|
DRESSED FOR THE
OCCASION
The dress of cyclists of this period was of a semi-military style, very
tight fitting knee breeches, with a tunic hooked up to the chin, with
plenty of braid across the chest. The costume was completed by a small
forage cap. It is interesting to read an advertisement in a cyclists’
annual of 1886 of a firm’s “ventilating garments.” These were stated to
have the advantages of being a sure preventive of discomfort, lassitude,
illness, and death from sunstroke. They are so buoyant as to prevent
death from drowning, and so thoroughly ventilated that they do not check
even the insensible perspirator. Cyclists evidently must have been hardy
people in those days, and by contrast with the present-day there might
be understood something of the discomfort of cycling then.
“In addition, we often had cinder rash on the palms of our hands and
sticking plaster on our faces. An advertisement of a “great Indian
remedy” in the cyclists’ annual indicated what wheelmen had to endure in
various times. This remedy was described as “an ointment for external
application, and is universally acknowledged to be the remedy for curing
and preventing cramp in the fingers and legs, chafes, gravel-rash,
bruises generally, cuts, stiff neck and joints, sprains, numbness,
blistered feet and hands, stiffness from violent exercise, sore throat,
and all other discomforts incidental to cycling.”
It was perhaps owing to the semi-military uniform that many volunteer
corps had a detachment of cyclists for scouting purposes. I well
remember the late Colonel Widdows calling a meeting of cyclists at the
old barrack’s in Queens Road, and proposing that we should form a
similar detachment in Chorley. We were all agreeable until we found that
it would be necessary to parade on Saturday afternoons. That made it
impossible, for most of us were employed in shops, and we could not get
off on those afternoons.
On club runs we ran two abreast, the captain of the club leading,
accompanied by the club bugler. The latter looked very smart with his
bugle slung over his shoulder, attached to a red cord and wearing white
gauntleted gloves. I may say here that the bugle was only for show, for
I never remember a bugler who could blow a signal that any of us could
understand. The bugle must have been in common use for an advertisement
of the time stated that over 4,000 had been sold. |
