PELOTOME

1874 (republished in 1876)

Bicycling; Its Rise and Development.

“A text book for riders” aimed to cater for the rapidly developing bicycle movement by filling the void, after early books about the wooden wheeled machine had become valueless. With numerous illustrations to assist the beginner, the book is packed with informative chapters on routes in England, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, The Battlefields of 1870, Upper Rhine, Belgium, Germany, Holland, and France – each highlighting the points of interest, hotels, museums, mileage, gradients and road conditions along the way,

The five routes in Switzerland are from Basel to Zurich; Zurich to Luzern; Basel to Geneva; Geneva to Bern; Bern to Interlaken; plus the “Upper Rhine” route from Strasbourg through the Alsace ends in Basel and the route covering the “Battlefields of 1870” is recommended to link Switzerland with Belgium.

• Published by Tinsley Bros., London.

July 1882- Published in Feb 1883.

From the Peak to the Alps.

“The Wheel World” magazine serialised the day-by-day “Roving Records” of the prolific long-distance rider C.E. Oliver’s 1882 month-long summer ride from Derby to Geneva and back, which followed his earlier “Spin in the Peak” tour of the Peak District.

A member of the Derby Bicycle Club, he goes into great detail about the towns, roads, inns and food experienced on his route, which takes him and a companion through Coventry, Oxford, Henfield and Newhaven, where he catches the ferry to Dieppe (France), continuing on through Beavais, Betz, Paris, Château-Thierry, Châlons-en-Champagne, Épinal, and Mulhouse.

Entering Switzerland at Basel, he cycles through Baden, Zürich, Wintherthur, Schaffhausen, Zug, Arth, and Luzern, before crossing the Brünig Pass to Brienz, Interlaken, Spiez, Bern, Fribourg, Bulle, Châtel-Saint-Denis, Vevey, Montreux, and Saint-Gingolph, crossing back into French territory through Evian-les-Bains on his way to Geneva.

He returns through France, crossing the Col de la Faucille to Morez. and the Col de la Savine to Saint-Laurent-en-Grandvaux, Champagnole, and Dole, from where he caught trains between Dijon, Paris, and Vernon, before riding through Rouen on his way to Dieppe, sailing to Newhaven and cycling as far north as Leicester, returning to Derby by rail.

• by C.E. Oliver.
• serialised in “The Wheel World“.

September 1882- Published in Nov 1882.

Over the Alps by Bicycle.

An article in “The Wheel World” magazine follows “a couple of English bicyclists” – Charles. R. Maddox (of the Wanderers Cycling Club) and Sidney Fletcher (Kent Bicycle Club) – who “set out from London with the intention of riding to Venice on the ‘silent horse’.”

Together with the history of the famous Simplon Pass, it provides a summary of the roads traversed and list of the towns and hotels visited. An account of their adventures also appeared in The Times and Daily Telegraph.

Starting at Paris, they pass through Montereau, Tonnerre, Dijon, Dole, Salines, Pontarlier, and Jougne, entering Switzerland between Jougne and Orbe, visiting Lausanne, Villeneuve, Sion, and Brig, before crossing the Simplon Pass to Domo D’ossola in Italy, continuing through Stresa, Arona, Milan, Gorgonzola, Treviglio, Brescia, Verona, Vicenza, and Padua, arriving in Venice.

• by Charles. R. Maddox & Sidney Fletcher.
• detailed in “The Wheel World“.

August 1883.

Au St Bernard en Tricycle.

Written in French, this rare, illustrated, humorous book details an ambitious tricycle journey by two friends, “Tonio” and “Blondin”, from Geneva into the French Alps and back via the Grand St Bernard Pass in 1883.

• by Antoine Hornung & Albert Gos.
• illustrations by Albert Gos.
• published by Annuaire du Commerce Suisse, Geneva.

July 1885 – Published October 1887.

Wanderings: On Wheel and On Foot in Europe.

Part Two of Glaswegian Hugh Callan’s book is dedicated to his July 1885 trip from Carlisle to Hull, and 1,100 miles “on wheel up the Rhine Valley, from Amsterdam to Geneva, and back by Antwerp,” occupying 23 days, and passing through Basel, Langenthal, Burgdorf, Bern, Fribourg, Romont, Rue, Lausanne, Morges, and Rolle – where he was apprehended for not having a light, eventually arriving in Geneva past midnight. After being summoned to court, he returned to Morges and climbed to Romainmotier, crossing into France at Jougne.

The main subject for the book however is his July 1886, 1,500 mile, 33 day journey “on wheel down Europe from the German ocean to the Aegean Sea”, (Hamburg to Athens) on a Singer “British Challenge” high-wheeler, while Part Three follows his six week walking tour “‘on the tramp’ in Belgium and France,” in 1881.

• By Hugh Callan.
• Published by Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, London.

August 1888 – Published 1895.

From the Clyde to The Jordan.

“Narrative of a bicycle journey” was the first illustrated account by a rider of a “modern day bicycle”, and followed Scottish clergyman Hugh Callan – the same author of “Wanderings on Wheel and on Foot Through Europe” – on his ride from Glasgow to Jerusalem, which had previously appeared seven years earlier as a series of articles in the Glasgow Herald – the Swiss sections published on 12th and 28th September, 1888.

Charting the author’s progress on a “Singer” safety bicycle, he enters Switzerland at Basel from Mulhouse, and cycles on the Baden (German) side of the Rhine, through the border village of Waldshut, crossing “four frontier lines” to Schaffhausen and “the Rhine Falls at Neuhausen”. Cycling on to Lake Constance, he crosses into Austria “below Feldkirch, in the Vorarlberg.”

