The CRW Board has decided that 2020 is the year that wasn't.  We were forced to shut down group rides and social events in March just as the nice spring weather was hitting.  We are pleased that so many members stuck with the club despite the pandemic.  So, every CRW member gets a FREE year of membership and let's hope that 2021 will usher in the return of club events!

• Existing members will have their membership extended by 12 months.
• All memberships which lapsed subsequent to March 1, 2020, will be reinstated for one year from the date of the expiration. 
• Any non-CRW member who joins the club between now and the end of the year will receive an extra year of membership.

We estimate the lost revenue for providing the year of free membership to be a little over $30,000.  And of course, we must continue to pay liability and medical insurance despite the lack of activities. If any member is inclined to make a donation to the club, we will be very appreciative. As you are all aware, CRW uses its cash surplus each year to fund grants to bicycle charity and advocacy organizations.  In 2020, CRW has given a total of $15,000 to Bikes Not Bombs, Mass Bike and the Boston Cyclist Union. CRW is a registered 501(c)(3) organization and your contribution is tax deductible..

We live in unprecedented times, and look forward to when we can restore our full range of ride services.

With the pandemic still going on, our lives not completely back to normal, and group activities still restricted, the Century Committee has decided to organize a solo event for the Cranberry Harvest Century.

To participate, you should complete one of the three rides from our 2019 CHC. The ride should be done solo, with family members, or with one/two socially distanced friends.  We are asking each interested member to ride the route of their choosing between September 15th and October 15th. Upon completion, please upload your results on our CHC COVID Edition Rider Results Form to record your participation and accomplishment.

Key Information

• Parking: DO NOT park at Nichols Middle School. Instead, use Peirce Playground, 26 Jackson St. Middleborough, MA. The best spot is near the softball field and Park Department offices
• Restrooms may be open during daylight hours
• Routes and RWGPS Files
  • 100 mile route
  • 66 mile route
  • 53 mile route
• CHC COVID Edition Rider Results Form (enter after your ride)
• Segment Challenge Sign-up (you must sign up before you ride)
• Charles River Wheelers Facebook Group (post your story and photos)

Our Ride Information Page contains more details about important parking changes, the segment challenge, and information about our planned rest stop on Sunday, September 20^th.

We also want to encourage everyone to share their photos and the personal experiences of your ride on our Facebook page.  We will select four individuals for a $50 prize. The categories are: best photo(s); the most creative, funny or inspiring story; the segment winner; and most ice cream eaten along the route (photos required)! Bonus points for selfies showing off those CRW kits!  Please let us all enjoy the fun of your ride and the stories from the road.

A few things to consider:

• As this is an unsupported solo ride, bring adequate water and nutrition, as refueling locations may be sparse.
• While we will do our best to scout routes, please be prepared for unexpected detours from summer construction projects. If you encounter an issue with a route, please let us know!
• Dress appropriately, better yet pick a blue bird day!  Do we need to remind you of how the weather can change during Fall in New England?
• Bring a spare tube and necessary tools…UBER bailouts may not be possible!
• Comply with all COVID-19 restrictions.

Remember: When your ride is complete; post your ride to CRW's Facebook page, your RWGPS account or Strava account.  Let us know where you posted by registering your ride at CHC COVID Edition Rider Results Form (log in to your CRW account first).

We hope you will have fun on the backroads of these beautiful Fall routes! Be safe, and here is looking forward to in-person centuries in 2021!

Randall Nelson-Peterman is a member of the CRW Century Committee.

We are proud to offer an article by the highly regarded Coach John Hughes, who has written extensively about bicycle training including nutrition, conditioning, slowing the aging process and otherwise keeping fit. Among his personal accomplishments in endurance racing, John set the course records for the Furnace Creek 508 in 1989 and Boston-Montreal-Boston in 1992. He has been a USA Cycling certified coach since ’96, and has lectured on endurance at numerous events. John has coached CRW members and has earned high praise for increasing their fitness in preparing for ultra-endurance cycling events and facilitating recovery after major surgery.

By Coach John Hughes

Baseball great Yogi Berra said, “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.”

In my almost 50 years of riding I’ve found that mental skills are at least as important as physical fitness. Mental skills are just like cycling skills; they take practice. I work with each of my clients to learn the skills that he or she needs for success.

