FAIR WHEELWOMEN. - The San Francisco Call, 11 May 1895
FAIR WHEELWOMEN.
"The Girl" Discusses the Ladies' Cycling Club of San Jose and Other Matters of Interest.
I have so enjoyed the past few days spent in interviewing members of the Ladies' Cycling Club that I propose to share my enjoyment with you and to the best of my ability describe this very pleasant organization.
"We are not very business-like," one of them said with a little sigh. “You see we missed our official meeting this month on account of the rain, but then,” she added brightly, "we all know what business would have been transacted, for we see each other so often.” Bless their hearts, what bank directors they would make!
The club costume is at once practical and pretty. It consists of Eton jacket, long skirt and bloomer of dark blue storm serge, with cap or sailor hat of corresponding hue. When the members enjoy a country run, they usually discard skirts after leaving the city and ride in bloomers and leggins.
The latter I consider ungraceful and unnecessary. They certainly restrict the muscles, besides being uncomfortably warm. The L. C. C. emblem is a wheel and crescent. Their colors blue and white, "just like Eddie Bald's," as one rosy-cheeked lass remarked.
Every Monday at 6 P. M., weather permitting, a club run is held. For some time the interest necessary to keep an organization of this kind alive seemed to have been lacking among the damsels fair, unless the boys were invited to participate, when, of course, they turned out in a body; but the run held last Monday evening fully demonstrated to your correspondent the fact that the club was as full of life as in the old days. The brightest and wittiest of the members were there, and after a most enjoyable spin in the moonlight all returned to the home of a fellow-member, where they were royally entertained for a number of hours. The president, Miss Laura Jones, is both charming and popular - certainly to be envied-while Captain Celine Delmas, with her winning ways, manages this band of beauty with a firm but friendly hand, thus proving herself guite as able a captain as her genial brother Joe of the G. C. C.'s.
This week I send you a picture of one of our most prominent wheelwomen, unattached. This costume is an exceptionally neat one and the fair rider presents a very graceful appearance as she spins by on her '95 featherweight.
Do you know I wish people would overcome the idea that simply by wearing bloomers a woman lies herself liable to comment. A modest woman is modest in any garb, be it bathing suit, bloomers or tailor-made street gown.
Because we are unfortunate enough to have upon our streets the be-jacketed, be-bloomered female, with yellow hair and drugstore complexion, it does not follow that the suit itself is immodest. A true woman never loses her womanly sweetness and purity, and the girl of to-day who rides the bicycle, plays golf, polo and tennis, and is capable of walking ten miles before breakfast is better fitted for wifehood and motherhood than the spoiled darling who sits with hands daintily folded until a fond mother orders the carriage and exhibits beneath dainty parasol this bit of Dresden china to that sorry audience - the world. Girls, wake up to the fact that the men of to-day want merry-hearted, level-headed chums. Don't think you must be masculine to meet this demand; rather be sweetly feminine - not weakly so. Meet them on a common level until, by subtle influence, you raise them to yours. Next week I hope to have a number of pictures of unattached riders, showing you at least two styles of costume favored by
