The Bicycling World, Vol 12, No 24
Articles in this issue
- The leading editorial observes that the Stanley and other annual shows reveal nearly every large maker has built tricycles especially for ladies or altered existing patterns for them, evidence of a marked increase in lady riders in England, and urges wheelmen to see that every lady of their acquaintance who rides is well mounted rather than left struggling on an old loop frame.
- Unheaded editorial paragraphs rebut 'Jam Satis' for claiming tricycles did not come into practical use until 1881 (citing 1880 tours and the Finchley and London tricycle clubs), commend the cycle show to be held during the League meet as an experiment worth supporting, and argue Boston's riders have transferred their affections from the path to the road while the Racing Board's open-event record rule will make autumn 1886 bare of record-breaking.
- The editors report that British cycling papers including Bicycling News have commented on the L.A.W. Racing Board's suspension of makers' amateurs, with the English press saying that should the American League carry its programme through it will demonstrate the possibility of stopping a scandal bound to destroy the sport if allowed to continue.
- A comic dialect letter from 'Jonny' to 'Willy', purportedly intercepted by the World, in which the editor's office boy describes working for 'mister baset' (Abbot Bassett) and the antics of a big fat 'kernel' and a goggled little chap called Charlie at the new editorial rooms.
- D.B. McMullin recounts how the L.A.W. defended member Geo. T. Fleming of Uhrichsville against Joseph Graham's $15,000 suit over a hand cut by a brake-spoon, with Chief Consul T.J. Kirkpatrick of Springfield, Ohio wiring authority to retain the best lawyer at the Division's expense; the Common Pleas jury found for Fleming in about twenty minutes.
- A notice warning manufacturers, importers and dealers who have not returned the specification blanks sent out by the World that their machines cannot appear in its proposed publication unless the blanks are filled out and returned immediately.
- The Lynn Cycle Club's new track opens 31 May, the same day as the annual meeting of the League of Essex County Wheelmen; the first Prince-Neilson contest will be run and several men are training to win the Columbia prize cup by covering twenty miles within the hour.
- A column of intelligence reports that Albert Schock wants $1,000 in cash before racing at Minneapolis; that a ladies' cycling club is truly imminent in Boston; that Daisy and Buttercup are to be president and captain; that the Ramblers and Missouris of St. Louis have reconciled; and that F.H. Ruggles, W.H. Edmands, E.C. Hodges, and others have all mastered the Rover.
- In the Correspondence department, F.C. Weston of Bangor, Maine argues against cow-horn handle bars, describing how he replaced them with straight bars on a high-grade English wheel and predicting the present style must change, citing better comfort in coasting and no heel-whacking or accidental brake-lever spills.
- A correspondent promotes the cycle show to be held during the League Meet, for which the Boston Club has hired the large hall in the Mechanics Fair Building on Huntington Avenue for 26-31 May, urging that every bicycle, tricycle and accessory made or sold in the country be placed on exhibition.
- A feature article describes the vast Rudge and Co. works at Coventry covering six acres and employing 700 workmen, their improved spoke system with riveted single spokes replacing back-and-forth lacing, and their Boston agency at Stoddard, Lovering and Co. which carries four to six hundred Rudges in stock at all times for over 400 American agents.
- The Chicago letter from 'Philo' covers the contested chief consul election between C.C. Blake and Burley Ayers, Prince, Eck and Morgan's proposed circuit of six-day races with Gormully and Jeffery willing to join other makers in backing it, and the mixed-sex Dearborn Avenue Cycling Club, whose lady members will wear ulsters of L.A.W. cloth.
- Frenchman W. Gautier claims the monocycle championship and wants the Crystal Palace Company to organize a monocycling championship meeting with prizes for speed and skill; trick riders Kaufman and Canary are up in arms and ready to defend their claims to the title.
- The editorial notes column marks the opening of the riding season with crowds overwhelming Landlord Comee's Hotel Boscobel at Lynn, and continues with L.D. Munger's plan to enter the fifty-mile road race at St. Louis and tour from New Orleans, Palen Field's gold locket from the Hamilton (Ontario) Bicycle Club, and Lacy Hillier's narrow escape when he ran into a Mr. Hunter on a new track.
- Twenty-six members of the Newton Bicycle Club took their fourth annual dinner at the Faneuil House, Brighton, attended by Messrs. Fourdrinier and Dean of the World staff; officers for the year include J.C. Elms, president, and P.L. Aubin, captain, with veteran Stall riding his new Sparkbrook tandem and Burnham his new Singer S.S.
- The New York letter describes the brewing race rivalry between the Elizabeth Wheelmen and the Kings County Wheelmen, sparked when the Elizabeths' good-natured scribe J.C. Wetmore boasted of his club at the recent inter-club association meeting.
- A report from Maryborough Record Court describes a Mr. Samuel West, a miller's agent who used his bicycle for business and carried a revolver on his collecting rounds, who appealed a fine of two pounds for shooting a dog that flew at him and imperilled his life while cycling; Mr. Justice Johnson decided against the cyclist.
- Jack Easy pays tribute to retiring editor Abbot Bassett, whose guidance gave the World a position likened to the London Times, applauds Lynn's new three-laps-to-the-mile race track, and lays out detailed specifications for building two-, three- and four-lap cycling tracks, including radii, track width and placement of the judges' stand and tape.
- The club news column reports new clubs at Newmarket, Ontario (President J.E.W. Fogal), the Atalanta Wheelmen of Newark and the Outing 'Cycling Club of Kansas City; the Chicagos plan a $15,000 clubhouse; and the Brooklyn Bicycle Club's seventh annual meeting elected Albert B. Barkman president and Louis W. Slocum captain.
- The Overman Wheel Company publishes a detailed statement of its patent litigation with the Pope Manufacturing Company, recounting its surrendered 1883 license, denied injunctions before Judges Colt and Carpenter, attachments totalling $73,000 against it and the Ames Manufacturing Company, and warning the fight may delay the 1886 Victor's spring launch.