The rider for speed, and the pleasure cycler,
whether in neck and neck racing, or to break records,
work under wholly different conditions.
Upon the racer, the slightest unfavorable conditions may have the most damaging results.
His time may be materially reduced by a wet or rough track, by a head wind, or by half a dozen other circumstances.
He is to exert himself to the limits of physical endurance; he, naturally, will reduce his impedimenta to the utmost,
because, with him, every extra ounce of weight carried, tells.
All superfluous clothing he will cast aside, and he may even shave his head.
He will of course choose the lightest wheel that can stand the strain of his work with a probability of not breaking down;
and the number of wheels that do break down under the strain of track or road racing, shows that sometimes he risks too much.
The rider for pleasure seeks, first, in the sport: safety, and then, comfort.
Unless upon some very long hills, he will not feel the difference between a twenty-five and a twenty pound bicycle.
He has to propel the weight of his own body plus, the weight of his machine, say, generally, about one hundred and seventy-five pounds,
and he will find that a few pounds, more or less, will not appreciably increase or diminish the work he has to do.
The truth of this assertion may be tested by taking a twenty-mile run, first without any load,
and then with a handicap of five pounds.
You will find that the difference in load has not made the second run appreciably slower or more fatiguing than the first run.
It is obvious that the rider never really " carries" the weight of the bicycle and its load,
since the greater part of the weight is supported on the ground,
and the force exerted by the rider is only that necessary to propel it.
When you walk, pushing your bicycle before you, this force is of the slightest only a few ounces, measured in pounds.
In the saddle, the propelling force, in other words, the force necessary to overcome the resistance presented by the pedal to the foot,
is measured by a very few pounds.
The ratio of increase in work to be done, comparing bikes (on level ground) weighing, respectively, twenty and forty pounds, i
s probably not more than two pounds added of physical pressure of foot upon pedal.
It follows that, within reasonable limits, the ease of propulsion depends more in keeping the machine accurately adjusted and well cleaned and oiled,
than in decreasing its weight...when riding on level ground.
The momentum of a heavy bicycle will help it to overcome obstacles which will stop or overthrow a lighter machine.
Thus, where two bikes weighing, respectively, thirty and twenty pounds, were run at a slow gait against a curbstone at right angles,
the heavier machine easily made the lift of four inches to the level of the sidewalk, while the lighter wheel was stopped short.
So, the heavier wheel bike will run more smoothly, and consequently, with less jolting, over a rough road.
Upon the whole, if you do not ride for speed, and if you have in good order a thirty or even a thirty-five pound bike,
which does your work with ease and satisfies your requirements, you may as well stick to it, at least until it wears out.
The safety bicycle, in the first years of its use, weighed from seventy to eighty pounds,
which was excess weight, and, then, by the application of ingenious devices and improved methods of manufacture,
was gradually reduced in mass, without much, or any, loss of strength.
Now, it was the season of 1893 when we found standard road bikes, weighing "only" from thirty to forty pounds.
The notion has grown that, comparing bike with older bike, the lighter is absolutely the better.
And it is obvious that, other things being equal, the lighter bike can be propelled (accelerated) with less expenditure of force, than the heavier one.
The adoption of the wood rim, and the paring down of the parts of the bike, have, at length, produced the road bicycle of 1895,
which weighs from twenty to twenty-two pounds.
