There is one subject which should be touched upon with great caution, since the prospects of some very worthy inventors might be unjustly interfered with; it is that of multiple or two speed-gears. I have tried to impress upon the reader the importance of gearing to suit his strength, yet when once suited it is extremely doubtful if he should ever change it; at least it is doubtful if he should do so on the same trip or even during the same season. When a rider transfers his base of operations from a level to a hilly country permanently, a change in his gear may not be out of the way; but to fix the machine for more or less power alternately as hills and levels are met with is, in the light of my experience, more tiresome than the necessary variation in the effort of the man. CHAPTER XIV. THE MODERN ROVER, OR REAR-DRIVING SAFETY. As machines of this general type bid fair to engage the attention of cyclists to a marked degree, it seems in place to give them more than a passing notice in the general discussion. It is fair to presume that more than one-half of all the machines sold in the immediate future will be more or less after this general pattern. The introduction of the Rover has afforded us one of the most amusing incidents in cycling history. The writer of these pages happened to be in Coventry during the summer of ’85, and he had a fortuitous opportunity, fondly accepted, of inventing fun at the expense of the “Crocodile” and of joining in the general laugh at the (alleged) ridiculous attempt of a Coventry firm to “foist” (_sic_) this most extraordinary freak of cycling inventive genius, under a new name, upon the market. In the fall of the same year a notable Washington agent, allured by the attractive notices of a great prize for a hundred-mile race, imported one of these self-same incongruous specimens into this country. After a few weeks of hilarious humor, followed by a sullen contempt for the thing, this Washingtonian shipped it to a great American manufacturer, who made sport over it for a year or two before we all began to scramble around and make ready to prove that each one of us individually “saw it all the time.” It has been a hard pull, however, and it is still uncertain on whom it did first begin to dawn that somebody had been guilty of colossal stupidity.