Traveling From Coast To Coast On A Bicycle

CHARLES R. KLOTZ

Publication: Privately printed, n d 1935, N P

Three black & white photographs and a business card. Photographs --- 3 1/2" x 2 1/2," 2 3/4" x 4 1/2," and 2 3/4" x 4 1/2" respectively. One of the photographs with several small creases and a thin split to the lower half, the other two with manuscript dates on the verso. One 2" x 3 1/2" personal business card, which has a few small wrinkles and lightly soiled, with penciled notes on the verso. A small archive of bicycling history from the personal collection of a man, who in 1935 pedaled 3100 miles from Hollister, California on a wooden-wheels bicycle, $100.00 in cash, and a pocketful of business cards that read "Charles R. Klotz. Traveling From Coast To Coast On A Bicycle. Hollister, California." In the summer of 1935, Charles R. Klotz arranged with the owner of a Hollister bicycle shop to display a large plywood board with a map of the U. S. in his window and throughout the trip Klotz would send postcards from the road and the shop owner would pin them with a ribbon to the spot Klotz reported passing. His bicycle -- a "Speed King" -- had wooden, tubeless tires and a fixed sprocket (no gear shift), which prompted him to take the rear wheel off and reverse its setting every time he had to climb a hill. His journey lasted 30 days and took him across Salt Lake City, Fort Collins, Indianapolis, and Allentown. One of his most memorable adventures was the night he spent sleeping in a jail cell, after persuading kind police officers to allow him to bed down there. On his arrival in New York City, he was interviewed atop the Empire State Building and profiled in the New York Herald Tribune. Klotz made his return trip on an Indian motorcycle that his brother bought used for him from the New York City Police Department. Two of the pictures feature Klotz himself on a bicycle, one of them possibly from the cross-country trip, and the third photograph shows an old fashioned bicycle propped against a wall. The business card is one of the original ones he carried on the long journey across the U. S. A. Very good condition.

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