In 1897, the U.S. Army wanted to know if bicycles could replace horses for infantry. So they took 20 Black soldiers of the 25th Infantry – the Buffalo Soldiers – and gave them a mission: ride from Fort Missoula, Montana to St. Louis. 1,900 miles.
The “Iron Riders” carried 60-pound packs, rifles, and one spare tire each. They crossed the Rockies, the Badlands, and the Great Plains on heavy, single-speed bikes with no roads. Private John Findley fixed flats with strips of his own shirt. They drank from cattle tanks and were refused water in Wyoming towns.
It took 41 days. They averaged 52 miles a day. When they rolled into St. Louis, the white newspapers called it a “stunt.” The Army said “impractical” and shut the program down. But the Iron Riders proved it could be done.
Their commanding officer wrote: “No horse could have made it. These men did.”
While traveling through Ohio yesterday, I came across this map of Ohio’s physiographic regions at a rest stop.
Included are the Lake Plains, Glaciated Appalachian Plateau, Unglaciated Appalachian Plateau, Till Plains, and a strip of Bluegrass in Ohio’s extreme southwest.
For some reason, I’m fascinated with maps like this!
Christopher Nolan says that the ‘SINNERS’ river dance scene (“Rocky Road to Dublin”) is “the most spectacular musical inversion since Kubrick's “Singin in the Rain” from ‘A CLOCKWORK ORANGE’