The Bicycling World, Vol 2, No 12
Articles in this issue
- A column of short quips notes Montreal wheelmen riding on snow, the coming annual dinners of the Boston and Massachusetts Clubs, English postmen collecting mail by tricycle, Goy's social tricycles for couples, and a fire-gilt bicycle clock presented to the office by E. M. White of the Hartford Wheel Club.
- The leading editorial argues that bicycle clubs neglect the social side of club life, urging attractive club-rooms, regular sociable meets, and places for new or indifferent members on working committees as the surest way to attract and keep good members.
- A romantic short story by Ixion in which university sophomore Fred Campbell collides with May Ashley's tricycle on a Christmas ride near Ashcroft, then that evening halts her runaway bicycle on the dreaded Brentham hill with a red-hot brake, discovering the disguised rider and winning his future wife.
- Part III of H.'s technical series surveys cranks (long versus short, detachable versus fixed), rubber and rat-trap pedals including Butler's pedal-slipper, V, crescent, U and hollow rims, direct versus locknutted spokes, and tire sizes, drawing on statistics from 332 machines of 1879-80.
- A. S. Parsons's satirical travelogue describes the imaginary Mediterranean island of Eutoepeer, a bicyclers' paradise where scarlet-clad postmen deliver mail by wheel, roadmasters are jailed for loose stones, horses are banned from the parks, and everyone from laborer to king rides.
- The Paris correspondent reports that a congress of French velocipedistes will meet on 6 February to found the Union Velocipedique Francaise and settle an amateur definition, prompted by quarrels over money prizes, and recounts the fiasco of the French championship race deserted by champion Ch. Terront.
- Extracts from the English press include the Wheel World on the complementary roles of the Bicycle Union and the Bicycle Touring Club, Cycling on the new word 'cyclophobe', the Bicycling Times disparaging American trick riding, and a London Standard report of Frederick Cooper fined 40s. for furious tricycle riding.
- Reviews of the midwinter Scribner's Monthly, with its essay on John LaFarge's Trinity Church decoration and a new Mrs. Burnett serial, of St. Nicholas and its illustrated Obelisk account, and of Henry Sturmey's just-received Complete Guide to Bicycling.
- December archery scores of the Private Practice Club, in which Will H. Thompson set a record York round average of 542 2-3, F. O. Hyatt shot an unparalleled 47-325 over two consecutive 60-yard scores, and Frank H. Walworth averaged 135 2-5 at 60 yards, followed by a discussion of adapting Ford's shooting system to the individual archer.
- A combative letter signed 'One of the Pacific-ers' defends the Pacific Coast Archery Association's adoption of the Creedmoor system of archery scoring against the paper's editorial criticism, denying any plan to change the York round and challenging Eastern archers to prove the change wrong.
- W. H. Carpenter reviews archery around Pittsburg and Allegheny County, where the Birnamwood, Lancewood and Edgewood clubs of Edgewood joined others in the new Western Pennsylvania Archery Association, an Allegheny County Club formed to join the unresponsive National Association, and the Pittsburg Cricket Club offered its Brushton grounds.
- Knick O'Bocker's gossip column covers a Special Columbia wheel spun for 7 minutes 27 seconds in Mr. Wright's office, Pierre Noel's dinner for the Mercury Club on his re-election as president, mockery of the League badge design, and the city clubs' unanimous preference for holding the L.A.W. annual meeting in New York rather than Washington.
- Captain Richmond of the Providence Bicycle Club gave nineteen members a supper at Ardoene's to celebrate his partnership in Richmond & Carpenter, having sold the Rhode Island bicycle agency to Charles Handy; the club-room boasts billiards and a piano, and a minstrel performance is planned at the Cove Promenade.
- The League badge, designed by A. S. Parsons and Jo. Pennell, will be ready within ten days and may be obtained in nickel for $1.00 or silver-plate for $2.00 from treasurer Hugh Willoughby of Saratoga Springs.
- Geo. M. Doe of Worcester submits his 1880 riding log of 1,086 miles in 87 times out, and a Capital Bicycle Club member reports Christmas-day standing-still records in Washington: Dr. H. M. Schooley at 1 hour 22 minutes and Captain H. S. Owen at 2 hours 22 minutes.
- The Committee on Meetings — Thos. K. Longstreth, Jos. Pennell and Max Hausmann — recommends Washington for the League's first annual meeting, citing its forty-five miles of asphalt streets, the paved plaza before the Capitol for the grand parade, and a four-lap asphalt track where the Capital Bi. Club raced last June.
- A letter from 'Merrill' argues from two years' riding over hilly Worcester County roads that short five-inch cranks prevent cramp and give more power than long ones, citing a nine-mile winter ride without a dismount, and recommends the cradle spring to any rider who journeys.