Most women can sew on a button or run up a seam; sewing, in fact, is regarded rather as a feminine instinct than an art. There are many capable people in the world, both men and women, who can comprehend at a glance the use or the application of an article or an idea—people who instinctively use their eyes and hands with ease and accuracy; there are others who learn more slowly to use their mechanical senses; and there are also those whose attention has never been called to certain simple mechanical facts and details that they are quite capable of understanding. To all the mastery of these facts means an expenditure of more or less time, and in this busy world of ours, there is nothing so much appreciated or so carelessly wasted. It is my intention to place before my readers a few simple mechanical explanations.

I hold that any woman who is able to use a needle or scissors can use other tools equally well. It is a very important matter for a bicyclist to be acquainted with all parts of the bicycle, their uses and adjustment. Many a weary hour would be spared were a little proper attention given at the right time to your machine.

Ask any carriage maker or coachman, and he will tell you that everything on wheels needs attention. Any owner or lover of horses will say that horses require constant care. The bicyclist is the motor, the horse; the bicycle, the vehicle. These ideas should remain distinct. When you mount a wheel, you do not mount an iron horse; you are a human propelling power, and the bicycle is a carriage.

It is all important to work without unnecessary effort, and for this you must have a knowledge of bicycle construction, how to make the machine run smoothly, and how not to injure the human motor or the mechanism. The human body is so beautifully self-adjustable that it may be safely attributed to ignorance or neglect if anything goes wrong with it. Attention should always be paid at the right time to nature’s warnings; they are danger-signals, and if disregarded, unpleasant results are sure to follow. A little common-sense goes far; and with that and a right knowledge—not necessarily an extensive knowledge—of the working of the human machine, there need be little to fear from injuries resulting from athletic exercise.

The amount of work different individuals can perform, of course, varies. Find out how much work you ought to do, and do it. A physician is the only competent judge of your limitations. Never attempt any new form of exercise without being examined for it. Sensible people when they purchase a horse require a veterinary certificate to accompany the guarantee; and the work the horse is to do is planned according to the ascertained amount the animal is capable of performing. If it is right for you to wheel but five miles every other day, and at a certain hour only, it does not follow that that is always to be your limit. Practice accomplishes great results; and the strength and endurance that come of exercise taken regularly, under proper conditions, seems marvellous to those who, after a course of proper preparation, attempt and accomplish with pleasure and ease what at first seemed impossible. It is hard, of course, to see some one else do what you would like to do and cannot; but it is weak not to be able to say, “I have done enough, and I must stop.” There are many other people similarly placed.

The bicycle may be so adapted and adjusted as to enable bicyclists of different powers to work together and enjoy a fair amount of sociability; for if one has wheeled around the world, why should that spoil one’s pleasure in wheeling around a block? To wheel alone is not much pleasure. Find some one to wheel around the block with you, and you have the beginning of a club.

Many people do not understand what is best for them. The experienced athlete knows the amount of work he can do, and what must be done and avoided to enable him to do his work well. Women and girls are able to do good work, but they should not expect to accomplish such a result through ignorance or neglect. They must be willing to study and to give proper attention to important details, and their knowledge of the subject must be sufficient to enable them to use judgment and discrimination. Almost any form of athletics will aid in cultivating these qualities; and bicycling has besides valuable educational features of its own. A certain familiarity with mechanics is assured by a course of bicycling, for it is impossible to handle a bicycle without taking some degree of interest in its construction.

Women must expect ridicule and little sympathy from experienced cyclists if they essay feats they should not attempt. Many decide that a thing must be easy of accomplishment because they have seen some one do it easily. Easy muscular work, however, is the result of strength, confidence, and precision of movement, which come only from practice. All new muscular movements and combinations of movements must be learned; they cannot be acquired hurriedly with good results. People who can work well are usually patient with a beginner who is doing his best, knowing themselves what it means to work hard and to face disappointment and failure and what is involved in repeated effort. The ambitious are liable to over-exertion, the timid not to practice enough.

There is much prejudice against athletic exercise for women and girls, many believing that nothing of the kind can be done without over-doing; but there is a right way of going about athletics as everything else. Prejudice can be removed only by showing good results, and good results can be accomplished only by work done under proper restrictions. To do a thing easily is to do it gracefully; and grace, without properly balanced muscular action, is impossible; grace is the embodiment of balance, strength, and intelligence. Jerky movement indicates lack of muscular development and training.

The human machine is capable of a seemingly unlimited series of muscular movements and combined muscular motions. Any training or practice of mind or muscles assists to fit them for new combinations. But little time is necessary to learn to know how to do and what to do, though the subjects to be considered, mechanics and physiology, are exhaustive and extensive in their range.

It is always a pleasure to do a thing well, whether it is handling a needle or using a screw-driver; and the art of using either successfully is not difficult to acquire. With the bicycle it is necessary to know what to do; the human motor, unless pushed beyond reasonable limits, is self-adjusting. Over-taxing is the result often of too great ambition, of failure to keep in view the proper aim of exercise, and sacrificing health and ultimate success for passing vanity. The bicycle is but the means to the end, first of all, of health—health of mind and body. The human mechanism is far more difficult to adjust when out of order than the mechanism of the bicycle. In bicycling, the two machines are one and interdependent. The foot on the pedal pushing the crank is but one point of application of power conveyed by a series of levers, actuated by muscles, controlled by nerves, supplied and directed by accumulated power.

We hear of horse-power as a unit; we have also human power—the amount of power the average individual can exercise. Food supplies material to be converted into power, stored and transmuted in the human system either for use or waste, as the case may be. Energy or power, unless applied within a specified time, is given off as heat, etc. Less food is needed, loss of appetite follows, if too little work is done. The muscular tissues become almost useless, it is an effort to do any kind of work; the power is not there. By gradual and persistent practice, strength is acquired, and power stored in reserve. Exercise tends to strengthen, not to weaken; over-exercise uses up stored power and newly acquired power as well; longer periods of rest are needed to renew the wasted tissues than is necessary when exercise is not carried to excess. It must be kept in mind when bicycling that rider and wheel are a complete, compound, combined mechanism, and mechanically inseparable. The wheeler’s weight, when shifted or inclined, affects his equilibrium, and wheeler and bicycle are as much one as a skater and his skates.

Levers and their application; power, stored, distributed, or wasted; how to prevent waste and acquire reserve; proper adjustment to mechanical environment, translated to mean the use of a few common tools, and their application to the adjustment of the bicycle; and the care, adjustment, and proper preparation of the machine for work, are points of such importance that too much stress cannot be laid on them. A little thought, a little attention at the right time, prepares for emergencies, for cheerful work, and for the enjoyment of the exercise, and the health and accumulated benefits sure to follow.