By Lorenz J. Finison, Club Historian

For CRW's 60th anniversary, WheelPeople and Club Historian Lorenz J. Finison are taking a look back through the club's history. This article was originally published in March 2016's issue of WheelPeople under the title "The Early Days of the Charles River Wheelmen: Part 1."

In 1965, George Bailey, an electrical engineer, train-cycle commuter, and Sharon planning board member, browsed the cheap book bin at a Boston used bookstore.He found a Scribner’s article about the Wheel Around the Hub (W.A.T.H.), of 1879, a great recreational tour organized by the Boston Bicycle Club. Wide publicity resulted in the 19th century explosion of bicycling - the Craze. Many years later, beyond the 1900-1960 bicycling Bust, and on the cusp of its Renaissance, Bailey organized a reenactment in honor of Sharon’s upcoming bicentenary. The ride was covered by WBZ-TV's 11 PM news, and other media. A dozen "rugged young people" including Bailey's son Duff and daughter Janet and Sharon classmates set out from Sharon on a rainy October 12, for a round trip to Roxbury. The rest of seventy participants, including Lucy Bailey and three-year old Tom, traveled by car and bus to the Eliot Church at the corner of Warren and Walnut streets, where its predecessor had left almost a hundred years before. Following that route, the cyclists rode past Jamaica Pond, then wound their way out to stop for a tip-of-the-hat to Cobb's Tavern, the Boston Bicycle Club's 19th Century cyclists' country clubhouse, and they pedaled on to banquet at the site of the W.A.T.H.’s overnight stay, now the Sharon Community Center, on Lake Massapoag.

W.A.T.H. Re-enactment. George Bailey on right. Note the lack of helmets and the "ordinary" clothing. (Source: Boston Record-American, October 13, 1965).

George's younger brother Bruce was an avid cyclist as a young boy growing up in Sharon, delivering papers and biking to lawn-mowing jobs. Years later he began to bicycle from his home in Milton Village to his mechanical engineering job at MIT. The commute along Dorchester Avenue was none too comfortable in the early 1960s and after a couple of near crashes he switched to a route around Jamaica Pond.

Some of George and Bruce's fellow cyclists, including Cambridge orthodontist Ralph Galen and ex-newspaperman and long-time American Youth Hostels (AYH) leader Fred Chaffee, began to band together in a new group, since the other major recreational club, the Cambridge Sports and Cycle Club, had by that time passed from the scene. According to legend, Galen supplied the "Charles River" and Chaffee the "Wheelmen" in the "Charles River Wheelmen."

Ralph Galen came late-in-life to bicycling. He jumped into it with great gusto. In the early 1960s he discarded a second family car and began to commute from his Lexington home to his orthodontic office in Cambridge. Ralph was an active AYH ride leader and in 1966 an AYH council member. The Bicycle Exchange in Harvard Square was a communications hub for cyclists to post ride notices in those days and the owner, Ben Olken, introduced him to Bruce Bailey. They ventured out, as a new circle of recreational riders began to coalesce.

Fred Chaffee had been a Worcester AYH leader for a dozen years before he moved to Cambridge in 1958 and joined the Boston Council, AYH. By 1965, more cyclists joined the cause, not yet a movement, and looked for longer rides. Fred led a group of four other century clubbers (lawyers Albert Margeson and Frank L. Jones, Paula Sommer, an instructor at Worcester State College, and Raytheon engineer Eliot Sommer), all AYH ride leaders, out on a precursor to CRW's founding ride.

In October, 1966, the Belmont Citizen announced that a new "adult cycle" club would sponsor a "First Bike Tour." The notice emphasized that the ride  and the new club were for those "interested in serious cycling." The organizers wanted to contrast what they proposed with AYH's focus on viewing nature, youth and family cycling, and its more leisurely pace.

The cyclists, mostly experienced AYH ride leaders, gathered at Ralph's office, 131 Mount Auburn Street, "on a bright and cheerful" October 16, 1966, and headed for an 83-mile round-trip ride and picnic to Ashland State Park. Bill Fripp, a freelance writer for the Boston Globe, was on hand to cover the event. Bruce Bailey volunteered as the ride leader.

"At Ashland Center, the sunny Sunday turned into a torrential rain storm. The intrepid twelve sought shelter under the eaves of a former train station. While waiting for the rain to abate, Ralph was elected President of the new club, Fred as Secretary, Bruce Bailey as Ride Leader, and his brother George as club Historian. Of the twelve present, eight decided to join the group as dues paying members. To build a treasury, the new club charged a dollar per ride."

Pictured are eight of the riders on CRW's founding ride, from left, Eliot and Paula Sommer, Framingham; Bruce Bailey, Milton; Paul Watson, Arlington; Albert Margeson, Melrose; Leon Leach, Lexington; Frederick Chaffee, Belmont; and Ralph Galen, Lexington. (Source: William Fripp, "Charles River Wheelmen Set Rugged Pace," Boston Globe, October 30, 1966).

With the return of balmy weather, the Ashland State Park picnic was a huge success, thanks to wives Ruth Galen and In-soon Ko Chaffee, soon-to-be owner of a popular Cambridge Korean-Japanese restaurant, Matsu-Ya, a frequent stopping place for tired riders. Neither Ruth nor In-soon was a cyclist, but supported the new club.

Fripp reported on CRW's physical fitness ethos: "'The code is Spartan on the Wheelmen's trips, and lollygagging is not tolerated. On the Ashland trip we had to leave the laggards behind,' Galen said, without much sympathy." And more: "Wheelmen must own a 'lightweight, multigeared cycle and be in good physical shape,' Fred Chaffee of Belmont, cofounder of the group, said. He said he doubted if any of the members smoked. Galen used to smoke heavily but gave it up when he found he couldn't make some of the big hills.