As we get older despite our best efforts our physical capacity inevitably declines. By working out diligently doing all the different types of exercise we can slow this decline and if we’ve lost a lot of fitness reverse the decline. Fortunately, as we age we can improve our mental skills to help to compensate for the loss of physical prowess.

While we were down in Boulder, CO last weekend I completed a ride I’d never done before: the Lee Hill loop counter-clockwise.  I’ve been riding the loop clockwise for over 20 years but have always been intimidated by the steep northern leg — descending it is scary, why would I ride up it?  Time to put my mental skills to work and do it!

Relaxation

In the Tour de France commentators noted how relaxed Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) was the night before the big time trial when he took the yellow jersey. Last week I made a point of finishing all my work and other chores on Friday so nothing was hanging over my head. Saturday morning I practiced tai chi to completely relax. Then when I threw my leg over the top tube I was looking forward to exploring and enjoying a new route instead of worrying about what wasn’t finished at home or what lay ahead.

Plan

Rather than just going for it I developed a very simple plan. Ride US 36 to the foot of Left Hand canyon in about half an hour and stop for a drink and snack. Ride up the canyon about half an hour to the base of Lee Hill and stop for another drink and snack. Sticking to my time splits would ensure I wasn’t tired at the bottom of the big climb. Climb for 20+ minutes to the top of the first summit. Stop, catch my breath and refuel. Descend, climb the second summit and coast home!

Confidence

I’d been doing increasingly tougher climbs all summer including Berthoud Pass (11,300 ft.). Berthoud isn’t steep but at altitude it was taxing. Riding out US 36, I thought about the climbs I’d done and became more confident I could get up Lee Hill.

Rehearse

Pro riders often pre-ride part or all of a stage to get a feel for it. Just two days before my Lee Hill ride, my riding partner and I had ridden the first half at the pace I planned to ride the Lee Hill loop. The night before Lee Hill I spent a few minutes thinking about my plan, rehearsing the ride in my head.

Focus

When Pogacar won the TdF time trial he was 100% focused on his ride. Riding out US 36 and up Left Hand I let my mind wander but when I turned up Lee Hill I focused completely on every moment of the ride putting all of my physical and mental energy into each pedal stroke. 

Pacing

Using my plan I paced myself to the bottom of Lee Hill. Pacing wasn’t a problem the first part of Lee Hill: dead slow was all I could manage. When the climb eased a bit I disciplined myself to only speed up a bit and conserve energy for the next wall around the corner.

Ride my ride

Riders kept passing me as I rode to Lee Hill and I let them. At age 71 I don't have to try to keep up with anyone and sticking to my plan was the key.

Small goals

It was daunting to think about riding from my house to the top of the north side of Lee Hill so using my plan I divided it into smaller rides and just concentrated on each leg. Starting up the climb my goals shrank. I was sure I could ride the few hundred yards to the corner ahead.  I didn’t know in detail what lay around the corner and didn’t worry about it.  Just ride to the corner.  And then to the next corner. And the next corner. And then I saw the “School bus stop” sign — I’d made it.  School buses don't stop on steep inclines!

Smile!

As I coasted home I had huge grin on my face, especially descending at 40 mph!

All of my clients are at least 50 and several are in their 70s. Each trains hard — I see to that! — and each also works on these mental skills.  A client’s weekly workouts start with four or five 10 minute sessions a week learning to fully relax.  Then the rider practices focusing on just breathing, a useful skill to ward off distracting thoughts. Before an important ride we develop a plan analogous to mine. We divide the ride into sections, decide how to ride each section, when to stop and what to eat and drink. Building and thinking through the plan are ways of rehearsing the ride and in the process building confidence that the ride is do-able. Then I stress ride your ride. During the ride the client uses the small goals in the plan. If one of the sections seems too tough then the rider can divide it into smaller sections.

My Lee Hill ride wasn’t epic: 17.75 miles with 1,720 feet of climbing. Using these mental tools enabled me to be successful and finish with that smile. You can also use these tools to complete your personal challenging ride.

Here’s a related column on Anti-Aging: How to Get and Stay Motivated.

