The Coral Gables Times

When the Mayor's in the Saddle It's Pedals Instead of Spurs

By JOE C. MORRIS Correspondent George Wilson, new Coral Gables city commissioner, lifted his 17-month-old daughter, Don [TEXT LOST] into the special seat behind him, pushed the bicycle pedal with his right foot and away they went. Roly-poly and white as Ivory soap, the blond, blue-eyed little beauty held firmly to the sides of her seat. She seemed neither glad, sad nor concerned but her bland baby stare took in everything as they roamed the neighborhood. Two years ago, on a visit to Nassau, her mother, Jane, then expecting Donna, took up bicycling with father George for the exercise. Last Christmas two bicycles stood under the tree as gifts from Santa Claus. They were just what the older Wilson children, Shelley 9, and Brian 8, wanted Santa to bring them But guess who claimed them for their very own? Yep, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. MAYOR, TOO Another city official, his honor, the mayor, Robert L. Searle, is a devout cyclist and uses his bicycle to combine business and pleasure with good health an added dividend. Wheeling along the streets of Coral Gables at six o'clock in the morning the mayor says he sees things about "his city" that would go unnoticed if he passed at a faster than five to eight mile clip. Frequently his early morning findings have resulted in rapid repairs to signs, stop lights and city property. Circling about the city on his cycle he has watched the construction of apartment buildings, homes and offices. And he's become acquainted with the tenants, owners and occupants in a personal way. LONG TIME He has been "pushing the pedals" to preserve his health for a number of years. And he agrees with Dr. Paul Dudley White, famous heart specialist and personal physician to former President Eisenhower who said: "I wish we could all ride a bicycle to work. I have a bike and try to ride it some every day." Dr. White has repeatedly advocated bicycle exercise, from the cradle on into old age, as the best known preventative for heart trouble. Dr. White's advice would have fallen on deaf ears if he'd said such a thing back in 1816. That was the year the Rotary-Pedalled bicycle ws born-in France. At first it was called a hobbyhorse, then later a velocipede. It was nothing more than a wooden beam with a front and rear wheel attached, a saddle thrown across the middle, and a kind of handlebar, which, in the earliest examples, did not permit steering. The machine was propelled by alternating thrusts upon the ground with the rider's feet and progress was slow and laborious-except downhill. FIRST IN 1839 The first real bicycle, that is, the first two-wheeled machine to be propelled with the feet continuously off the ground, was constructed by a blacksmith named MacMillan in Scotland in 1839. And when riding into Glasgow June 7, 1842, he unluckily knocked down a child and was fined five shillings. The original velocipedes or "boneshakers," as they were styled later on, were built mainly of wood with iron tires. By 1874 design and construction had changed radically. The drive wheel increased sometimes to 60 inches in diameter or more and the rear wheel diminished to 16 inches or less. Between 1885 and 1900 the wheels became equal in size, added were the coaster hub, an internally-expanding brake, pneumatic tires, varable gears and spokes. The bicycle was perfected so that nothing new in design or construction has taken place since then. 'ROUND WORLD Between July 18, 1896 and August 29, 1898 three Englishmen rode around the world, covering 19,237 miles by road and visited 17 countries. An earlier world tour begun in 1884 by a solitary rider, Thomas Stevens, was done on a high bicycle with solid tires. In Holland the "bike" means transportation for millions; in England it means "sport" for the largest cycling club in the world and from its earliest days it has been used for "racing" everywhere in the world. An old Indian seeing the bicycle for the first time in a little town out West made a remark that still lives. "Heap crazy white man-Him sit down to walk." MAYOR SEARLE

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