Talk:To the Summit of Mount Diablo by Wheel. - Wheel. - San Francisco Chronicle, 08 Apr 1889

From Wooljersey

Note, all the bicycles in this article are "ordinary" bicycles, what we now call "pennyfarthings." Mounting and dismounting these things was no mean feat, especially in full skirts, as Mrs. Edwin Mohrig likely was. You'll notice below that "safety" bicycles are especially called out. The switch to the safety as predominant bicycle design in California didn't come for another three years or so. Here is a sense of what bicycles looked like in 1889. The switch from the 'ordinary' to the 'safety' (what we now call a 'bicycle') was happening when this article was written.

Nine days after this was written:

The San Francisco Bicycle Club had seven members on their semi-monthly run last Sunday. This is not a very good showing for a club which claims a membership of seventy. By the way, how many of those seventy are members of the league? How does the San Francisco Bicycle Club hold its place in the league, if it has seventy members, when there are only about forty names from that club on the league roll? It would be in order for some member of that organization to rise and explain.

This appeared in the Oakland tribune:

Nine of the members of the San Francisco Bicycle Club have recently joined the league.

Oakland Tribune, 17 Apr 1889, Wed • Page 3

I think Meeker and Knapp went up what we now call "South Gate Rd". From https://www.mdia.org/history-of-mount-diablo: "Colton's daughter Caroline and her husband, mining engineer Dan Cook, inherited the Railroad Ranch, which by then extended from Green Valley School to Sycamore Valley and to Curry Creek, taking in the headwaters of Marsh Creek, the southern summit road and the Mountain House Hotel. Brothers Dan and Seth Cook (both 'rough, obscenity-speaking and hearty fellows' according to R.N. Burgess) and changed the name to Cook Farms. Seth, a bachelor, inherited and passed the farm to his niece Louise and her husband John F. Boyd. Boyd renamed it the Oakwood Park Stock Farms and by 1897 it included 6,000 acres. By 1913 it grew to 15,000 acres, including areas of Dan Cook Canyon, Rock City, Devil's Slide and the area along South Gate Road, and was considered the largest stock farm in the world." See also this section of a book about Louise Boyd, and the history of the Diablo Country Club, which is at the base of "Dan Cook trail".

See also this article from The San Francisco Call, 25 Aug 1890, Mon, Page 7, which states "Knapp and Hammer are the first who ever had their wheels crown the peak of Tamalpais..." However Joe Breeze points out; "Morgan, I believe Mill Valley Library has the East Peak register, or maybe it's the West Peak register. Anyway, I think the first bike entry within is from FEB1, 1885, by C. F. Merrinon (?) and W. E. Nachtrich of the Bay City Wheelmen. They most likely rode up the brand new Eldridge Grade, and were no doubt on highwheel bikes. I imagine there wasn't a lot of easy riding in either direction."