Wanderings Awheel

Published by Mead Cycle Company189810 chapters23 images

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Contents

• Sentinel Special (opens in a new tab)

  Facing a plate of the touring couple in the Royal Gorge of the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, where the cliffs rise 3,000 feet and the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad was driven through, the text presents the $75.00 Sentinel Special. It is pitched as the firm's highest type of construction, light enough for racing but recommended as an all-round road wheel, with the new eccentric hanger and secret mottled enamel finish as its two distinguishing points.
• Ladies' Sentinel Special (opens in a new tab)

  The facing plate sets the riders on Boston Common, 48 acres public since 1634, beside the old Burying Ground of John Hancock and Samuel Adams, and the text describes the $75.00 Ladies' Sentinel Special. Tubing, bearings and finish are identical to the diamond-frame Special, with the usual drop-frame modifications: raised or adjustable handle bar, 6 1/2-inch cranks, slightly lower gear and side guards over chain and sprocket.
• Sentinel Model A (opens in a new tab)

  Opposite a plate of Alaska totem poles, carved memorial posts up to 100 feet high, topical because of the Klondike gold rush, the $60.00 Sentinel Model A is described as a strictly high-grade wheel lacking only the eccentric hanger and the Special's elaborate finish, claimed the equal of machines retailing at $75.00. Specifications follow: Swedish-steel seamless tubing, 1898 Fauber crank hanger, 28-inch mahogany-stained Plymouth rims, 22 to 24 lbs.
• Ladies' Sentinel Model A (opens in a new tab)

  The engraving opposite shows the old City Gate at St. Augustine, Florida, the last fragment of the wall built by Menendez's Spaniards who settled there in 1565. The text offers the $60.00 Ladies' Sentinel Model A, specified as the gentlemen's machine with the usual ladies' pattern changes, and praised for beauty, speed and durability under rigid inspection.
• Sentinel Model B (opens in a new tab)

  The facing plate is "Wawona," the Big Tree of Mariposa Grove, California, hollow enough to drive a stage coach and horses through and still bearing leaves 100 feet up. The $50.00 Sentinel Model B is recommended to riders who do not insist on the latest fancies; its specifications list a diamond frame in imported seamless tubing, Humber pattern chain, Morgan & Wright quick-repair tires, gear 63 to 88 and 22 to 24 lbs.
• Ladies' Sentinel Model B (opens in a new tab)

  The sixth picture of the series shows an old Tennessee corn mill still grinding hominy and meal under a twenty-foot flume. The $50.00 Ladies' Sentinel Model B is presented as the most value for the price of any wheel competing for popular favour, built to the same specifications as the gentlemen's Model B for riders of limited means.
• Sentinel Tandems (opens in a new tab)

  The final scenic plate shows an old Mexican carreta full of Indian children before the pueblo of Laguna, New Mexico, with a water carrier offering the lady rider a drink from his water-skin. The $110.00 Sentinel Combination Tandem is described alongside the double-diamond pattern, sharing specifications but for the drop and frame heights: 28-inch tandem wheels, 84 gear, eccentric front-chain adjustment, 45 to 48 lbs on a 70-inch wheelbase.
• Sentinel Juveniles (opens in a new tab)

  The children's bicycles are claimed to be built of the same material and with the same care as the full-sized Sentinels, boys' and girls' machines differing only in the ladies'-style frame. They are made in three sizes with 20, 24 and 26-inch wheels, weighing 16, 18 and 22 pounds, on Indiana wood rims and Morgan & Wright double-tube tires.
• Instructions for Ordering (opens in a new tab)

  Mead Cycle Company's terms of business: prices are net with no commissions, sales are strictly cash with no accounts, installments or consignment, and cash with order earns fifty cents off each bicycle. A dollar deposit per machine ($5.00 west of Denver or in Canada) secures C. O. D. shipment with examination before acceptance; Morgan & Wright tires must be returned direct to the makers for free repair.
• Guarantee (opens in a new tab)

  A framed notice guaranteeing all bicycles of the company's own manufacture and all other new bicycles it sells, except those carrying another maker's nameplate, for which application should be made to that maker direct. Mead states it has adopted the regular Associated Cycle Manufacturers' guarantee for 1898, to be sent executed and signed with each bicycle shipped.