Jim Bradshaw: Big-wheel biker was fastest in the nation

A bicycle craze swept America in the late 1890s, and south Louisiana was just as crazy as the rest of the nation. As a matter of fact, the craze put the town of Jennings in the spotlight, at least for a little while.
The bicycles didn’t look like the ones we ride today. They had a huge front wheel and a little wheel in back and hard rubber tires
According to an old article from the Jennings newspaper, “High wheel bicycle riding was one of the thrilling sports of the era. … A July Fourth celebration was not complete without bicycle racing along with foot races, sack races, and other forms of amusement.”
Indeed, a schedule for the Independence Day celebration in Lake Charles in 1896 featured the usual baseball game, a slippery pole climb, a cake-eating contest and “slow mule race,” but also no fewer than 10 bicycle races, including a one-mile event “for the championship of Southwest Louisiana.”
I don’t find any report of who won that race, but it might well have been Howard L. Cary, the son of S. L. Cary, one of the pioneers of Jennings and a tireless promoter of southwest Louisiana. Howard was one of the best racers in the nation.
He was identified as a “Railroad Mail Clerk through Jennings,” which I think meant he was one of the guys who sorted letters in the mail car as trains ran across the prairie. According to the article, he was more than six feet tall and rode a bicycle with a 56-inch front wheel, “which was among the largest in the state.”
A bigger wheel apparently allowed a higher speed, but it also made it more difficult to get on to the bike in the first place.
Cary held the state speed record for bicycles, setting the mark in a race with Dr. George H. Tichenor — possibly the inventor of “good ole Dr. Tichenor’s, best antiseptic in town,” (according to the old radio jingle), but more likely the inventor’s son, George Jr.
Other bicyclists were more interested in endurance contests than speed.
The old clipping says an old hotel register in Jennings shows that F.E. Vanderbake of New York City was an overnight guest, passing through Jennings “on a wager to travel from New Orleans to San Francisco in one hundred days on a bicycle.” I don’t know whether he won or lost the bet, but several other items in Jennings newspapers of the time reflect the popularity of the bicycle.
The first is a 1904 ad in the Daily Times for the Jennings Bicycle and Plumbing Co., which did light repairs on typewriters and sewing machines and similar gadgets, but that told readers in big type, “Plumbing & Bicycle Work a Specialty.” The second is a front-page story several years later headlined, “No More Bicycle Riding on Sidewalks.” The Town Council said sidewalks were for pedestrians and that bikes belonged in the streets. A later article seemed to indicate that nobody paid much attention to the new law.
Scientific American magazine commented on the craze in its edition of June 20, 1896, noting that by then the “bicycle built for two” had become popular, and that racing bikes for four or even six men were being tried.
That was about the time that the first “cushion” (air-filled) tires were introduced. They were built like a garden hose and were glued to the rim of the wheel. Pneumatic tires as we know them didn’t come along for another few years. Their invention and other gadgets increased the popularity of the bicycle and, according to the article, turned a bike into “something more than mere toy but a real help in both business and pleasure.”
But that may have depended on what business you were in. An article in the St. Landry Clarion in 1895 complained that the craze had created a “disaster” for horse traders and livery stables.
The craze, the newspaper said, “strikes at horses of the better quality … carriage horses. Livery stables … especially in the smaller communities, are now feeling the sinister effects. … In country hotels … where in previous summers it was the custom of the guests to go driving … there has been very little demand for carriages, as bicycles have furnished [a] substitute.”
The liverymen and traders had not yet seen the worst of it. The bicycle’s popularity eventually led to the invention of “all sorts of attachments,” including a small motor, Scientific American reported. That met with such success that some guys decided to make a four-wheeled machine that was also powered by a gasoline engine.
It wasn’t long before the automobile brought on a new craze that threatened not only horses and carriages, but bicycles, too.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.