The Bicycling World, Vol 13, No 14
Articles in this issue
- Announcement of the Connecticut Bicycle Club's third annual tournament, to be held September 8th and 9th at Charter Oak Park, Hartford, featuring mile, two-mile, and three-mile races for amateur, promateur, and professional riders plus fancy riding and a ten-mile lap race.
- Editorial notes on L.A.W. affairs: lawyer Chas. S. Luscomb contests the legal authority for the mail votes on racing and amateur rules; Wheeling magazine criticises Berridge's unsubstantiated speed record advertisement; the Racing Board adopts A.C.U. rules; and Ducker surrenders L.A.W. properties to Hayes while Beckwith denies dickering for the presidency.
- Henry E. Ducker, suspended chief consul of the Massachusetts Division L.A.W., publicly challenges President N. Malon Beckwith to prove via three credible letters that prominent Massachusetts wheelmen pressed for Ducker's removal, and disputes the claim that Herbert Hayes was the membership's favoured successor.
- Five questions submitted to the L.A.W. Board of Officers for a mail vote closing 28 August: adoption of the A.C.U. amateur rule, striking Rule H from the Racing Board, reinstating men who failed to file certificates, removing racing matters from the League by-laws, and deciding Ducker's appeal of Beckwith's removal action.
- Edwin Brown of Worcester, Massachusetts successfully appealed to the U.S. Treasury Department to import a Quadrant tricycle duty-free as a personal effect despite having used it only once abroad; attorney J. S. Dean handled the case.
- New York correspondent 'Titnam.' reports on the hot-weather cycling scene: Karl Kron's public dispute with the Orange Wanderers over a lantern-and-whistle ordinance, the Harlem Wheelmen's open-air race meet planned for September 11 at Manhattan Grounds, a match race at the Staten Island A.C. grounds between W. C. Herring and L. L. Squire of the Ixion Club (Squire won in 6:43), and the nearly-finished Roselle cycling track whose manager Frederick Jenkins has just been appointed.
- Louisville correspondent 'Kentuck.' reports that local cycling has shifted from large club stampedes in uniform to quiet individual touring as sales continue to rise; four cyclists just returned from a three-week Canadian tour praising the hospitality despite disappointing roads; and a local inventor's unconventional bicycle is winning respect from sceptics willing to ride it ten to seventy-five miles.
- A column of editorial shorts questioning President Beckwith's autocratic power to remove Chief Consul Ducker, noting Sporting Journal's criticism of the same rule, commenting on the failure of a Western race meeting that awarded only ribbons, and debating whether Mills's five-day Land's End to John o' Groats ride (166 miles per day) borders on the brutal.
- The editor's running column covers the apparent reconciliation between feuding L.A.W. factions (Ducker-Beckwith and Prial-Barnes), Sacramento wheelmen forcing a turnpike open to cyclists for ten cents toll, publication of the Wheelman's Hand-Book of Essex County by George Chinn, and Melbourne racer W. J. C. Elliott's court injunction blocking the Victorian Cyclists' Union from declaring him a professional.
- Brief obituary announcing the sudden death by apoplexy of Major William M. Durell of Chicago, received by the editors via telegram as the issue went to press.
- Manager Elwell's Blue Nose cycling tour is declared a great success: thirty-eight cyclists from across the country praised the scenery of the St. John River route and the warm Canadian hospitality, receiving dances and receptions at Andover, Florenceville, Woodstock, and Fredericton, and a picnic at the Beach House hosted by the St. John Bicycle Club.
- Miscellaneous items including Secretary Aaron's endorsement of Foote's Anti-Header, Overman Wheel Company's unusually strong late-season sales, Gormully & Jeffery breaking ground on a new factory expected to be among the world's largest cycle plants, and E. P. Baird winning the Orange Wanderers' ten-mile open road race in 36:51½ on a 53-inch Rudge Light Roadster.
- Description of the League of American Wheelmen's annual bicycle tour route for September 6–18, drawing on the experience of three prior 'Big Four' tours: the route combines a week of cycling through New York state scenery with a Pullman rail transfer and an overnight sea voyage to Virginia, shaped by prevailing winds and downhill water courses.
- Club correspondence and officer listings: the San Mateo Wheelmen's recent Library Hall reception, the newly elected officers of the Bay City Wheelmen, Los Angeles Wheelmen, and Greenfield Bicycle Club, plus the New York Bicycle Club's formal resolution condemning Orange ordinances that restrict cyclists' rights without applying equally to all vehicle drivers.
- Racing notices and results: upcoming meetings at Worcester, Albany, Vicksburg, and Lynn; Barton Keene of the University of Pennsylvania heading to race Oxford and Cambridge cracks; Frederick Jenkins appointed manager of the new New Jersey Cycling and Athletic Association track at Roseville Station, Newark; and McCurdy heading to Minneapolis to challenge Hollingsworth's course record.
- Announcement of the first annual tournament of the New Jersey Cycling and Athletic Association at Roseville Station (Roselle), Newark: a three-lap-per-mile track built by New York cycling dealers modelled on the Springfield track, with $2,000 in prizes over three days (30 September and 1–2 October), run under A.C.U. rules and managed by Frederick Jenkins.
- Calendar of cycling events for August–October 1886, including the Iowa Division five-day tour to Spirit Lake, the Pennsylvania and New Jersey division annual meets, the L.A.W. Tour from Niagara Falls to Harper's Ferry, the four-day Springfield Bicycle Club tournament, and the Lynn Tournament.