Hard part was getting on the bike

The Old Spanish Trail that crossed south Louisiana owed its existence in part to a bicycle craze that swept America in the late 1890s, and south Louisiana was just as crazy as the rest of the nation. The fad put a spotlight on Jennings for a short while.
I’m sure you remember that in the late 1800s a coalition of farmers, bicyclists, riding clubs, and bike manufacturers formed the League of American Wheelmen to lobby for better country roads for riders to use. When cars came along, that effort turned into the Good Roads Movement, which led to formation of an Old Spanish Trail Association that pushed for a highway along the Gulf Coast.
South Louisiana bicycle riders played a small part in all of that. At the height of the craze, they were just as avid as any of them, and, according to an old article from the Jennings newspaper, “High wheel bicycle riding was one of the thrilling sports of the era.”
They were called “high wheel” bicycles because they had a huge front wheel and a little wheel in back, both with hard rubber tires, not air-filled ones like on today’s bikes. Most people rode them for pleasure, but bicycle races became one of the most popular attractions for fairs and festivities.
The Jennings paper wrote about bike riding because one of the best racers in the nation was Howard L. Cary. He was the son of S. L. Cary, one of the pioneers of Jennings. Howard was identified as a “railroad mail clerk,” which I think meant he was one of the guys who sorted letters in the railroad mail car. 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 allowed a higher speed, but it also made it more difficult to get on to the bike in the first place.
Cary set the state speed record for bicycles in a race with Dr. George H. Tichenor, concoctor of “good ole Dr. Tichenor’s, best antiseptic in town,” (according to the old radio jingle). Tichenor practiced medicine in Baton Rouge from 1869 to 1887, and started bottling Dr. Tichenor’s Patent Medicine in New Orleans (alcohol, oil of peppermint, and the herb arnica) in the late 1880s.
Other bicyclists were more interested in endurance contests than speed.
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.”
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” 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 smoother ride increased the popularity of the bicycle even more and, according to the article, turned a bike into “something more than mere toy but a real help in both business and pleasure.”
That led to the invention of “all sorts of attachments” for the bikes, including a small motor. Those early motorbikes met with such success that some guys decided to make a four-wheeled machine that was powered by an internal combustion engine.
Those first cars completed the circle begun by the bicyclists, creating a still bigger demand for good roads.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.