My eBook "Gaining a Mental Edge: Using Sports Psychology to Improve Your Cycling" is the primer I use with my clients. It’s divided into six chapters of progressive lessons on relaxation, focus, using powerful thoughts and images, building confidence and managing anxiety, creating a plan and visualizing it, riding the ride and dealing pain during the ride.  Gaining a Mental Edge: Using Sports Psychology to Improve Your Cycling is only $4.99.

My eBook "Anti-Aging: 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process" has individual chapters on each of the types of exercise the ACSM recommends: cardiovascular both endurance and intensity; upper, lower, and core strength; weight-bearing, flexibility and balance. I include interviews with Gabe Mirkin (recommendations from an M.D.) Jim Langley (importance of goals), Andy Pruitt (importance of working on your skeleton, posture, balance, muscle mass), Muffy Ritz (recommended activities for older people, especially women), Malcolm Fraser (recommendations from an M.D.), Fred Matheny (importance of strength training), Elizabeth Wicks (motivation) and five other male and female riders ages 55 to 83. Anti-Aging: 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process incorporates the latest research and most of it is new material not published in my previous eArticles on cycling past 50, 60 and beyond. It’s your comprehensive guide to continuing to ride well into your 80s and even your 90s. The 106-page eBook Anti-Aging: 12 Ways You Can Slow the Aging Process is available for $14.99.

Coach Hughes has written over 40 eBooks for RoadBikeRider.

Smooth, quick acceleration offers a safety advantage – to get across an intersection before cross traffic arrives, and in many other situations.

Acceleration requires only a short burst of power. Your weight, standing on the pedals, gets you started from a stop. The action is like that of climbing stairs, and if you are strong enough to climb stairs, you can accelerate briskly. There’s no need to be in peak form to accomplish this.

Brisk acceleration is needed most frequently in stop-and-go urban riding, but it is useful whenever you cross a road in a gap in traffic, or pick up speed as you crest a hill.

How you slow down has a major effect on how you speed up. All too often, I see cyclists struggling to accelerate in a too-high gear. Keep your cadence up, downshifting repeatedly as you slow down. Then you will always be in the right gear to pick up speed when that becomes possible, whether or not you come to a complete stop.

Does the law require you to come to a complete stop at a traffic light? No, the law requires only that you not cross the stop line before the intersection. If you slow to a crawl before reaching the intersection, you can keep both feet on the pedals: skill at a "slow race" can help you be faster! If you do have to come to a complete stop, stop a few feet short of the intersection so you can start pedaling when you see that the light is about to change, and creep forward, ready to sprint. Photo by Keri Caffrey.

An important advantage of an internal-gear hub is that you can downshift at a stop, so an unexpected quick slowdown or stop doesn’t get you stuck in a high gear. This advantage comes with the disadvantage of fewer drive ratios – except with a couple of very high-end products – but even with these, weight is somewhat higher and efficiency lower; also, wheel removal and replacement are more complicated than with derailleurs. All in all, I prefer an internal-gear hub with 5 to 8 speeds on a bicycle I ride in the city, derailleurs elsewhere.

Still, with derailleurs, as long as you have clipless pedals or toe clips and straps, and you are not carrying heavy baggage on the rear of the bicycle, you can lift the rear wheel with one hand on the back of the saddle, shift down with the other hand, and spin the cranks with one foot. Usually, you want the shifting hand to be your right hand, so you are shifting the rear derailleur. But this is only for when you are stuck in a high gear. Preferably, downshift before stopping.

Downshifting is easiest with shifters on the handlebar, as has been usual for decades now. (Older bicycles can be retrofitted too). With twist shifters or bar-end shifters, a single sweep will take you from the highest to the lowest gear, so you can shift the rear derailleur or hub gear with the right hand while signaling or braking lightly with the left hand. Combination brake-lever-shifter assemblies let you brake with both hands while shifting, but they downshift only one or two steps at a time.

In the best gear to start from a stop, a pedal thrust, standing out of the saddle, will barely hop the front wheel off the road. Lower gears are useful for long climbs, but won’t get you going any faster from a stop. It helps for the starting gear to be easy to find. I like to have it use the largest rear sprocket, so I know that I have reached it when the rear derailleur won’t shift down any further.  