• By Hugh Callan.
• Published by Blackie & Son, London.

May 1889 – Published 1890.

Round About The World on Bicycles.

“The pleasure tour of G.W. Burston and H.R. Stokes, Melbourne Bicycle Club, Australia,” follows George Burston and Harry Stokes on their 56-inch high-wheel bicycle journey around the world, setting off from Melbourne, on 1st November 1888, arriving back in Australia on the 14th December 1889.

The Switzerland section of their journey was chronicled in The Australasian, on 25th January 1890.

Crossing into Switzerland from Italy (at Chiasso), they “bowled along merrily” through Capolago, Melano, and Bissone, “on the shore of Lake Lugano”, before crossing the Monte Ceneri-Pass to Bellinzona, and continuing through Biasca, Giornico, and Faido.

As the Gotthard Pass was closed for another two months, due to snow, at Airolo they caught the train through the Gotthard Tunnel – which had opened only seven years earlier – and, 25 minutes later, continued their ride from Göschenen via a climb up the snow-lined St. Gothard Road to see the Devil’s Bridge, before resuming their ride down to Flüelen, where they boarded a lake steamer to Luzern.

The following day, they took a steamer to Vitznau and caught the cog-wheel railway – the first mountain railway in Europe when it opened in 1871 – up to the summit of the Rigi, before returning to Luzern the same day.

Back in the saddle, they scaled the Emmenbrucke hills, and cycled around Lake Sempach to Sursee, and over more hills to the “most picturesque” towns of Aarburg and Olten, before the “road began to rise in an unpleasant style” (over the Unterer Hauenstein Pass) to Sissach and Liestal, near where they joined the Rhine, and presumably cycled through Basel (without mentioning it), crossing into Germany at Leopoldshöhe (Weil am Rhein).

• by G.W. Burston and H.R. Stokes.
• Published by George Robertson and Company, Melbourne, Australia “for private circulation only”

July 1890 – Published 1891.

Wheel Tracks in Foreign Lands.

“Recollections of a cycling tour through Europe during the summer of 1890” followed twenty riders of the “Elwell American Bicycle Party” on their safety bicycles as they peddled 1,500 miles around France, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and England.

Cycling along the French side of the border from Les Rousses, “a French frontier fort,” they crossed the Col de la Faucille and descended into Geneva, exploring the city before catching the train to Martigny and a carriage to the Grand St. Bernard Hospice.

Back in Martigny, they proceeded to cycle over the Col de la Forclaz to Chamonix, France, where “the arrival of the bicyclists created a great excitement in the little village.” and they explored the glacier and Mount Blanc.

Returning to Vernayaz “over the worst road we saw in all Switzerland,” through “the celebrated Gorge du Trient,” they made their way to Lake Geneva and Château de Chillon, Aigle, Comballaz, Château-d’Oex, Zweisimmen, Thun, and Interlaken, which became their base for day trips to Lauterbrunnen and the Trümmelbach Falls, and Grindelwald, before they continued on through Brienz and over the Brünig Pass to Sarnen, and Luzern, passing by the cog wheel railway to Pilatus at Aplnachstad, which had opened only 13 months earlier and remains the steepest rack railway in the world to this day.

Sailing from Luzern to Vitznau, they took the cog-railway to the summit of the Rigi, and then the lake steamer to Gersau and Flüelen, before cycling to Altdorf and returning along the Axenstrasse to Tell’s Chapel, Brunnen, Arth, Zug, Zürich, Winterthur, Schaffhausen, Neuhausen and The Rhine Falls, before crossing into Germany en route to Bonndorf in The Black Forest.

• by James E. Wilkinson.
• Published by Hanzsche & Co., Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

July 1890 – Published in 1891.

A Summer’s Cycling Reminiscence.

“The story of a three months’ bicycling tour through Europe and an account of some of the impressions received” compiled a series of articles which first appeared in the Canadian “Cycling” journal in February 1891, following six members of The Torontos Bicycle Club, on their 1890 trip of Europe.

R.H. McBride’s “A Pleasant Memory” saw him arrive in Geneva “to view Mount Blanc” on the midnight train from Dijon, France, on which a Swiss customs officer “seemed to consider a harmless camera, which one of the party carried, as contraband goods.” After exploring the city and lake, he took the train to Lausanne, Biel/Bienne, Sonceboz, Delémont and Basel en route to Strasbourg.

• by F.F. Peard, C. Langley & R.H. McBride.
• published by Press of “Cycling“, Toronto, Canada.
• (illustration, not from the book, of an 1890 32″ Rudge Safety Bicycle, as ridden by F.F. Peard).

June 1891 – Published in 1892.

The Brownies in “Yurep”.

“Or, cycling beyond the sea” is an incredibly rare book, with only 32 copies ever printed. It follows the “Members of the Elwell Bicycle Tour of 1891” on their ride in Europe with “Papa” Elwell, complete with photographs, from England, “touring through sunny France, mid Switzerland’s snow-clad peaks and lakes of blue, and down the fabled Rhine” through Germany and Holland – the same guided tour taken by James E. Wilkinson in “Wheel Tracks in Foreign Lands” a year earlier.

• by Charles R. Cutter and F. R. Goodrich.
• published by Telegram Book Print, Youngstown, Ohio, U.S.A..
• (advert for Elwell’s Tour of 1891 in Life, 2nd April 1891).