Bicycle Feats and Gymnastics at the Armory
Champion W. S. Maltby dazzles Seattle crowds with daring cycle stunts and comedy routines.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The athletic exhibition given by the Seattle Athletic Club last evening at the Armory was one of high merit. The feature of the programme was the wonderful riding of W. S. Maltby, the champion cyclist. After performing seemingly impossible feats on the safety and the ordinary, he rode the single large wheel, first with the handles and then without them, and finally capped it all by spinning around on the small wheel of the ordinary. Some of his work was nothing short of marvelous. His character acts as Mlle. Emellia, the French lady cyclist, and the dude learning to ride were very entertaining and amusing. The rest of the programme was also of great worth. Alex Smith gave a pretty exhibition of club swinging, and George Brockett's drum major act with the baton was exceedingly clever.
“Some of his work was nothing short of marvelous.”
Long before the modern cycling infrastructure debates, Seattle's elite clubs were staging spectacles that turned the bicycle into a performance object. This event highlights the era's fascination with physical culture and the performative masculinity prevalent in turn-of-the-century social clubs.
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