The Dangerous Ladies Affair

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The spokes of bicycle wheels twirled and gleamed in the sunlight as scores of riders, alone, in tandem, and in groups, sped along the network of tree-bordered paths in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The bloomers of the women cyclists billowed out in the wind off the nearby Pacific Ocean — flowing fabrics tight at the waist, cinched in at the knee, and adorned with varicolored flowers, stripes, and checks. Some of the gentlemen wheelers, clad in knickerbockers and white or striped jackets, steered with one hand while the other clutched a straw boater or Alpine hat to his head to keep it from being stolen by the breeze. On this crisp spring day the park was alive with the colors and motion of the cycling mania that was sweeping not only the city but also, from all reports, the rest of the country.

The park, now nearly thirty years old, covered a thousand acres from the Panhandle on its eastern end to the Great Highway and the miles-long fence erected across the length of Ocean Beach as a barricade against wind-whipped sand. Scores of winding lanes, a wealth of trees and fragrant plantings, and numerous bridges spanning the Chain of Lakes and its streams and their tributaries made it a favorite of casual weekend cyclists as well as organized clubs. Among the most avid riders were members of the Golden Gate Ladies’ Bicycle Club; known as “scorchers,” they were swift and sure and ample competition for many of the men, save the daredevils who had preempted the title of “crackerjacks.”

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