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Bicycling on the Prairies
1900
Manitoba, Canada


Credits:
Image courtesy of: Archives of Manitoba, Transportation Bicycle 1

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You knew where you were going though, it was your buddies place (laughs) and what not. Ah, but we didn't have time for mischief. We'd walk a mile and a half to the river to go swimming. Until you got bicycles.

Yeah.

And for bicycles my brother was alive then and ah, he… I went up to Minnedosa in a, by car, took the bicycle with me when I was about 14 years old. Took me 6 ½ hours to get back to Portage.

Wow.

And that was a gravel road most of the way.

Yeah. That's crazy (laughs)

And then ah, my brother was about 17 and he got an invitation into Winnipeg, so he road into Winnipeg.

How long did that take him?

Three hours.

Three hours!?

Yeah, he was much stronger in the legs than I was.

Wow.

Yah, three, three and a half hours. But, he was putting on; we had an odometer on the bicycle. He was covering one hundred miles a day in Winnipeg.

Miles?

Miles.

That's very impressive.

And that odometer, when it came back, was still on the bike and it was used for delivering dry cleaning. It broke down, in one year, at 9000 miles. Quit work.

The odometer stopped working.