A good starting gear is about 35 to 40 gear inches (2.8 to 3.2 meters development). A 50-tooth chainwheel and 34-tooth largest rear sprocket will give you a 35 to 40-inch starting gear on a bicycle with the usual wheel size. Using the large-large combination is heresy due to chain angle, but you won’t be in that gear for long, and it helps to find that starting gear easily when shifting down. You can get a starting gear in the same range with a 38-tooth chainwheel and 28-tooth sprocket, give or take. This combination typically uses the middle chainwheel and largest sprocket on a “mountain bike triple” setup, but there is no law against installing one on a road bike.

As you ride, you have plenty of opportunities to get used to your shifters and practice handlebar coordination and gear choice.

Relatively wide ratios in the lower gears (larger sprockets) work best, so you don't have to shift every couple of pedal strokes at low speeds. These days, the “more is better” syndrome has increased the number of rear sprockets to the extent that you may have to skip over gears because the steps are too small. And with one of the new 1x systems that has a single chainwheel and a pie-plate sized largest sprocket, your cadence as you soft-pedal provides the only clue that you are in the best gear for acceleration.

I don’t have to tell most CRW members this, but to start from a foot-down stop, you stand over the bicycle in front of the saddle with one foot on the ground and the other foot already on its pedal, forward and high. Your first pedal stroke will get you into a standing position to pedal. Practice till it’s second nature to get the second foot clipped in quickly. After your first few stomps, as the cadence rises, you transition to seated pedaling and then shift up through the gears to maintain a high cadence. Work is force times distance, and so faster pedaling accelerates you quicker, as long as it isn’t so fast that your feet can’t keep up.

At a stop sign, you are required by law to come to a complete stop, whether or not this is actually necessary. What is important is to be able to stop, and for your actions to communicate to drivers in cross traffic that you are yielding right of way. This often requires a full stop. To meet the letter of the law, though, it is fairly easy to come to a full stop and immediately restart without placing a foot down, by shifting your weight forward, then backward. – I’ve heard this called the “genuflection stop.” With practice, some cyclists learn to stay balanced at a full stop – a track stand – though on a freewheeling bicycle only if the front wheel is turned uphill. I’ll look the other way if you only slow to a crawl.

I hope this is helpful, but I will decline invitations to drag races.

John Allen is the CRW Safety Coordinator.

 Most athletes want to have strong muscles to be more powerful, help prevent injuries, add protection for contact sports such as rugby or (American) football, and yes, to look buff. They wonder: What can I eat for more muscle, strength and power? The standard belief is eat extra protein, but more fundamental than food is doing some form of resistance exercise. Lifting weights is far more powerful for building muscle than is eating extra protein (unless you have been eating a protein-deficient diet).

Once you have a good training program, you can then integrate optimal fueling tactics into your sports diet.  Keep in mind the benefits of adding muscle need to exceed any potential slow-down in speed related to the weight gain. Some athletes who perceive themselves as “under-muscled” are actually already very strong and effective.

Protein needs

 Based on research from 49 studies that included 1,863 healthy participants, about 0.7 gram protein/lb. of body weight (1.6 g pro/kg)/day is associated with the greatest gains in muscle mass (1). Eating additional protein is unlikely to offer further benefit. That is, piling your plate with three chicken breasts at lunch and dinner is a needless way to spend your food budget.

Extra calories

Building muscle requires energy; you need added fuel to build new muscle mass. Yet, excessive calories (even excess calories from protein) can end up as body fat, not muscle. Studies with weight-trained subjects who lifted heavy weights for at least 6 weeks and ate extra protein (but not extra calories) suggests they gained only about 2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg) new muscle (2). Not much.

In a study with sedentary twins who overate by 1,000 calories a day for 100 days, the subjects gained, on average, about 6 lbs. (2.7 kg) of muscle and about 12 lbs. (5.4 kg) of fat. That means, for each one pound of muscle gained without lifting weights, they gained about two pounds of fat. Each twin-pair gained a similar amount of weight, but the results varied significantly between sets of twins. This suggests a strong genetic on one’s ability to add muscle (3).

