Manhattan to Saratoga: Bicycle Advocates Look Back for Inspiration for Ride In The Future

Saratoga Springs Department of Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub (left) and Bikeatoga Advocacy Chair Ed Lindner (right), unveil a new historical marker at 341 Broadway on June 26, 2024 celebrating Wentworth Rollins’ bike ride to Saratoga Springs in 1879. Photo by Thomas Dimopoulos.

SARATOGA SPRINGS —A historical marker celebrating an 1879 bicycle ride to Saratoga Springs by “America’s first long-distance bike tourist” Wentworth Rollins was placed on Broadway this week. 

Saratoga nonprofit Bikeatoga unveiled the newly installed marker at 341 Broadway to commemorate Wentworth Rollins’ bike ride. The journey, mostly by bicycle, landed Rollins in Saratoga Springs in early July 1879. He subsequently spent the next two weeks seeing “all that is to be seen on a bicycle around Saratoga,” according to newspaper reports of the time, before continuing at month’s end on his 1,300-mile total journey to Chicago. 

“The 1890s bicycle boom changed America and it changed Saratoga Springs,” said Bikeatoga Advocacy Chair Ed Lindner, who briefly spoke before unveiling the sign during the June 26 ceremony, attended by about a dozen people, some draped in late 19th century period dress that included straw hats, vests tied up high and coffee-color cloth-top Victorian button boots. 

Four weeks ago, the group celebrated the installation of a new historical marker commemorating the 1898 Union Avenue bike path, unveiled in front of the Empire State College building at 2 Union Ave. 

“We have a nationally known world-class tourist city that’s surrounded by miles and miles of great rural cycling routes,” said Lindner, who 15 or 20 years ago took avidly to bike-riding after his orthopedist suggested the activity as an alternative to running. 

“If the city of Saratoga Springs can complete the bike lane from Railroad Run to Congress Park downtown, it will be possible to recreate Wentworth Rollins’ 1879 run,” Lindner said. 

That connector would act as a component to the county’s undertaking of extending a route from Ballston Spa to the Saratoga Spa State Park – a project anticipated to be completed during the next few years. “Then, it will become possible once again to stand on a corner in midtown Manhattan and to set out on a bicycle to Saratoga,” Lindner said.