Like father, like son. After my parents sold their business and moved into town, my mother bought a bicycle. She liked to ride about Superior in the evening with Mabel Davis, a retired farmer’s wife.
My father rode a bicycle on short trips around town but, because of his declining health, he didn’t have the stamina to ride as far as the women. He didn’t like sitting inside and started investing in motorized transportation devices.
His first purchases were Cushman scooter size trailbikes. The trailbikes allowed him to putt along with the bicycle riders From the trailbikes, he graduated to a Honda Passport. The Passport fit the bill for it was quiet and easy to ride. When motorcycle riders were required to wear helmets, my father parked the Honda. He agreed helmets were advisable when riding at highway speeds but he considered them dangerous in town for they reduced his awareness of what was happening around him.
After reading an advertisement for a bicycle motor known as the Bike Bug, he bought the bicycle Rita now rides around town. On it he installed a Bike Bug motor. It wasn’t the answer. He thought it was noisy and hard to disengage. Whenever the rider wanted to stop, he had to reach over the handle bars and lift the motor so it was no longer propelling the front wheel forward. It was also hard to balance and when parked needed to be in a bikerack as the motor threw the bicycle off balance.
I still enjoy riding a bicycle and do so most everyday. Somedays I wish for something that requires less effort and is easier to carry a load on.
The Blauvelt guys aren’t the only ones to experience transportation problems. In my reading of a newspaper published about 70 years ago, I came across a story about Bottenfield and his transportation problems.
The Express reported: “F.E. Bottenfield, who is something past 80 years of age, is thinking of going back to the bicycle as a means of transportation since he can no longer drive a car. Mrs. Bottenfield has vetoed the idea up to now.
“Mr. Bottenfield was once the champion cyclist of Nuckolls County. He raced all over southern Nebraska, and won his share of the honors and has as evidence the trophies. He admits, there were other expert bike riders in his day among them the late I.J. Wehrman and Frank Scherzinger of Nelson. They could all make the mile in two minutes, he said. Usually the races were one mile, but sometimes two, three or five miles.
“Mr. Bottenfield started bike racing in 1887, and for several years after that was a contender in most of the important bike races in this part of the country. They had some pretty exciting times at some of the races, Mr. Bottenfield recalls. At a race in Red Cloud, with five of them crowding in for the home stretch, they were so close together that when one fell, all five of them piled up, with a long-shot coming in to win the race.”
A clipping from the Nelson Gazette of June 29, 1893, had the following account of a Superior bike race:
“Last Friday was a big day for the bicyclists of this county. As had been advertised, the Superior club had arranged for a list of races. F.E. Bottenfield of this place, in his usual quiet way, did a little training for a few evenings and on Friday morning drove over to Superior with the determination of capturing a prize. His success was a complete surprise to all, and Nelson now boasts the champion of Nuckolls County. In the two mile free-for-all, Bottenfield won; King, second; Johnston, third. Bottenfield’s time was first half, 1:30, second 3:17, third 4:55, fourth 6:26.”
Bottenfield did more than race. I’ve read a story written by Mr. Scherzinger for the Nelson Gazette that told of plans by a group of Nelson men headed by Bottenfield who planned to ride their “wheels” to an event in Grand Island. Their plans were foiled when rain turned the unpaved roads of that time into mud bogs.
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