For a 150-pound athlete, the standard advice is to add about 350 to 475 calories a day to build new muscle and minimize fat gain (1). Yet, more research is needed for more precise advice, given that many factors impact calorie needs: the amount of energy-rich fat and glycogen stored in the muscle; the number of calories burned during training; the magnitude of the post-workout rise in metabolism; the fate of the excess calories (turning carbohydrate or protein into body fat takes energy); the energy cost of building and maintaining new muscle tissue; the calories burned when you overeat and spontaneously fidget more. This is a complex calculation!

Source of the additional calories

Carbohydrate is the primary fuel used to lift weights, so eating additional calories from carb-based grains, fruits and veggies seems a wise choice to support a training program. A hard lifting session can deplete muscle glycogen by 30-40%. Given glycogen depletion is linked with fatigue, repeated days of low carb intake can impair the ability to train hard.

•  Consuming about 2 to 3 grams carbohydrate per pound of body weight (4-7 g carb/kg) per day is a good target for strength-training athletes. If you are doing training in addition to lifting weights, you want to target the higher amount of carbs. That means, a 150-pound rower who lifts weights should target at least 450 g carb per day. That’s 1,800 carb-cals to support both lifting and rowing. That’s no Atkins (high protein) or keto (high fat) diet!

• Your intake of dietary fat should stay within health guidelines, which means 20-35% of total energy intake. More simply put, that’s the equivalent of some fat at each meal and snack. Your best bet is to include health-promoting nuts, peanut butter, avocado, salmon and olive oil. Do not avoid fat; a very low fat diet can reduce testosterone levels. That’s counterproductive!

Best sources of protein

Protein is a source of the amino acid leucine. Leucine is an important trigger for building muscle. Hence, leucine-rich proteins can maximize muscle synthesis. Animal proteins have about double the leucine content of calorie-matched plant sources. For example, 8-ounces dairy milk has 1 g leucine; soymilk has only 0.5 g. The goal is about 2.5 to 3 g leucine per meal.

• Rather than devouring protein shakes, bars and powders, note that natural forms of protein can be more effective at building muscle. That’s because protein in food exists in a natural matrix containing other factors that impact muscle growth. Your best bet is to eat food first and rely less on processed protein products.

When to eat

To promote muscle mass and minimize fat gain, front-load your calories rather than eat most of your food towards the end of the day. Surround your work-outs with protein-carb combinations, particularly when doing long workouts. Examples: Yogurt & granola, turkey-cheese sandwich, beans & rice, chocolate milk.

• Plan meals with ~0.15 g protein/lb. body weight (0.3 g/kg) every 3 to 5 hours throughout the day. For a 150-lb athlete, that’s ~25 g protein per meal and snack. That means, don’t have just plain oatmeal for breakfast; cook it in milk and add peanut butter. Enjoy eggs with that bagel.

• One way to evenly pace your protein is to eat a meal every 4 hours, such as breakfast at 7:00ish, early lunch at 11:00ish, later lunch at 3:00ish, and dinner at 7:00ish.

• On rest days, your muscles are busy replacing depleted glycogen stores. Eat enough to have a positive energy balance on both training and non-training days.

Words of wisdom

You can slightly redesign (but not totally remodel) your body. Eat well and be realistic!

Sports Nutritionist Nancy Clark, MS, RD counsels sports-active people in the Boston-area (Newton; 617-795-1875). Her best-selling Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook offers additional fueling tips. Visit www.NancyClarkRD.com for more information.

References:

The first four installments in this tale of the Boston Bicycle Club were published in Wheelpeople September 2019, October 2019  January 2020  and May 2020

Annotated Map of Corey Hill, 1888, showing Corey Estate, Beacon Street, and Summit Avenue. http://www.brooklinehistoricalsociety.org/archives/atlas/map1888.asp

Harry Corey dominated the hill. Corey was the twenty-year-old son of a wealthy merchant farmer. He lived with his parents on Washington street between Corey Road and Downing Street, their house still standing  at the bottom of the hill. He cycled past Corey Hill many days commuting to and from work at the Milk Street Boston importing company Stoddard and Lovering, where, by the mid-1880s, he was “busily engaged in looking after the interest of the Rudge and Hunter cycles.  And he joined  the Massachusetts Bicycle Club. Corey bested Corey Hill on May 4, 1883 on a 52-inch English Rudge bicycle weighing thirty-three pounds.    

