In Pratt We Trust

Believe it or not, it's time to kick off the KVBC's pre-season rides!  This Saturday we hope to have a short ride in Vassalboro to celebrate the birth of Charles E. Pratt (on March 13, 1845 in Vassalboro) a prominent, influential cyclist and son of a Quaker minister in East Vassalboro. More on Pratt here: POSTED ROADS: Happy Birthday, Charles E. Pratt!  Saturday's weather forecast looks pretty nice, for March, with temperatures reaching 50, so we'll see if we can't get a short group ride in with Spring less than a week away!

Sunday, March 12 - VASSALBORO

"Pratt's Birthday Ride" - a ride around Vassalboro to celebrate the birthday of Charles E. Pratt, an early cycling visionary and "Father of the League of American Wheelmen."

START: 11:00 am at the Vassalboro Town Office Building, 682 Main Street (Rt. 32) in Vassalboro.

DISTANCE: 16 miles.

TERRAIN: flat to rolling

HIGHLIGHTS: a pre-Spring ride along some fine back roads in Vassalboro.

LEADER: Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com, 293-3784

LINK to ROUTE MAP: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/38733279

 

Happy Birthday to Charles E. Pratt!

 We had an excellent ride planning meeting in Waterville on Wednesday, and we will be putting the finishing touches on the KVBC calendar shortly.  Many thanks to the folks who attended the meeting and those who offered to lead rides.  Believe it or not, it's time to kick off the KVBC's pre-season rides!  We've long wanted to have a short ride in Vassalboro to celebrate the birth of Charles E. Pratt (on March 13, 1845 in Vassalboro) a prominent, influential cyclist and son of a Quaker minister in East Vassalboro. More on Pratt here: POSTED ROADS: Happy Birthday, Charles E. Pratt!  Sunday's weather forecast looks very nice, for March, with bright sun and temperatures in the 40s, so we'll see if we can't get a short group ride in with Spring just a week away!  Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead an hour, as we will be on Daylight Savings Time on Sunday.

Sunday, March 12 - VASSALBORO

"Pratt's Birthday Ride" - a ride around Vassalboro to celebrate the birthday of Charles E. Pratt, an early cycling visionary and "Father of the League of American Wheelmen."

START: 10:30 am (Daylight Savings Time) at the Vassalboro Town Office Building, 682 Main Street (Rt. 32) in Vassalboro.

DISTANCE: 16 miles.

TERRAIN: flat to rolling

HIGHLIGHTS: a pre-Spring ride along some fine back roads in Vassalboro.

LEADER: Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com, 293-3784

LINK to ROUTE MAP: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/38733279

Another March Birthday

 It's time to kick off the KVBC's 20th season!  We've long wanted to have a short ride in Vassalboro to celebrate the birth of Charles E. Pratt on March 13, 1845, a prominent, influential cyclist and son of a Quaker minister in East Vassalboro. More on Pratt here: POSTED ROADS: Happy Birthday, Charles E. Pratt!  Keeping an eye on the forecast for Sunday, it looks to be clear but quite cold and breezy, and there may be some residual snow from the storm on Saturday, any combination of which might lead to a last-minute cancellation.  But we will keep our fingers crossed and perhaps we will luck out.  Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead an hour, as we will be on Daylight Savings Time on Sunday.  Stay warm!

Sunday, March 13 - VASSALBORO

"Pratt's Birthday Ride" - a ride around Vassalboro to celebrate the birthday of Charles E. Pratt, an early cycling visionary and "Father of the League of American Wheelmen."

START: 11:00 am (Daylight Savings Time) at the Vassalboro Town Office Building, 682 Main Street (Rt. 32) in Vassalboro.

DISTANCE: 16 miles.

TERRAIN: flat to rolling

HIGHLIGHTS: a pre-Spring ride along some fine back roads in Vassalboro.

LEADER: Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com, 293-3784

LINK to ROUTE MAP: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/38733279

Happy 176th Birthday, Charles E. Pratt!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We've had a tantalizing stretch of warm days this week, and I was really hoping it would stretch into the weekend.  But it looks like we are in for some much colder weather on Saturday, which has the potential of turning all the recent snow melt into black ice.  So we will forego our tentatively scheduled pre-season ride celebrating the birthday of cycling pioneer Charles E. Pratt (1845-1898) in Vassalboro.  Instead, we'll keep our fingers crossed for more favorable weather for Maine Maple Sunday.  If you do get in some riding this weekend, think of our man from Vassalboro, Charles Pratt: https://postedroads.blogspot.com/2009/03/happy-birthday-charles-e-pratt.html.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's Charles E. Pratt Day!

