Old 05-08-22, 08:45 AM
  #16  
rustystrings61 
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Greenwood SC USA
Posts: 2,252

Bikes: 2002 Mercian Vincitore, 1982 Mercian Colorado, 1976 Puch Royal X, 1973 Raleigh Competition, 1971 Gitane Tour de France and others

Mentioned: 55 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 823 Post(s)
Liked 1,395 Times in 694 Posts
A suitable companion piece would by Across France in Wartime by Kuklos, aka W. Fitzwater Wray, British cyclist and author. It’s his 1916 account of riding from Brittany to the front line and sending dispatches home to his local newspaper - until French authorities sent him back on a train, declaring cycling prohibited in a war zone. If memory serves he rode a Raleigh X-frame equipped with a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub.

The later book The Kuklos Papers includes a chapter “Into The Light” that is generally viewed as his thoughts on cycling at the end of the war.

Another piece of vintage cycling writing tangentially tied to the Great War is Wayfarer, aka Walter MacGregor Robinson’s “Over The Top,” an account of a March 1919 crossing of a snow-covered pass in Wales. I’ve encountered writings along the way about how the the pioneers of what would become the Rough Stuff Fellowship included veterans using cycling over unlikely paths as part of healing.
rustystrings61 is offline  
Likes For rustystrings61: