June 16 - Across America on a Motor Bicycle

(Marshalltown to Clinton, IA)

"With my nerve fortified by a resolve to brazen it out with the section hands on the railroad, and a stock of interesting stories arranged in mind for their benefit, I left Marshalltown at 7 a.m. on July(sic) 16, and proceeded to the tracks of the Northwestern. Imagine a man so anxious to ride a bicycle over railroad ties that he would lie awake at night planning how to prevaricate to the section men! My luck in the gentle art of telling fairy stories was variable. Some passed me on with a doubtful look, but others were rude enough to refuse me credence and order me "back to the highway." Although I was east of there, I was like the man going to Omaha, who persistently returned after being put off the railroad train. Some section bosses and track walkers I went past, others I went around, and by using road and rail bed alternately I kept making headway. In this section of the country I saw more Indians than I did in all that portion of the country west of the Missouri. There is a reservation at Tama, Iowa, through which place I passed and most of the Indians I saw were

G.Wyman

from there. They were tame redskins, given to the wearing of shirts and coats and trousers, and to agricultural pursuits. In fact, one sees few blanket Indians in this locality. Once, while I was on the road I tried to get a snapshot of one of the parties of Indians that I met in wagons. There was a squaw in the party, and she yowled like a coyote when I pointed the camera at her and made haste to cover herself with a blanket, for most of the Indians have not gotten over the superstition that, like the man's watch in the photograph gallery, their soul is taken in any picture of them. This squaw waved her arms and threw herself about so that I thought she would fall. I persevered, however, and got a snapshot; although it was an unsatisfactory one, because, after all, it shows only the Indian lady seated in the wagon with a blanket over her head.

Five miles from Cedar Rapids my batteries got so weak that my motor began to miss and finally gave out. When I tried to pedal the clumsily repaired coaster brake it broke again and I had to walk into Cedar Rapids. The rapids, which I passed as I entered the city, were pretty, but I, plodding along and pushing my bicycle envied their rapidity more than their beauty. I traveled about 77 miles this day, though the distance by rail from Marshalltown to Cedar Rapids is only 69 miles.

Hall Bicycle Co. 2nd Ave.
Cedar Rapids, IA c.1903

When I reached Cedar Rapids my bicycle needed attention more seriously than at any previous time, and this was not to be wondered at, for it had carried me more than 2,300 miles. I went to a bicycle store on Second Avenue where I soldered the loose sprocket lock nut on to the hub. My handlebars were cracked near the head, where holes are drilled for the wires, so I brazed a piece of reinforcing onto them. Leaving Cedar Rapids, I found the roads still muddy, and, as the country is of rolling character, I sought the railroad, but I found the bed so strewn with sharp rocks that I returned to the wagon road. Why I did not get lost several times In this country I do not know. The telegraph poles branched off at every crossroad, and it was simply a toss-up to decide which was the line of poles to follow. The roads were a little better east of Cedar Rapids, which itself has splendid roads, but they were still wet and in places sandy. Darkness overtook me before I reached Clinton, and, being afraid of smashing into something. I walked the last few miles into that place, arriving at 9 p.m., after having covered 85 miles."

Across America on a Motor Bicycle - "Through The Valleys Of The Two Great Rivers To Chicago" by George A. Wyman, The Motorcycle Magazine, September 1903, Vol 1 No 4
Omaha, NE to Chicago, IL
June 12 to June 19, 1903