The Bicycling World, Vol 2, No 13
Articles in this issue
- Editorial squibs on the cold snap, the rivalry in handsome uniforms among the Boston clubs, and retorts to the Boston Post's jabs at bicyclers and the visiting English riders expected in the spring. Letters from "Knick O'Bocker" and "Madeline" ask whether lady tricyclers may join the League of American Wheelmen.
- An editorial explores what makes the bicycle so deeply appealing compared with other forms of recreation, arguing the combination of speed, health, and independence is unmatched.
- Instalment No. IV of "H.'s" technical series takes up saddle springs, arguing that a rear-wheel spring is needed to absorb road shock and remove the drag of the small rear wheel, with supporting quotations from Charles E. Pratt's The American Bicycler.
- Part III of Alfred D. Chandler's tour rides up the Thames valley from Reading and on to Coventry, where the party visits the works of Bayliss, Thomas & Co., Hillman & Herbert, Singer & Co. and the Coventry Machinist Company and orders two 56-inch "Club" machines. The route then runs via Tamworth to Burton-upon-Trent and its pale-ale breweries.
- The Waltham Bi. Club adopts a Canada-gray uniform, the Philadelphia Bi. Club elects John Fergusson captain in place of Henry Longstreth, and New York wheelmen appoint a committee under Captain Munroe to seek use of the Central Park drives. The Rockingham Bi. Club of Portsmouth, N.H. and the Montreal Bicycle Club (H. S. Tibbs leading with 462 miles) also report.
- Will H. Thompson answers Mr. Brownell in the archery-scoring controversy, arguing that point-counting systems undervalue fine shooting and that where as many as 288 arrows are shot the score itself should win.
- Announces the death of Ethel, elder daughter of League president Charles E. Pratt, who has been in Washington attending his sick child. A note adds that the Archery Field's editorials will resume in the next number.
- "Court" suggests that if Washington is chosen for the L.A.W. annual meet, an unofficial gathering be held in New York the following day, answering New York clubmen who threaten to stay away from a Washington meet.
- L. J. Bates, president of the Detroit Bicycle Club, declines the Boston Bicycle Club's invitation to its 7 February annual dinner with a burlesque proof — from a Pope 48-inch that grew ten feet high and a hill that became a mountain — that bicycles cannot exist.
- "Steno" of Chicago reports that the city council has authorized the South-Side street-car company to adopt San Francisco's endless-cable propulsion, and argues that displacing the horse will turn prejudice aside and give the bicycle a share in a new era.
- H. Blackwell, Jr. rebuts Stanley J. A. Cottrell's attack on the Bicycle Touring Club, defending secretary Welford and editor H. T. Round and quoting the Bicycling News's summing-up of the club's disputed annual meeting.
- Treasurer Hugh L. Willoughby has a limited supply of the solid coin-silver L.A.W. badges ready for delivery on a $2.00 deposit sent with the member's League number; the nickelled badges ($1.00) will follow after mishaps with the die.
- Corresponding secretary Albert S. Parsons publishes the standing invitation to join the League of American Wheelmen and the latest membership applications, including batches from the Essex Bi. Club of Newark and the Mohawk Bi. Club of Schenectady.
- "Little 'Un" answers recent complaints against cemented tires, describing a five-hour job with Pope Manufacturing Company cement and an alcohol lamp that held the tire fast through six months of riding over cobbles, ice and slush.
- A correspondent seconds A. S. Parsons's earlier letter on the business bicycle, reckoning that eighteen months of riding the three miles between home and business saved him over seventy dollars in railroad fares, on a machine painted black for work.