On July 6, another bicycle dealer/racer, William Stall, followed Corey on a Victor rotary tricycle – manufactured by the Overman Wheel Company in Hartford, showing the advance of American manufacturing. For several weeks thereafter many other cyclists attempted the feat and failed.

Victor High Wheel Rotary Tricycle. This sold for $19,890 at the Copake Bike Auction in 2014. 

On July 27, Harry Corey did it again, this time on an Apollo (English) tricycle. The B.Bi.C. organized an August hill climb for both bicycles and tricycles. Medals were promised for the fastest three riders and a prize for each rider who reached the top without stopping. Many still failed. And the race prompted a protest from an experienced cyclist, signing his letter to the Boston Daily Advertiser only as “C,” who complained that the prizes would tempt ill-prepared cyclists who might injure themselves.

The Climb was popular enough among Boston cyclists (perhaps because few could do it), that the B.Bi.C. put on an April 1884 minstrel stage show in which the “six end men (a standard role in such shows) rode in on small velocipedes, all claiming they were climbers of Corey Hill.”  Greeted, no doubt, by loud hoots and laughter from the audience.

The hill looked much different than it does today.  There was little housing on it.  Cyclists, cross-country runners, and tobogganists all used it for recreation and racing. Beacon Street and Summit Avenue, too, were very different. The roadways were not asphalted, which certainly slowed the racers. The races occurred just before Beacon Street was widened to become a boulevard, with a streetcar line down the middle. The original Olmstead landscape plan was for separate lanes going each way for commercial and pleasure vehicles, a horse-car track, bridle, and bicycle paths. All separated by elegant trees. Opposition to the expense developed. The Olmstead architects scaled it back from 240 to 160 feet and abandoned the bridle and bicycle paths – and the horse- cars were replaced with electric streetcars.

Throughout 1883 and 1884, cyclists regularly gathered at the hill to practice their skills, and knowledge of the road (it was too soft in dry weather and thought to be best after a hard rain). Practice, and the continuing improvement of bicycle and tricycle design showed results.

The League of American Wheelmen (L.A.W.)’s Bulletin touted Harry Corey’s long string of cycling records: “Not content with his past achievements in breaking all the records from one to ten miles (excepting two and five), which he barely missed in 1883; with the [Chestnut Hill] Reservoir record in the same year, a record which had stood for four years; with the coasting record down Mt. Washington, and the twenty-four-hour record in the same year, and with the bicycle and tricycle Corey Hill record, he now comes forward with a [24 hour] record of two hundred and three and one-eighth mile on a safety bicycle.” 

By 1885 cyclists finally and regularly matched the Corey Hill challenge on all brands of imported and domestic bicycles and tricycles. In October, all eleven contestants made the hill, won by Stall on a Star bicycle (small wheel in front and large in back)  in 3:24:1-5.

The four tricyclists who got to the top included winner John Williams, a well-known “colored” (in the journalistic parlance of the time) racer from the Dorchester Bicycle Club on a Quadrant (3:46:2-5).

The May 1886, the L.A.W. national meet in Boston attracted thousands of cyclists to a three-day event with business meetings, politicking, banquets, and  recreational rides and races, including a Corey Hill climb, nicely illustrated by Harper’s Weekly. Walter Kendall, a Quincy dentist, bicycle commuter, and cycling activist organized the hill climb for the B.Bi.C.

Corey Hill Climbing. From Harper’s Weekly, June 5, 1886. Courtesy Ken Liss. The Harper’s Weekly illustration appears to include a tricycle in the middle. On the left, halfway up the hill, is likely a Star bicycle, operated by a treadle mechanism, rather than a crank.

John Williams raced again, despite being suspended by the L.A.W. board, likely for being declared a professional (the racing board at the time was adamant about keeping out hundreds of men who earned money from racing, even if in indirect ways, or having raced against a professional). Williams won by twelve seconds.  The only other tricyclist who finished got the gold medal. Nevertheless, the assembled crowd gave Williams a “very kind reception.”

The L.A.W. Bulletin remarked on the crowd: “The entire road from top to toe was lined with cyclers, many accompanied by ladies. Little knots of wheelmen were gathered at prominent points of observation and discussed the chances of the contestants, while amateur and professional photographers reaped a great harvest….” Sadly, none of these photographs survive.

