2i6 THE BATH ROAD 



though the terrible jolting they experienced was 

 really enjoyable. That well-known body of cyclists, 

 the Bath Road Club, has numbered some good sports- 

 men and rare flyers in its time, and though their 

 pace reads ridiculously slow beside that of these 

 pneumatic-tyred days, the performances of those half- 

 forgotten racers were quite as fine, and, conditions 

 being equal, ^Derhaps finer, than the record rides of 

 recent seasons. There was a time — in August, 1870, 

 to be precise — when two cyclists — Gardner and Fisher, 

 did the double journey of 107 miles each way in five 

 days, and men looked upon them as marvellous riders; 

 so perhaps they were, considering the mechanical 

 limitations of the machines they rode, whose like is 

 not to be seen nowadays save in collections of curios. 

 Ecjually wonderful w^ere those stalwarts who cut away 

 the hours, piece by piece, until their performances 

 were topped by " Wat " Britten on the "ordinary" 

 in 1880, when he did the double journey in 23 hours. 

 There were those who then thought the last word had 

 been said in the matter of Bath Road Records. They 

 must have been astonished wdien R. C. Nesbitt's 

 "ordinary" record w^as made on August 1, 1891, 

 when he covered the out and home course in 15 hrs. 

 40 mins. 34 sees. Improved methods of manufacture 

 may have had something to do with the smashing- 

 character of this new performance ; but, even so, 

 consider the extraordinary efforts that must have 

 o;one toward ffettins^ those fio-ures, wdiich cub Britten's 

 by 7 hrs. 20 mins., and at the same time secured 

 one of the rare victories of the " ordinary " over the 

 " safety " pneumatic-tyred bicycle. For this grand 



