If a US President were to die in office and your club told you not to ride during his/her/their funeral, would you?
When William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor succumbed to illness (Harrison just a month after taking the oath of office) and Abraham Lincoln was shot, bicycles weren't, well, bicycles as we know them.
At the time James Garfield was shot (only four months after he assumed his role), the US and Europe were on the eve of their first bike booms. A few years later, "safety" bicycles (with two wheels of more or less equal size and chain-driven gearing) would displace high-wheelers and fuel the fin de siecle bike craze. A few years after that, at the dawn of the new century, William McKinley would suffer the same fate as Lincoln and Garfield. Bicycling was still a major part of American, European and other economies and cultures. But I could find no records of any club or public official's recommendation that people not ride their bikes during those Presidents' funerals or other memorials.
By the time Warren G. Harding died of a sudden heart attack, in the 1920s, the automobile had mostly displaced the bicycle as a primary means of transportation and recreation in the US. There were still, however, a significant number of adult cyclists and six-day races would develop an enthusiastic following. But, as with the deaths of Garrison and McKinley, I could find no calls not to ride.
That I could find no such pleas following the deaths of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy is not surprising: When FDR died, the US was entering what Sheldon Brown called its "Dark Ages" of cycling; when JFK was assassinated, the nation was a few years away from emerging out of that benighted era.
When Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to kill Gerald Ford, the 1970s Bike Boom had recently crested; when John Hinckley tried to end Ronald Reagan's presidency, the Boom had ended but millions of American adults were still cycling. Had Ford and Reagan not survived those attempts, would any clubs (which were numerous by then) have told their members not to pedal to work or school, or for training or fun?
Now, you might be wondering why I am asking such questions. It's not because today is a "slow news day" or I'm not riding. Rather, I read that British Cycling called on its country's citizens not to ride their bicycles during Queen Elizabeth II's funeral scheduled for Monday.
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| Photo by Stephen Fleming |
Of course, cyclists of all kinds did not take kindly to this recommendation: One cyclist said it was "worthy of the Stasi." A bike commuter pointed out that ceremonies "coincide with my working hours." Others called it a "joke" or "farce" or referred to it in even less flatering terms.
British Cycling later admitted that it erred and apologized for any harm or inconvenience it caused to cyclists, especially those who rely on their bikes for transportation or their livings. The organization then amended its recommendation to say that official events should be cancelled, but individuals should be free to ride.
