/books/why-not-cycle-abroad-yourself-c-stetson-1898/
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Contents
- Stetson argues that a bicycle tour in Europe costs little more than a summer at home and that language is no barrier, recommending Nutt's pocket dictionaries and cyclists' maps. He prices the steamship passage ($85 to $110 first class to London or Paris), the $2.50 charge for each wheel and its crating, then explains French bicycle duty and joining the Touring Club de France.
- Stetson describes the Cyclists' Touring Club, whose membership costs $1.35 and is arranged through the American consul Frank W. Weston, then goes country by country through bicycle deposits and duties, from none in Germany to $7.80 in Russia. He closes with spares, graphite for the chain, French hobnails that puncture tyres, and a wire across the fork to knock tacks off the tyre.
- Stetson gives the rail baggage rates (six or seven cents a pound by express) and the advice to ride rather than send luggage, then quotes Arthur K. Peck's 1897 letter describing a ride from Havre through Lillebonne, Jumieges and Versailles into Paris, sixty-two miles on the first day.
- Stetson recommends Paris hotels at $2 to $2.50 a day for two, table d'hote dinners from thirty cents, Duval breakfasts and boarding at five to seven francs a day, and says a bicycle can be minded by a valet or a garage for six cents a day. He also gives the lamp and bell rules and the route from the Champs-Elysees to the Bois de Boulogne.
- Stetson describes the cycling scene in the Bois de Boulogne and its cafes, the Touring Club restaurant and the Chalet du Cycle at Suresnes, and warns of the French "masher" who pesters women riders. He recounts the trick of a man who pumps up a lady's tyre and rides off on her wheel, then gives phrase-book howlers and the address of a Paris dressmaker, Madame Herauld of the Rue de Douai.
- Stetson narrates a September trip with two married friends, Joe and Lou, who take second-class rail tickets from Paris to Macon at 33 francs each. Rain holds them at Bourg, Pont d'Ain and Nantua, where a touring company plays in a tent, and they climb the hills toward Geneva.
- At the Swiss frontier at Chancy, Lou's bicycle is refused because it carries no number, and Joe cuts "133" into its frame at a blacksmith's shop before the party returns. Rain follows them until a tram carries them into Geneva.
- The party rides round Geneva choosing rooms from the landlords who run after them, and Stetson records the advice of US consul Benjamin H. Ridgely to take the Brig to Simplon to Domodossola ride. Joe is shaved and powdered by a barber's German assistant, and a nail picked up after he left his wheel at the Grand Cafe ruins his tyre.
- The party takes the lake steamer from Geneva to Ouchy, rides to Montreux and takes the train from Lausanne to Fribourg. They visit Eugene, an old valet, at the village of Noreaz, where a hundred cattle wearing bells greet them, and then ride through Berne and past the tunnelled road from Thun to Interlaken.
- At Interlaken the party stays at the Bernerhof for under eight francs a day and visits Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald's glacier cave by train and horse. They then hire a carriage for 35 francs to take them up the Grimsel with the bicycles roped behind, ride down the steep mountain path to Munster and Brigue, and go on over the Simplon Hospice to the frontier at Gondo.
- After crossing at Gondo the party rides through Domodossola, Omegna, Orta and Arona, taking a Lake Maggiore steamer to Isola Bella. Stetson notes Italian meal order, the grapes and the size of the beds, and describes a valve failure at Lorenzo that is solved by a steam tram into Milan, where they spend two weeks at the Hotel St. Michel.
- The party rides from Brescia and Lonato to Verona, where Stetson visits the amphitheatre, the alleged tomb of Romeo and Juliet and the many Garibaldi statues. After a rude hotel manager at Vicenza they lose their way toward Mira Vecchia, reach Mirano after dark and cross to Venice by gondola to stay at the Hotel Beau-Rivage.
- Genoa forbids cycling, so the party takes a carriage and then a train to Voltri, rides on through Savona and Spotorno, where fishermen haul a net, and reaches Noli. There a nail ruins Joe's tyre, which a repairer at Finalmarina glues over and which fails again before Albenga.
- At Oneglia the bicycle repairers judge Joe's tyre beyond repair, so the party takes the train to Nice, where their trunks arrive late and Monte Carlo's casino refuses them in bicycle dress. A cablegram sends Joe home by train to Paris, and Stetson then recounts a June 1897 fortnight by train and wheel through Laon, Vervins, La Capelle and Maubeuge into Belgium, to Brussels and Antwerp.
- At Antwerp's Grand Cafe Leopold a dismissed waiter threatens Joe with a leaded cane until the police take him away. The party then rides through Turnhout, Eindhoven (where Lou covers 100 kilometres in a day), Weert, Maastricht, Valkenburg and Aix-la-Chapelle, and Stetson notes Belgian rail rules for carrying bicycles and a ride from Brussels to Waterloo.
- Stetson quotes at length from Robert Luce's Going Abroad?, covering the Women's Rest Tour Association, the best season and climate for each country, rail and child fares, and steamer and hotel tipping. The extracts continue with duties, shopping specialties, postal rates and advice on carrying a camera.
- Stetson reprints a steamship agents' account of the Paris Exposition of 1900, open from 15 April to 5 November, with its site on the Champ de Mars and Trocadero, its 100 million franc guarantee, one-franc admission and diploma awards. It ends with the League of American Wheelmen's campaign, backed by Secretary Sherman's 1897 letter, for duty-free bicycle entry, which the Swiss and Belgian governments have agreed to grant.