Happy Charles E. Pratt Day! Birthday of Charles E. Pratt, one of the early founders of American Cycling and first President of the League of American Wheelmen (1880-1882), born in Vassalboro, Me. on March 13, 1845. More info: http://postedroads.blogspot.com/…/happy-birthday-charles-e-…

Celebrating Charles E. Pratt in Vassalboro

Charles Eadward Pratt, a cycling pioneer said to be the Father of American Cycling, was born in Vassalboro, Maine, March 13, 1845. Pratt organized one of the earliest bicycling rallies, a two-day group invitational ride around Boston in the Fall of 1879, called the "Wheel Around the Hub." The ride was written up (by Pratt himself) in the Feb. 1880 issue of Scribner's magazine, illustrated by a number of detailed drawings, including the one above featuring all the cyclists who took part. Chas. E. Pratt is shown as the first cyclist on the right,

Are you already tired of early Mud Season?  With sunny forecasts and temperatures in the mid-50s, time for another special KVBC pre-season ride!  This weekend marks the birthday of cycling pioneer Charles E. Pratt, first president of the League of American Wheelmen, born in Vassalboro, March 13, 1845.  To celebrate, lets have a ride in Vassalboro this Saturday! (Which is the 12th, I know, but I'd want to factor in a stop at the Green Bean Coffee Shop, as well as opening day at Back's Dairy Bar, both nearby in So. China Village.  I think old Chas. E. would approve.)  See you then!

Saturday, March 12, EAST VASSALBORO

"A Wheel Around the Lake" - a celebration of American Bicycler, Charles E. Pratt, of Vassalboro.

START: 10:30 AM at the Vassalboro Historical Society on Rt. 32 in East Vassalboro, just north of the China Lake Boat Landing (not the boat landing in South China.)

DISTANCE: about 20 miles

TERRAIN: moderate with some hills and flat sections

HIGHLIGHTS: more spring-like weather, scenic views of China Lake, a stop at the Green Bean, ranked in the top ten coffee shops in Maine, and a possible ice cream stop, too!

LEADER: Jim Merrick, hjmerrick@gmail.com, 293-3784.

LINK to RIDE MAP: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=6815798

For more information on the Kennebec Valley Bicycle Club, contact Jim Merrick at 293-3784 or hjmerrick@gmail.com, and check out the club's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/KennebecValleyBicycleClub.

Celebrate Pratt's Birthday!

Charles E. Pratt (center) on the 1st Wheel Around the Hub

It's March 13, the birthday of Charles Eadward Pratt, perhaps the Father of American Bicycling, who was born in Vassalborough, Maine in 1845. Pratt was a highly influential early cyclist, the author of the first American guidebook for cycling, and the first president of the League of American Wheelmen. We've written about Pratt and his accomplishments before. Here's a piece that he wrote in 1889, on How to Ride a Bicycle - for Good Health and Plenty of Fun (below).

HOW TO RIDE A BICYCLE: For Good Health and Plenty of Fun (1889)

By CHARLES E. PRATT, Ex-President of the League of American Wheelmen.

