Lída Horská: Diary of a Motorcyclist 1926

The diary documents - perhaps more directly than other sources - what it used to be like to ride a motorcycle purely for pleasure (and the feeling of freedom) in the days when racers were still indistinctly intermingled with spectators, and when getting from Prague to Pilsen on a Saturday after work was an adventure conditioned by luck and the ability to fix any defects that occurred on the way in daylight. The text also makes clear the price people were prepared to pay for this freedom. Ludmila Horská (9. 12. 1903 - 18. 8.1926), a clerk of Karlík and Co., bought a Douglas motorcycle in early April 1926 and on that occasion began to keep a diary of everything she did with it. About 55 daily entries vividly describe maintenance, joint trips, races, punctures and crashes. The newspaper mentions dozens of other motorcyclists, often members of the College Sports Motorcycle Club; some are later celebrities known in the domestic motoring world. The diary also traces the chain of events leading indirectly to the collision in which Horská died.