Читать книгу Bicycling for Ladies. The Common Sense of Bicycling; with Hints as to the Art of Wheeling—Advice to Beginners—Dress—Care of the Bicycle—Mechanics—Training—Exercise, etc., etc онлайн

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A great deal has been said against attempting to study a little of anything; but when a slight knowledge of several important branches of science that bear directly upon a subject under consideration, and that a subject concerning the health and safety of many individuals, will render one intelligently self-dependent, and able at least to exercise without endangering one’s own health or the lives of others, the acquisition of such knowledge should not be neglected.

There are laws of mechanics and of physiology that directly concern the cyclist; it has been the author’s aim to point out these laws, showing, for instance, the possible dangers of exercise, and how they may be avoided by the application to bicycle exercise of simple and well-known physiological laws, thus enabling the cyclist to resist fatigue and avoid over-exertion. The needs of the bicyclist are an intelligent comprehension of the bicycle as a machine, an appreciative knowledge of the human machine that propels it, and a realization of the fact that rider and bicycle should form one combined mechanism. For this, a knowledge of the laws that determine the limits and possibilities of both mechanisms is necessary. The cyclist is limited, not only by laws physiological and laws mechanical, which determine when and for how long he may travel, but he is restricted by the laws and ordinances of county, town and village as to how and where he may travel. A knowledge of these laws is also necessary.