After one quick daylight savings time ride on Grace in balmy 50F+ temperatures, Mother Nature took back her promise of an early spring, and assaulted us with a snow and ice storm today. Ice pellets hit the windows, the roads are buried in snow again, and my husband's training race has been canceled for tomorrow. So, it's back to the trainer this weekend, but also a good time to catch up on some reading. If you haven't already been introduced to this book, I hope you will find a copy, sit down with a steaming cup of coffee or tea, and enjoy.
A Wheel Within a Wheel is a short book chronicling Frances Willard's quest to ride a bicycle. What makes it remarkable is that she did this in 1895, when bicycle riding was still viewed with suspicion for women, and that she learned to ride when she was 53 years old.
Frances, a well-known suffragette and founder of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, became restless after a life of teaching school and other indoor pursuits, and the loss of her mother. Being told by an English naval officer, "You women have no idea of the new realm of happiness which the bicycle has opened to us men," she took up the challenge to ride.
She talks about the learning process:
"I finally concluded that all failure was from a wobbling will rather than a wobbling wheel...When the wheel of the mind went well then the rubber wheel hummed merrily..."
[Over one hundred years later, I find that's still true. If I tell myself I can learn clipless pedals, I will. If I tell myself I can't do it, I will panic and lose my balance].
Frances also muses about the bicycle as a metaphor for life:
"I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning-wheel we must all learn to ride, or fall into the sluiceways of oblivion and despair. That which made me succeed with the bicycle was precisely what had gained me a measure of success in life -- it was the hardihood of spirit that led me to begin, the persistence of will that held me to my task, and the patience that was willing to begin again when the last stroke had failed."
Frances learned to ride in about three months' time, with a daily practice of fifteen minutes.
I love what she says at the end of the book:
"Therefore, in obedience to the laws of health, I learned to ride. I also wanted to help women to a wider world...I did it from pure natural love of adventure...from a love of acquiring this new implement of power and literally putting it underfoot. Last, but not least, because a good many people thought I could not do it at my age."
Spunky and independent, Frances motivates me to become the best rider I can be. I feel a kinship with her that bridges time and technology: to enjoy the beauty of the outdoors, the fresh air, friendships, and freedom of movement that our bicycles give us [thank goodness we're not bound by her long tweed riding skirt!] is a glorious thing. Taking on the challenge of riding a bike, or riding longer, faster, and farther than we have before, no matter our age, can transform our lives, as it did hers. What endears Frances to me most, however, is that she too named her bike -- Gladys.
