Cycling

Arthur Conan Doyle joined the cycling craze that hit England, Great Britain and the world. He had many bicycles over the years and even got involved in the auto-wheel later in life, which was a contraption that fit on the standard two-wheel bicycle and turned it into a motorized bicycle. With Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg and Mr. St. Quentin they claimed (as a joke) to be the members of the first "Auto-Wheel Club" in England.

In 1910, Arthur Conan Doyle proposed the formation of a cycling army to replace cavalry with horses. As a funny note: in his 1882 short story Our Derby Sweepstakes, Hawthorne's horse was named "Bicycle".

Photos

• 
  Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife Louisa on a double high wheel bicycle (august 1892).
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  Arthur Conan Doyle with bicycle. Photo by Thomas, Cheapside (1901).
• 
  Arthur Conan Doyle on bicycle. Photo by Thomas, Cheapside (1901).
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  Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife. His bicycle in background (1910).
• 
  Arthur Conan Doyle (center), with Brigadier-General Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg and Mr. St. Quentin, on auto-wheels (ca. 1915). A pencil caption on the rear stated: "The first 'Auto Wheel' club in England. The present members."
• 
  Arthur Conan Doyle with his auto-wheel. His friend F. G. Guggisberg on the left (july 1913).
• 
  Arthur Conan Doyle with bicycle (undated).

Conan Doyle about Cycling

• « Testimony of an enthusiast. When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hopes seem hardly worth having, just mount a bicycle and go for a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking. I have, myself, ridden the bicycle most during my practice as a physician and during my work in letters. In the morning or the afternoon, before or after work, as the mood o'ertakes me, I mount the wheel and am off for a spin of a few miles up or down the road from my country-place. I can only speak words of praise for the bicycle, for I believe that its use is commonly beneficial and not at all detrimental to health, except in the matter of beginners who overdo it. The bicycle craze seems to me to be only in its infancy, for probably in time we shall witness the spectacle of our business men going to their offices mounted on the bicycle, instead of using the tramways. As for the bicycle being more popular in America than in England, I am rather inclined to believe, from what I have seen in both countries, that its popularity on both sides of the water, among English-speaking people, is a pretty even thing. » (What are the Benefits of Bicycling?, 1895)

• « There are some questions concerned with particular stories which turn up periodically from every quarter of the globe. In "The Adventure of the Priory School" Holmes remarks in his offhand way that by looking at a bicycle track on a damp moor one can say which way it was heading. I had so many remonstrances upon this point, varying from pity to anger, that I took out my bicycle and tried. I had imagined that the observations of the way in which the track of the hind wheel overlaid the track of the front one when the machine was not running dead straight would show the direction. I found that my correspondents were right and I was wrong, for this would be the same whichever way the cycle was moving. On the other hand the real solution was much simpler, for on an undulating moor the wheels make a much deeper impression uphill and a more shallow one downhill, so Holmes was justified of his wisdom after all. » (Memories and Adventures, 1923)

• « That the Yeomanry, a very expensive force, should be turned into a Cyclist organization. » (Memories and Adventures, 1923)

Letters

• Sir A. Conan Doyle's Scheme for a Cycling Army (1910)

Articles

• What are the Benefits of Bicycling? (1895)
• Dr. Conan Doyle on Cycling (1896)
• Yeomanry of the Future (1910)
• Cyclist Yeomanry (1910)
• Major Liles's Views (1910)
• Does the Cyclist Make a Good Target? (1910)
• Cyclist Cavalry (1910)
• A Cycling Army Suggested by Sir A. Conan Doyle (1910)
• Humber Cycle for 1912 (1912)

Fictions with some Cycling

• The Rattle of the Bicycles (1890s)
• The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist (1903)
• The Adventure of the Priory School (1904)

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• Sport
• Arthur Conan Doyle