The Traveler… new wheels to get around…

July 9, 2019 by  
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Nearly a year ago I journeyed to New York City by the means of the Scientific American, dated August 19, 1868, where I found the “Hanlon’s Patent Improved Velocipede”. “Within a few months the vehicle known as the velocipede has received an unusual degree of attention, especially in Paris, it having become in that city a very fashionable and favorite means of locomotion. To be sure the rider ‘works his passage,’ but the labor is less than that of walking, the time required to traverse a certain distance is not so much, while the exercise of the muscles is an healthful and invigorating. A few years ago, these vehicles were used merely as playthings for children, and it is only lately that their capabilities have been understood and acknowledged. Practice with these machines have been carried so far that offers of competitive trials of speed between them and horses on the race course have been made…”

I’m glad that they don’t make them that way any longer!

~The Traveler

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