The Bicycling World, Vol 4, No 15
Articles in this issue
- Brief notes on cycling news: Louisville streets are too crowded for its cyclists, the round rubber tire was invented in America in 1859, the Nashua Wheel Club has issued a neat constitution card, and Milwaukee wheelmen are emerging from winter ice. The column also notes that Chicago cyclists showed notably large feet at a recent race.
- A whimsical column written in the voice of the bicycle's small rear wheel, which demands a hearing and observes riders from its position in the rear. Its splashes advise wheelmen to dress neatly to disarm public prejudice and to breathe through the nose rather than the mouth for faster, less fatiguing riding.
- Readers' queries, including one from "Ellsworth" of Newburyport asking four Worcester wheelmen — Biglow, Higgins, Hill, and Jones — who registered at a local hotel last summer, how much of an admired part-nickelled, part-red-painted machine was plated. Another correspondent asks "41" to send an address through which he may be reached.
- Editorial ahead of the annual League of American Wheelmen meeting urging revision of admission and retention rules, criticising the quiet "dropping" of members who fail to renew within twenty days. It proposes formal League clubs: a club admitting its entire active membership would enrol new riders at half the unattached rate and be responsible for per-capita dues, relieving the League secretary and securing prompter payment.
- Account of a 230-mile August triangular tour from New York to Poughkeepsie and New Haven, passing Sleepy Hollow's old Dutch church and Revolutionary breastworks, and stopping at Sing Sing where a carelessly boiled egg spoiled the new drink of egg and milk. The rider battles frightful roads over Shenandoah Mountain and in the Housatonic Valley, protests route No. 66 in Pratt's American Bicycler, and concludes the bicycle still beats tramping even where half the distance must be walked.
- Official report by "Ledger" of the four-day tournament under Prof. F. S. Rollinson at Louisville's Exposition Building, opening 2 February with a fancy drill by eight Kentucky Bicycle Club men under Capt. Henry Schimpeler and a three-mile race in which Mlle. Louise Armaindo beat Thomas Eck. Armaindo then held off Rollinson over twenty-five miles, and in the fifty-mile inter-club race Louisville's Charles Jenkins beat Chicago's Conkling and Miller in 3h. 25m. 38s. after Schimpeler was felled by a spectator crossing the track.
- A humorous poem by "f. w. b." of Worcester, Mass., recounting a club president's invitation to a Christmas dinner at his house, reached by a sharp hour's winter ride. After the rare spread, the captain recites the members' tallest cycling yarns — nineteen miles in an hour, a forty-mile ride without dismount — proposing the club elect a liar, whereupon the members unanimously vote for the captain himself.
- Letters include "Kanuck" on Montreal's winter, where the Bicycle Club dropped its winter riding hall and members take to snow-shoeing and tobogganing — D. D. McTaggart won a race to Peloquin's Hotel at Back River; "B." of Detroit continues the debate with "Ixion" over Invincible spokes breaking at the screw thread; an Iowa rider describes wheeling on Des Moines River ice to Bentonsport. Further letters cover the New Haven club's prize supper (Herman D. Clarke's championship medal), the Capital Bicycle Club's third anniversary in Washington with Mr. Milne's papier-mache cat, "Ellsworth's" Newburyport plan for an Essex County wheelmen's association, advice on choosing the right wheel size, and quiet times in Dayton, Ohio.
- Club news: officer elections at Rochester (W. H. Reid president, entire membership joining the L.A.W.), the New York Bicycle Club (Howard Conkling captain), and New Haven (M. F. Tyler president). The New York club's second annual dinner at Delmonico's honoured L.A.W. President Charles E. Pratt of Boston; the Boston Club adopted green and silver colors; and the Massachusetts Bicycle Club's third annual dinner at the Hotel Vendome featured speeches by President A. S. Parsons, Pratt, and Capt. Hodges.
- A description from the Louisville Commercial of the Chicago Bicycle Club's racing team: Capt. Thomas S. Miller, who rode from Boston to Chicago and mounts a 57-inch D. H. F. Premier; L. W. Conkling, the six-foot-three "Senator" on a 60-inch wheel; and secretary Burley B. Ayers, holder of excellent long-distance records. All are prominent young business men contesting only for the managers' gold medal.
- League of American Wheelmen membership notices and applications published by corresponding secretary Kingman N. Putnam, including the Marblehead Bicycle Club's full roster under president Joel E. Goldthwait, D. R. Craig of the Keokuk Bicycle Club, and two unattached riders from Marshall, Mich. L. H. Shepard is appointed consul at Sharon, Massachusetts.
- John S. Prince, styling himself Bicycling Champion of America, challenges F. S. Rollinson — lately beaten by Louise Armaindo at Louisville — offering him forty seconds' start in a ten-mile race, any other American a minute in ten miles, and Armaindo five miles in fifty. Stakes of $50 to $100 a side, to be raced at the New England Institute Building track in Boston.
- Race fixtures: the Manhattan Athletic Club's mile bicycle handicap at Madison Square Garden on 23 February (entries to F. J. Graham), and a free-entry twenty-five-mile race at the St. Louis Amphitheatre fair grounds on Washington's birthday under the Missouri Bicycle Club.