The Bicycling World, Vol 13, No 15
Articles in this issue
- The editors comment on several matters of the day: L.A.W. President Beckwith's notable public silence on the season's important issues; the Orange, N.J. lamp and bell ordinance and the short-sighted wheelmen opposing it; the British Bicycling News for repeatedly disparaging American road records, attributed to malice rather than ignorance; the Boston Herald's laughably impractical suggestion that tricycles be built to break apart centrally in accidents rather than somersault; and the fatal tandem tricycle accident in Auburndale that killed Mr. R.H. Stickney—cited as the first fatal cycling accident in American history—which the editors attribute to lampless night riding at speed on an incline.
- Mr. R.H. Stickney, a well-known Boston-area cyclist, was killed and his wife injured while riding their tandem tricycle at night in Auburndale—reported as the first fatal cycling accident in American history—with the editors attributing the tragedy to lampless night riding at speed on an incline.
- The Chicago letter, signed Philo, mourns the sudden death on 4 August of Major Wm. M. Durell, the one-armed Confederate veteran who managed the Pope Manufacturing Company's branch store, with floral tributes from Gormully & Jeffery, the John Wilkinson Company and the Chicago Bicycle Club at his funeral. Also noted: the Western Division tour of 14 August, the Chicago Bicycle Club's races netting about $100 for its club-house fund, and S.G. Whittaker chasing road records at Clarksville.
- Titnam's New York letter describes the King's County Wheelmen's dinner at Dillard's, where the Alphabetical Association's $250 silver road-racing trophy—won by the K.C.W. 'four' on 12 June—was presented amid toasts from Schriver, Bingham, Hegeman and others. He also covers the departure of Rev. Stall's clerical wheelmen's tour from the Citizens' clubhouse, the K.C.W. race meet announced for 18 September (entries to Charles Schwalbach of Brooklyn), and Kluge's road training between New York and Pennsylvania.
- A list of new cycle patents from the office of Boston patent attorney Henry W. Williams, including Henry J. Lawson of Coventry's rear-chain-driven bicycle, Alfred Vick's child's hobby velocipede, Lloyd and Priest's tricycle, E.G. Latta's compound elastic-and-fibrous tire, and John C. Maret of Paducah's tricycle with an adjustable lamp holder.
- A column of short paragraphs: Wheeling's rebuke of Furnivall's waiting tactics, Harry Gordon of St. Louis tempted to turn professional to race 'Hal' Greenwood, Whittaker's record plans at Clarksville, the Waltham Club's withdrawal from the L.A.W., rumors of President Beckwith's resignation, Hon. James N. Buffum's clubhouse offer to the Lynn Cycle Club, a 125-rider lantern parade at Wilkesbarre, and Miss Emma L. Waldo of Hartford outracing a runaway team at Oak Bluffs.
- The regular gossip column covers a young Southern journalist's reported plans to bicircumnavigate the globe, the C.W.A.'s suspension of five Simcoe and Hagersville wheelmen for racing for money prizes, and cyclist Ducker's pointed public warning against those who have misrepresented him.
- The Massachusetts Division officers' meeting at Young's Hotel failed for want of a quorum: new Chief Consul Hayes, with Hill and Kendall of Worcester, Green of Holyoke and Lawton of Springfield, could only discuss business informally while thirteen named representatives stayed away. The meeting also informally favored paying James H. Lewis's $10 legal bill from his acquittal over an affray with stone-throwing boys in Newton.
- The London letter, signed 'The Bard', celebrates R.J. Mecredy's win over favorite George Gatehouse in the N.C.U. twenty-five-mile tricycle championship on the rain-soaked Alexandra Park track, and discusses the press controversy over G.P. Mills's five-day long-distance ride, the Bicycling News's attack on the value of Springfield's prizes, Cyclist editor C.W. Nairn's popular win in the Ripley Road Club handicap, and professional champion Howell's bad fall imperilling his Springfield trip.
- A miscellany of clippings and jokes: F.W. Allard beating Furnivall and Gatehouse on the Marlboro' Club tricycle, Thomas Stevens's Columbia surviving being rolled over by horses, Rudge machines taking prizes at Montreal and on Boston Common, the delayed Downes Cyclometer from the Overman Wheel Company, and the Bridgeport News tracing the earliest cycle to the self-moving tripods of Homer's Iliad.
- A manufacture column describing the new lever motor invented for the King tricycle and now applied to the bicycle: propelling drums on the axle connected by straps to foot levers, with retracing drums and ratchet dogs that let the rider coast noiselessly with both feet on the pedals and even run the machine backwards, the non-revolving axle carrying new patent anti-frictional bearings inside the tubular hub.
- Reports T. Battensby's new world ten-mile tricycle record of 31m 2 1/5s set July 26 on the Coventry track aboard a Rudge Royal Crescent, lists prominent English and European professional riders expected at the Springfield fall championships, and gives detailed results from the Chicago Club races held July 31 at Chicago Ball Park.
- The race calendar for August through early October, including the Pennsylvania division meet at Williamsport, Detroit and Toronto club races, the Cleveland Bicycle Club's three-day meeting, the New Jersey division meet at Millville, the Connecticut Bicycle Club's tournament at Charter Oak Park in Hartford, the four-day Springfield tournament from 14 September, the Lynn tournament, and the New Jersey Cycling and Athletic Association's first annual tournament at Roseville Station, Newark.
- A detailed account of the Rudge Humber Tandem—manufactured by D. Rudge & Co. and imported by Stoddard, Lovering & Co. of Boston—tracing the machine's invention by Thomas Humber, its celebrated use by Joseph Pennell and wife on their Italian tour described as 'A Canterbury Pilgrimage' in the Century Magazine, and its pre-eminence over all competing tandem designs.