The Bicycling World, Vol 4, No 16
Articles in this issue
- Brief notes reporting that the New York Bicyclers' Ball on Monday evening was not a success, that the Pope Manufacturing Company has changed its advertisement, and that Boston Bicycle Club members enjoyed a musical and literary entertainment in their parlors. Dealers and manufacturers report good business prospects for the coming season.
- Leader urging Boston's local wheelmen to stage an afternoon bicycle tournament in the Institute Fair building on the Fast Day holiday, noting the 14 January races there were unremunerative and that J. S. Prince's challenges promise professional contests with Rollinson, the Harrisons, and Miss Armaindo. Follow-on editorial paragraphs condemn jockeying by well-known racing men and hold up the Bicycle Touring Club's consul system, praised in its February Gazette, as a model L.A.W. members fail to use.
- Reprinted narrative from the Cyclist by E. R. Shipton of London, chief consul of the Bicycle Touring Club, describing how as a commercial traveller he carried his 53-inch bicycle around the country by slinging it in straps beneath his phaeton after railway companies doubled carriage rates. He recounts rejecting the Carpet-Bag Bicycle, lengthening his dog-cart axle to fit a 56-inch wheel, and covering nearly 5,000 miles this way without a mishap.
- Reports from Harvard, Abington, Rutland, Stoneham, Shawmut, and Star clubs, with a standing notice requesting all club secretaries to furnish the paper with coming races, meets, runs, and social meetings. Clubs report on officers elected, winter riding activities, and plans for the spring season.
- Letters debating the location of the 1882 L.A.W. Annual Meet: the Capital Bicycle Club of Washington writes that holding the meet there would give it the representative character it has hitherto lacked and that the club will send a delegation to Chicago regardless, not by rail. A Poughkeepsie correspondent describes hiring a hall with thirty laps to the mile for winter riding, while an English club member defends English cycling roads and the scenery of the Lake District, Kenilworth, and the Avon valley.
- Humor column by "Small Wheel" quipping that cinder tracks, like cats, never run away, lamenting forecasts that outdoor racing will end when the Driving Association releases its hold on Beacon Park, and joking that the Star bicycle has been Saturn by the fraternity ever since. Includes a bullfrog fable about touring and a suggestion that distributing bicycles to suburban dwellers would beat building the elevated road.
- "Josephus" of Norfolk, Virginia, asks the best route for a bicycle trip taking in Liverpool, Coventry, and London, and is referred to A. D. Chandler's "A Bicycle Tour in England". A Vincennes, Indiana, correspondent signing "Scrub" asks why the bicycle step is placed on the left side rather than the right, and another note records Mr. Joseph Pollock riding fifteen or twenty feet on his front wheel before racing to a doctor's office to have his index finger set.
- Reviews of the March Century, with its W. D. Howells portrait by Boston Bicycle Club member F. P. Vinton and illustrations by Germantown Club bicycler Jo. Pennell; the Cyclist and Wheel World Annual, praised for its English road routes, racing record, and Henry Sturmey's illustrated paper on monocycles; the March St. Nicholas; and the Christmas number of the Bicycling Times, sold by the Cunningham Company.
- F. S. Rollinson, styling himself Professional Champion of America, answers J. S. Prince's challenge from Cincinnati, offering to meet him on equal terms in a ten-mile race for the professional championship of America. He will be in Boston within three weeks and will cover any amount from $50 to $100 placed with the World as stakeholder and referee.
- Mlle. L. Armaindo, Champion Bicyclienne of the World, writing from Cincinnati, accepts John Prince's challenge to all professional bicyclists but asks six miles' start rather than the five offered in a fifty-mile match race. She proposes stakes of $100 to $250 a side, the race to take place in Boston within six weeks.