This being the big league of pedaling, the fast-riding Wheelmen equip themselves fittingly. English and Swiss imports cycles in the $115-250 bracket, special snug riding shorts lined with chamois, brightly striped shirts, cleated cycling shoes." And, "On the night before a trip members work over their cycles with the dedication of a sports car driver preparing his entry, and technical assistance on wheel balance and lubrication is invaluable."According to Galen, in contrast to groups like the AYH: "We were looking for long distances and adult companionship." At least in its early days, Galen might have added, adult largely male companionship. And, the CRW founders were almost all college-educated professionals.

Several more events put CRW in the cycling public's consciousness, including their participation in Expo '67. Galen and Dwight Doyle paired up to bicycle to Montreal. An electrician-in-training and son of a Boston physician, Doyle was another active AYH leader and a frequent single and double century rider.

The stay at Expo '67 included presentation of a CRW jersey, signed by sixteen cyclists, several of whom accompanied the pair as far north as Hudson, New Hampshire. The signers were: Bruce Bailey, Albert Margeson, Fred Chaffee, George Bailey, Charles A. "Chick" Mead, Raymond P. Bailey, Bill Springer, Bill Wade, David Wilson, Judy McSwain, Sumner Brown, Niall Doyle, and several others. The famed entertainer Maurice Chevalier was made an honorary member of the Charles River Wheelmen. CRW got a nice thank you note from the Canadian organizers, who appended this thought: "who knows one day we may see an endurance bicycle race between Boston and Montreal, thus strengthening the good relations that already exist between our two nations...."

On their way back, the Expo '67 pair did a Mount Washington climb along with Bruce Bailey and John Vanderpoel.

George Bailey organized two more W.A.T.H. reenactments. These tours were two day affairs, just as in 1879 and they offered an overnight stay in Bailey's barn. Bailey, and AYH ride leader Frank Jones led the October 22-23, 1966 tour. The October 1967 W.A.T.H. re-enactment included the "First Annual CRW Business Meeting."

"Bicycle Tour" flyer advertising "First Annual CRW Business meeting." (Source:  Ralph Galen Collection, University of Massachusetts-Boston Archives: Bicycle History Collections)

On the second day, the re-enactors stopped for lunch at Hugo's in Hingham (Kimball's in Cohasset was the traditional stop but destroyed long ago), and paid a visit to the Adams House in Quincy, thus completing the reenactment of the original W.A.T.H. route.  It is instructive that the W.A.T.H. events, with first-day routes from Roxbury to Sharon, went unnoticed in the Bay State Banner, a fledgling black newspaper in Boston. A clear difference in Banner priorities, CRW outreach, or both.

The "First Annual CRW Newsletter," reported a "wonderful" year. It applauded the Expo '67 venture, the Mount Washington climb, and the publicity in the cycling magazines and local newspapers. But Galen also noted some potentially troublesome problems. Among them was the small membership (35 and declining), some of whom were inactive. In addition, he reported that: "Considerable effort has been made to slow the fast riders down so that a ride is in effect a ride, and not ten or so independent riders going off on their own."Finally, Galen reported an overture from Dr. Eugene Gaston, a brain surgeon and head of the Northeast Bicycle Club (a racing club started in 1957), who proposed that the two clubs join together.  Galen reported that: "My first reaction was negative, as it is now. As I told Gene, I feel a little like the 'jealous wife' about the Charles River Wheelmen. On the other hand, what is best for the club should be the objective of each and every member. Should we join forces, form a cycling association with all of the area clubs, or go it alone?" CRW went on alone. Both inter-club and gender relations would prove challenging and CRW continued to struggle with the contradictions between being a club of "serious" but not racing cyclists, and the need to grow the membership to survive.  And, could it/would it grow beyond its roots in a cohort of doctors, lawyers, and engineers?

CRW's earliest banner headline was "Healthful Fellowship Through Cycling," and the message of personal health and cycling quickly got to the public. Galen was featured along with Maggie Lettvin, a local fitness guru, at a 1968 "anti-pot" [belly] rally on Boston Common.  He subbed for cardiologist Dr. Paul Dudley White, and "explained the importance of physical fitness and discussed bicycling as a means of retaining or gaining health." The play on the word "pot" was deliberate, as the Herald explained: "While some 200 spectators at the Parkman Bandstand were told by experts how to slim pot bellies, the hippie colony stayed on its own grass across the Common. "The rally was cosponsored by the Boston Physical Fitness Council and the Boston Junior Chamber of Commerce. Also instructive in this pre-Earth Day event was the use of the term public health, but shorn of any mention of a significant part of that field: environmental health. That was soon to change.

Galen's activism was rewarded with election as president of the resurrected League of American Wheelmen at the L.A.W. Rockport Roundup in 1969 - national cycling leadership had at least momentarily returned to its roots in Boston.  We will return to the Roundup and its importance in CRW's history in a following issue of Wheelpeople.

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The article is based on Finison’s book: Boston’s Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural and Political Change on Two Wheels. University of Massachusetts Press, 2019. The book is a follow-up to Boston's Cycling Craze 1880-1900:  A Story of Race, Sport, and Society. University of Massachusetts Press, 2014. Many of the source materials are in the Bicycle History Archives at UMass-Boston Archives. A footnoted version of the article is available at: Bostonscyclingcraze.blogspot.com