November 20, 2025
by Tom Ewing
In 1875, James Mason rode a bicycle from Hillsboro, Ohio, to the town of London, and then back again, a distance of 99 miles. The entire trip took eleven hours and forty minutes, which included a 20 minute rest in Washington Court House and a 30 minute rest in London, an hour wasted by getting lost, a slow stretch on freshly gravelled road, and a fall that resulted in a sprain in his leg. According to a report first published on October 28, 1875 in the Highland Weekly News, and widely republished in newspapers as far away as Richmond, Virginia, Kansas City, Missouri, Brooklyn, New York, and Salt Lake City, Utah, this “most extraordinary feat of travelling” was much faster than could have been accomplished on horseback. Mason, an Irishman who brought his velocipide back from London earlier in the year, made a bet of $100 that he could ride a total distance of 106 miles in under twelve hours. He did not win the wager, due to the delays, but he remained confident he could ride that distance within the agreed time limit in a future ride. The ride attracted “a great deal of interest” by “people all along the line, from one end to the other.”
One month after the first report appeared, the Highland Weekly News offered a wry reflection on this famous ride: “Bicycular Fame: The recent extraordinary performance of our young friend Mason, on his Bicycle, has been very generally noticed by our exchanges, and bide fair to make him famous. The last paper in which we have seen it noticed is the Colorado Miner. At this rate of travel, Mr. Mason’s fame has no doubt reached the Pacific coast by this time.”
If a cylist chose to make the ride today, and is willing to take a less direct but more pleasant and safer route, the Jamestown Connector Bikeway and a section of the Ohio to Erie Trail offer more than forty miles of ideal bicycling conditions. The Ohio to Erie Trail crosses the state along nearly four hundred miles, mostly along railroad lines and canal roads. The Jamestown Connector Bikeway opened in 2022, and provides a link to the Ohio to Erie Trail. The development of long distance cycling routes began in the 1870s, with cyclists such as James Mason devising new routes and earning national attention, and continued with the Bikecentennial in 1976, which capitalized on the bicycle’s growing popularity to establish a durable TransAmerican bicycle route. Cyclists riding on dedicated bicycle trails now are the beneficiaries of the achievements, commitment and vision of earlier generations of cyclists.
Images: Springfield Museum; Library of Congress; Library of Congress
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