On the last day of my tour I made the earliest start of the entire year,
getting into the saddle at 5.10, and riding rapidly till 7, when I reached
the Larue House, at
Blue Lick Spring,
13 m., and stopped 1 ¼ h. for breakfast. Then I rode up-grade pretty
continuously for ½ h. 3 ¼ m., and rested at a toll gate to
quench my thirst and transfer my baggage from the handle-bar to my back.
This change was needed to allow my coasting down-hill for the following
mile; and I had also indulged in considerable coasting before breakfast,
and during that interval had emerged once more from the well-defined limits
of the Blue-Grass Region. Being very hot when I reached the Oak Hall store,
9 ½ m. from Blue Lick, I bathed my face and drank profusely before
mounting again at 10.20 o’clock. I reached the water-trough and
toll-gate at North Fork, a distance of 7 m. by the cyclometer, 26 min.
later, and this was by far the fastest spin of the day, or of any day yet
known to my experience. I was going down grade much of the time, and I
ended by coasting at speed for more than 1 m. along an open winding road,
whose downward curves could be seen for a long distance ahead. The grade
was generally upward for the next h., during which I accomplished about 5
m.; and then, on the stroke of noon, my wheel suddenly stiffened up and
refused to obey the orders of the handle-bar. A careful oiling of all the
parts proved no cure for the trouble, and after riding a few short
stretches without regaining the ability to steer, I discovered that there
was a crack in the steering-head, and that the severed parts were kept in
place only by pressure. I therefore trudged along carefully to
Maysville,
a distance of 2 m., and had the good fortune to reach the river there just
in season to catch the 1 o’clock steamboat for Cincinnati, about
60 m. below, where I disembarked some 7 h. later. My forenoon’s
record was 38 m.; and, except for the accident, which upset my plan of
crossing the Ohio river and touring through the State of that name, I might
perhaps have ridden an equal distance in the afternoon. The heat increased
as the day advanced, however, and was very great for a few days following;
so perhaps I was lucky in being forced to end my tour when I reached the
edge of Kentucky. I traversed 340 m. within its limits, or an average of 42
½ m. for each of the eight days that I rode; and my total record
then lacked only 100 of reaching 5,000 m. The next day, having packed off
my bicycle in a freight car for the manufactory at Hartford, I took train
homeward for New York.