The Bicycling World, Vol 1, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Opening notes for 10 January 1880: the disputed Maine election satirised as a crooked game between political "leagues" refereed by Governor Garcelon, C. B. Wilson's report at the Sydenham Bicycle Club dinner that the Bicycle Touring Club now has nearly a thousand members, and archery's "insidious advances" among New York's athletic editors.
- A history of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club — Boston's third cycling organisation — describing its founding in February 1879, cooperative tour runs to Cohasset and Nantasket, and its social character.
- A profile of the Cleveland Bicycle Club with its membership roster and notes on riding conditions in northern Ohio.
- Letters to the editor: a Heidelberg student (Mr. Agassiz of the Boston Bi. C.) recounts winter rides in Germany including a 71-mile day to Darmstadt and a roadside assault, and F. S. Rollinson of Philadelphia accepts a challenge to race W. Cann for $50 while excusing the American team's showing at the Boston races.
- An account of attempting bicycle riding on frozen surfaces during the winter, exploring which conditions and routes allow cold-weather riding.
- Jack Easy's third letter revives the proposed 1880 bicycle tour through England via Liverpool, London, Surrey and the Bath road, pleads for American road information like the English itineraries, and cites the W. R. Pitman amateur-status case as proof that America needs a Bicycle Union and Touring Club of its own.
- Personal items: H. Hedger, late of the Coventry Machinists' Co., joins the Pope Mfg. Co.; Wentworth Rollins opens a riding-school in the American Institute building in New York; Jesse Howard of the Providence Bi. C. tours the world; and E. C. Hodges of the Boston Bi. C. sails for California.
- Book and magazine notices covering the holiday volume "Papyrus Leaves", the January St. Nicholas, Scribner's Monthly papers on American arms and the Life-Saving Service, and the archery coverage of Forest and Stream.
- Foreign notes: English clubs busy with annual dinners and debate over the Bicycle Union and Bicycle Touring Club, the Cork Bi. C.'s sixty members, a French amateur tour from Angers to the Pyrenees reported in Le Sporting, and mock "In Memoriam" verses from a London paper on the demise of the American Bicycling Journal.
- Leader paragraphs asking "What's in a Name?" of the monotonously titled archery clubs — praising the New Bedford club's choice of "Owassan" and offering a subscription prize for the most appropriate new club name — and urging every reader to act as a correspondent.
- A sketch of the Bicycle Touring Club founded at Harrowgate in August 1878 through Stanley J. A. Cotterell of Edinburgh, grown to 730 members by 1879 under secretary Walter D. Welford, with its consuls, hotel tariffs, uniform and badge, concluding with the club's rules printed in full.
- B.T.C. badge and uniform regulations by order of the Council, a correction crediting Willis Farrington of Lowell as an original Boston Bicycle Club member, and trade notes on Cunningham & Co.'s adjustable ball bearings for the "Harvard" and the Pope Mfg. Co.'s Starley-built "Meteor" 50-inch bicycle.
- The scoring controversy between "Massasoit Bowman" of Springfield and A. S. Brownell, president of the Eastern Archery Association, over revaluing the target rings; followed by club reports including T. C. Havens's American-record 581 at Oakland, New York Archery Club and Pequossette meet scores, and the Wabash Merry Bowmen with Will H. and Maurice Thompson.
- An editorial discussion of the contested definition of an amateur cyclist, important for race eligibility and club standing.
- An account of England's new National Skating Association and its first Amateur Skating Championship, raced 8 December on the flooded Thames course on the Duke of Bedford's Cambridgeshire estate before some 10,000 spectators and won by George "Fish" Smart, with the association's competition rules given in full.
- Press notices of The Bicycling World reprinted from the Chelsea Record, The Index, the Kankakee Gazette and the Orange Journal, welcoming Charles E. Pratt's new paper and its combined coverage of bicycling and archery.