In June 1886, Corey added to his Corey Hill exploits. As the Herald reported, he was well known as the first rider to successfully surmount the Brookline side, and had for three years tried to scale the Brighton side, much steeper and regarded as impossible. But he did it, on a Rudge bicyclette – a machine looking like a cross between a high wheel and a safety bicycle, with a chain drive. For his many accomplishments, the Boston Herald, who had called him “The King of Corey Hill,” now called him the “king of both sides of Corey Hill.” 

Corey reported from a trip to England that the high wheels and tricycles were on their way out, in favor of the new safety bicycle. It took a few years before the wave hit North America. During the late 1880s and early 1890s races included all three divisions: safety, ordinary, and tricycle. But the advantages of the safety bicycle were so great that cyclists abandoned the other modes.

Wheel and Cycle Trades Review reported on the Corey Hill attraction for the old-timers: “The hill climbing contests were famous the country over. The man who reached the top was considered something of a marvel; his name promptly found its way into print. But the contest waned in interest, and until last week Corey Hill had not been heard of in some time.” Corey Hill was given over to the safety bicycle, and the new bicyclists made the most of it. Ten amateur riders were sent off at intervals of three minutes. The contest for the largest number of ascents without dismount in an hour was won by Robert Urquhart who finished his eleventh climb in 59 minutes.”

Harry Corey worked briefly  as “superintendent of bicycling business” with Pope Manufacturing. After his marriage in 1988, and apparently inheriting his father’s estate, he became a stockbroker. He spent the rest of his life world traveling from his Newtonville home for business and pleasure. Corey had no children and died in 1931. The extended family petered out in another generation leaving behind hardly a trace, except for the hill called Corey.

Corey Hill still challenged, but infrequently, in the 20^th century. In November 1934, Needhamite Marino Breda, an Italian immigrant bricklayer, won a race “over the Corey Hill course,” against other Boston-area locals.  The Boston Veteran Journalists Benevolent Association (really the B.Bi.C.) petitioned Brookline to permit a Corey Hill race in May 1942. The organizer, Dr. Walter Kendall, described as a “famous nonagenarian” had organized the 1886 race and had by 1942 been captain of the B.Bi.C. for 55 years. Long after that, in 1986, [was it a conscious attempt to recreate the 100^th anniversary of the 1886 L.A.W. event?] a Summit avenue block party promoted a race, but the press noted nothing more. A recreational running club called the “November Project” jogs up and down both sides of the hill every Friday morning at 6:30, but cyclists are elsewhere.

The races, hill climbs and recreational events of the 1880s put cyclists in position to ride the great craze of the 1890s with the safety bicycle. They thrived for a bit, but cycling collapsed in 1900 and struggled on until the Earth Day 1970, when the environmental movement coupled with physical health consciousness to kick off another great rise.

Hill climbing still goes on, The Major Taylor Association sponsors downtown Worcester’s annual George Street hill climb, so named  because the famous African American sprinter used it as a training ground. And CRW’s climb up Mount Wachusett as part of the “Climb to the Clouds,” is an annual badge of honor. CRW notes that the one mile 9% struggle to the summit “is not for beginners….”

Perhaps the Corey Hill Climb will come back. Would CRW sponsor one as a special event, like the B.Bi.C. did in the 19^th Century? Perhaps limited to a single gear (of the rider’s choice so everyone can join in) to copy the ungeared high wheelers of yesteryear. And with a social gathering at the top when we get past Covid-19?

This article provides new material inspired by books: Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900 and Boston’s Twentieth Century Bicycling Renaissance, both available from UMass-Press. Obtain a fully referenced copy of the article by sending an email to: BostonCyclingHistory [at] gmail.com

Larry Finison is a CRW member, public health consultant, and bicycling historian.

There's nothing better than getting out for a ride, but on a rest day a video can almost take us there, so enjoy our little monthly virtual film fest. We welcome any suggestions for future selections.  

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fGS2SgiLG80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYey3PI3gqM

Alex Post is a CRW member who lives in Virginia, but regularly visits MA to bike with his dad. He has also led rides for CRW.