The Bicycling World, Vol 1, No 12
Articles in this issue
- Cunningham & Company of 18 & 20 Pearl Street, Boston, producers of the Harvard bicycles, announce that founder Frank W. Weston is retiring from twenty years in architecture to join the firm actively until the English Touring Party sails.
- A history of the Providence Bicycle Club, founded July 1879 by the writer as Providence's pioneer bicyclist, covering its track at Park Gardens and its growing membership of thirteen.
- A letter from Detroit describing the city's cycling scene, the club's membership of journalists, manufacturers, and professionals, and plans for a field day at Recreation Park in May.
- A detailed touring narrative of a bicycle ride from New Haven to New York, describing road surfaces, dismounts at muddy sections, and the challenges of navigating Connecticut and Westchester roads in autumn.
- Notes from the Brooklyn, Detroit, Germantown, Hartford, Keystone, Union, and Westchester bicycle clubs, including officer elections and Detroit president Louis J. Bates's humorous presentation of a cartoon to 'wagon trick' inventor Theodore Champion.
- Revised mile-by-mile times from the Spirit of the Times for the fifty-mile amateur race at the American Institute Building, New York, led at points by Collier, Clark, and Johnson, plus the final five-mile handicap heat won by P. Timpson of the N.Y. Bicycle Club after W. S. Clark fell.
- Short notices including a gold medal for Miss Lizzie Baymer, champion lady bicycle-rider of California; C. A. Hazlett of Portsmouth, N.H., riding 1,660 miles on his Columbia; Charles E. Pratt's honorary membership of the Montreal Bicycle Club; and Wentworth Rollins giving up the American Institute building.
- A long conversational interview at the editor's Roxbury cottage with Frank W. Weston of the Boston Bicycle Club, covering his velocipede-era beginnings, the founding of Cunningham, Heath & Co. and the American Bicycling Journal in 1877, and his forthcoming English touring party.
- A humorous poem by Prof. Highwell celebrating a rider's imported bicycle as if she were a sweetheart, with puns on felloes, spokes, and nickel plate.
- Letters and queries from Cambridge, Granby (Conn.), Chillicothe (Ohio), Jersey City, Portland (Me.), Greenport (N.Y.), Lafayette (Ind.), and Erie (Pa.), plus Frank W. Weston's reply to Harry Etherington about the English tour and a Detroit letter on winter wheeling and the coming Detroit Athletic Club tournament.
- An invitation from C. K. Munroe, president of the New York Bicycle Club, for unattached riders to join a special brigade in the grand meet of wheelmen at Newport, R.I., on 31 May, with intentions to be sent to secretary K. N. Putnam of 54 Wall Street.
- A letter from John S. Webber, Jr., of Gloucester, Mass., on learning to ride, daily spins in a fish-house riding hall, a half-mile practice road of powdered oyster-shells, and the fine driveways of the Phillips Avenue park at Pigeon Cove on Cape Ann.
- James O. Munroe reports on the Buffalo club: captain George R. Bidwell's new riding school, his road records to Alden, Niagara Falls, and Lockport, his fancy-riding feats, the city's nine-mile park system, and president Dr. H. T. Appleby.
- An account of Prof. Rollinson and four pupils' bicycling exhibition at Washington Hall, Trenton, N.J., with a comic learning-to-ride sketch, fancy riding by C. F. Cope, a slow race, and the Professor's five-mile spin in 22m. 18s.
- The leader column announces the paper's enlargement to twenty pages and, prompted by Cunningham & Co.'s announcement, reviews Frank W. Weston's role as father of American bicycling — founding the importing firm, the Boston Bicycle Club, and the American Bicycling Journal — and urges riders to join his English touring party.
- The archery department proposes roving archery outings from Waltham, reports Miss M. L. Magee of the Pequossettes winning the Claflin Guard Fair vote at Newton, an archery meet at Lewiston, Maine, and a match between the New York Archery Club and Chicago's North Side Archery Club, with letters on target scoring.
- Reviews of Brentano's Monthly, Puck's bicycling humor, Design and Work, the newly announced Wheel World edited by Lacy Hillier and A. J. Wilson, the discontinued London Athletic and Bicycling World, and the April numbers of St. Nicholas, Lippincott's, and the Atlantic Monthly.
- The editor answers readers' questions on the mechanics of wheel diameter and pedal power, the saddles preferred by tourists and professionals, records on 48-inch machines, and the pronunciation of 'bicycle'.
- A description of the Ordinary Columbia, the Pope Manufacturing Company's new low-priced roadster with ball Stanley head and lignum-vitae handles, listed at $60 to $75, with notes on the Standard and Special Columbia machines to follow.
- English news including the Bicycle Touring Club council's resolution to formally welcome the American touring party, Walter Phillips's 100-mile championship win near Leicester, and Charles Terront's 1,272-mile victory in the Six Days' Championship of the World at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
- The Essex Bicycle Club of Newark, N.J., celebrates its first anniversary with a reception at secretary E. R. Bellman's residence, with dancing to Cohen's orchestra until three in the morning and the club's championship medal and cup on display.
- A continuing facsimile reprint of the 25 May 1878 number of the American Bicycling Journal, including its editorial on halving the paper's size, Boston Bicycle Club runs, the 'That Boneshaker' parody after Bret Harte, and a forty-five-mile ride from Boston to Campello and back.