Spalding's Official Bicycle Guide (1899)

Edited by S. A. Nelson189915 chapters71 images

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Contents

• The Outlook for 1899 (opens in a new tab)

  G. E. Stackhouse argues that the future of cycle racing depends on the League of American Wheelmen retaining control of the sport, defending the L.A.W.'s honesty and record while dismissing the rival N.C.A. faction as an unstable breakaway. He recounts the League's achievements in securing cyclists' legal rights, road improvements, and the bicycle's popular acceptance.
• The National Cycling Association (opens in a new tab)

  A. G. Batchelder makes the case for the newly formed National Cycling Association, contending that track owners, race-promoting clubs, and professional riders should govern racing rather than the annually changing L.A.W. He describes the N.C.A.'s formation after the professionals' breakaway and its planned alliances with regional cycling bodies.
• The Universality of the Wheel (opens in a new tab)

  A short essay asserting that the bicycle is no passing fad but a permanent invention combining business and pleasure, embraced across age, sex, nationality and social class. It notes the machine's rapid mechanical progress and its emerging military uses, and claims it is more popular, cheaper, and better than ever.
• Racing of the Year 1898 (opens in a new tab)

  A. G. Batchelder reviews the disputed 1898 professional championship season, weighing the rival claims of Bald, Gardiner, Kimble, Major Taylor, and Tom Butler, and comparing their wins, points, and circuit fortunes. It discusses the effect of the L.A.W. breakaway on the title and the riders' relative standings.
• General Notes (opens in a new tab)

  Miscellaneous counsel for riders, opening with the argument that the heart is uniquely open to examination and that any rider proposing to race for the first time should have a physician listen to his heart before beginning training, and going on to the season's fads and follies.
• Qualities That Make the Champion (opens in a new tab)

  Frank M'Collough answers the question of what makes a successful racing cyclist for the thousands who believe they are destined to become a Zimmerman or a Bald, working through the essentials under the headings Strength, Fast Wheel, Training, Confidence and Headwork.
• Chainless Bicycles (opens in a new tab)

  Defends the chainless bicycle as a new phase in cycling progress whose superiority practical experience has demonstrated, explaining that the costly special machinery, accuracy and skill its building demands account for its apparent excess in price.
• Long Distance Riding (opens in a new tab)

  Argues that equalling the long-distance records demands conscientious training under a competent trainer with the sense not to let his charge overwork, and a manageable set of pacemakers trained as thoroughly in pace and pick-ups as the record-breaker himself.
• Training (opens in a new tab)

  A treatise on training that distinguishes producing perfect general health from developing special powers in individual organs, then sets out a distinguished physician's numbered rules for a healthy life covering the hour of rising, the cold bath and rub-down, exercise, diet, and the avoidance of tobacco and alcohol.
• How to Become a Winner (opens in a new tab)

  Earl W. Peabody, winner of 110 firsts in 1897, advises the candidate for racing honours to seek strength before speed, to start real outdoor training no earlier than the first of April, and warns that too long or too hard training is far more injurious than too little.
• The Form of Bicycle Saddles, in Its Relation to the Pathological Effects of Cycling (opens in a new tab)

  Dr. G. Frank Lydston, professor of surgical diseases of the genito-urinary organs at the University of Illinois, examines saddle design as a medical question, arguing that the profession neglected cycling's importance until the practice became universal. Illustrated with a numbered series of saddle figures.
• The Bicycle as a Means of Exercise for Women (opens in a new tab)

  Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, a self-described convert from prejudice, argues that cycling is the ideal exercise for women because it works the muscles harmoniously, improves circulation, and clears the blood of waste better than housework or other occupations. She adds testimony that the wheel acts as a sedative for nervous worry and insomnia and benefits chronic congestive conditions.
• Gas Lamps (opens in a new tab)

  Reviews acetylene lighting, noting that kerosene still holds its supremacy as a reliable illuminant but that gas generated from calcium carbide has won favour with cyclists, and compares the makers' different arrangements, the Search-Light, for instance, placing the water below the carbide and feeding it up through a wick.
• L. A. W. Records (opens in a new tab)

  A reference compilation of records accepted by the League of American Wheelmen and the International Cyclists' Association, compiled for the American Sports Publishing Co., with a key to the abbreviations for competition, against time, paced, unpaced, amateur, professional, tandem and multi-cycle conditions. Tables run by distance from a quarter-mile to thirty miles and upward, and close with hour records.
• Middle Distance Paced Races (opens in a new tab)

  A review of the past season's middle-distance paced racing, which had become immensely popular and drew the most famous foreign riders against the Americans. It profiles the successful "Big Six", McDuffee, Michael, Linton, Taylore, Elkes and 'Major' Taylor, with individual race-schedule tables of dates, places and distances for riders such as Tom Linton and Edouard Taylore.