            The best way to learn to ride is to take a bicycle and ride it. I answered that question for myself in that way eleven years ago, and have been learning how ever since; but my experience confirms me in the belief that it is an art which though simple and rational and easy, cannot be easily imparted or acquired by description. How to ride a horse is only to be learned by taking the horse and riding him. Buy one if you can; if not, borrow one, or hire, or beg the best one, if possible; but any way a bicycle— and ride it like a man on the road. If you have not ridden before, you have the pleasure of conquest before you. If you are sensitive or cautious, go into a riding school early, before others get there, or ask a friend who has the art to give you some suggestions or to answer your questions; to hold the bicycle while you mount it and try the pedals with your feet and the handles with your hands, and move back and forth and up and down on the saddle and get the adjustments comfortable to you, and then let him hold the back-bone abaft the saddle while you tread the pedals until you get the motion of the machine, and then he will let go when you don't know it. You must feel out for yourself mostly how to mount comfortably and to dismount and to guide and to propel with the least exertion, to "take" ruts and gullies and grades—in short to ride.
            These things are the rudiments of riding; once acquired they are always kept, and become second nature. They are exercised without much thought, just as we walk, or ride, or drive, or swim or paddle a canoe. After they are acquired the bicycle is ridden either for business—and then the exigencies of business will suggest how—or for pleasure, and then the how becomes complex. I would suggest riding slowly, at a strolling gait, that is, at an average of eight or nine miles an hour; then the rider does not become exhausted, does not become absorbed in the riding, but is free to look at everything along the way and to think and to feel the beauties of air and scenery and sky. Ride not too long distances, especially at first acquaintance or in the spring after the disuse of winter. Ride in the early morning, but not without taking a slice of bread and a glass of milk or a light breakfast first. Ride in the evening as a rest and diversion from the cares of the day, then take a warm bath and sleep as only the honest wheelman can. Ride for an object on the holiday or the half day off, to some picturesque valley or noble hill, to some ruin, to some place of historic associations, to a pond and take a swim, to a wayside inn and eat as only a wheelman can. Ride in vacation or on an excursion of several days and nights. Here the true charm of bicycling is found. One is surprised at the freedom he may enjoy, the light encumbrance he needs, the non-necessity of almost everything which takes his attention usually, and the worth and comfort of things he does not usually think of. A few small toilet conveniences, a map or two, a pocket compass, a measuring tape and a rule—the few things that he can put in his pocket and in a bag a quarter of a cubic foot in capacity and carry on his machine without inconvenience; let him add, too, to his outfit a small camera and a few extra plate-holders with ready plates. Let him take one or two companions, not more, for good fellowship. Thus equipped he may start in any direction, be free of time-tables and stables and public places, be out of the crowd, stop when he pleases, stay as long in any place as he finds it pleasant, forage on the country, make topographical surveys, observe the inhabitants, and think and dream and breathe and eat and sleep and recuperate and be careless and thankful.
            But the more I write the more I am conscious and you become aware that I cannot tell you how to ride a bicycle. I tried to do so in a little book called "The American Bicycler," published some years ago. Both editions of it are now out of print, but if any one is sufficiently desirous of knowing the best things I could write on that subject when the flush of enthusiasm was upon me, let him ask his second-hand book-dealer to find a copy of that book for him, and read it. But by all means ride the bicycle, for to ride anyhow is better than hesitating about how to ride. Ride resolutely, notwithstanding Ruskin. The wheel is the Continental yacht. Ezekiel prophesied it, Michael Angelo sketched it, and Karl Kron has written of it lovingly and as patiently as Walton wrote of fishing.

[from Alfred F. Aldridge (compiler), Brawn and Brain: considered by noted athletes and thinkers. New York: John B. Alden, ©1889, pp.52-55]

It's American Bicycler Day!

I hope you were able to take advantage of the delightful mild weather we have been enjoying to get out and ride your bike (I was actually out in shorts!).

For today is March 13th, the birthday of Charles Eadward Pratt, born in Vassalboro, Maine, in 1845. Pratt was an early pioneer and advocate of cycling, and wrote one of the earliest cycling guidebooks, The American Bicycler, in 1879. Pratt served as the first president of the League of American Wheelmen, and is considered by some as the Father of American Bicycling.

Not to mention that he is a native-born Mainer (I did mention it, didn't I?) and that certainly qualifies him as one of our patron saints hereabouts. Here is an 1879 photo of the man himself (courtesy of the Smithsonian) with his wheel, taken in a studio most likely prior to quick jaunt out into the countryside.

Happy Birthday, Charles E. Pratt!

Happy American Bicycler Day

Yes, it's March 13 - the 165th anniversary of the birth of Charles Eadward Pratt in Vassalboro, Maine. Pratt was the first president of the League of American Wheelmen and author of The American Bicycler, one of the earliest cycling guidebooks. Pratt is considered by many cycling historians to be the Father of American Bicycling.

In addition to being a pioneering cyclist, an influential author and cycling advocate, and a native born Mainer, Pratt was also an occasional poet. In honor of the day, here's one of his cycling poems from the heyday of the high wheel era:

A SONG OF THE WHEEL.

Charles E. Pratt.

Come with me out into the road, my wheel, —
Out into the road, ere the sun goes down!

Thy hoofs of round rubber and ribs of true steel
Shall bear me away from this tiresome town.

Aloft on thy saddle, set safe from all harm, —
The saddle ne'er mounted by trouble or care, —

I'll hie me away where the woodlands yet charm,
Where valleys are smiling and fields are yet fair.

With feet on thy quick-moving pedals impressed, —
The pedals that speed from the hurrying street, —

I'll seek the calm hills and the landscapes at rest,

Where green leaves are fresh and the breezes are sweet.

Out over the road while the sun is yet high,

While sunlight and shadows are nimbly at play,—

О Bicycle! free as the swallows that fly,
We'll hover, we'll hasten, as joyful as they.

The Wheelman October 1883