The Bicycling World, Vol 5, No 11
Articles in this issue
- The 'Answers to Correspondents' column fields queries on slow-racing rules (G.R.W., Newton Lower Falls, Mass.), a proposed Hamilton, Ont.-to-Boston tour and its road and hotel options (J.H. Eager), racing-rule clarifications for readers in Xenia, Ohio and Springfield, Mass., and a Canton, Pa. correspondent's question about the Overman Wheel Company's new enamelling process.
- Notes that F.S. Rollinson is about to sail for England and J.S. Prince is now employed at the bicycle rink in the Institute Fair building; other items cover S. Dexter of the Hermes Bicycle Club summering near Boston, Wm. C. Scribner of Washington visiting the office, Capt. E.C. Delevan of the Staten Island Bicycle Club touring New England roads, John Harrington of London instructing the Overman Wheel Company in enamelling, and A.H. Forbush's 40-mile pre-breakfast ride from Boston to Grafton and back through Hopkinton.
- Editorial urging bicyclers to dress neatly and appropriately when riding — a well-cut coat, breeches and stockings of matching dark or gray shade, a small turned or celluloid collar, and shined shoes — arguing a well-dressed wheelman commands more respect than one who rides in ordinary trousers.
- Club news round-up: the Nutmeg Bicycle Club reorganizes as the Hartford Amateur Bicycle Club; the Albany and Troy clubs make a joint Gala Day excursion to Cobleskill, N.Y.; wheelmen at Topeka form the Kansas Bicycle Union; Chicago's captain T.S. Miller resigns owing to an injured arm and Ed F. Brown is elected in his place; a new Staten Island Bicycle Club organizes under Capt. E.C. Delevan; the reorganized Peoria Bicycle Club elects C.F. Vail president; the Lowell Bicycle Club makes its first extended run, to Gloucester via Manchester-by-the-Sea; and the Kentucky Bicycle Club plans a benefit for fifty-mile road champion Charles H. Jenkins.
- Race reports from around the country: the Lawrence Bicycle Club's Independence Day meet; a Pastime Park, Philadelphia meet where Louise Armaindo beats W.J. Morgan and T.W. Eck; races at Selma, Iowa and the Baltimore fifty-mile road championship, won by Charles H. Jenkins of the Kentucky Bicycle Club; the Cleveland Bicycle Club's postponed race day, with A.S. Hathaway winning the slow race and half-mile spurt; a dispute over R.S. Codman's disputed quarter-mile record; and the Bicycle Union's amateur championships at Aston Lower Grounds, Birmingham, England.
- A Toledo correspondent ('Corn City') details two Detroit-area touring routes — Detroit to Orchard Lake via Royal Oak, Birmingham and Pontiac, and Detroit to Mount Clemens via Woodward Avenue and the Utica road — with turn-by-turn surface notes, and outlines a planned two-week, roughly 700-mile tour through Michigan, Indiana and Ohio via Toledo, Detroit, Flint, Saginaw, Fort Wayne and Xenia.
- W. Inans of the Xenia Bicycle Club reports a complaint to Little Miami Railway superintendent Ralph Peters over baggage men charging extra fare for bicycles, noting the League is investigating on behalf of the Cincinnati, Columbus, Xenia, Dayton and Springfield clubs.
- A Manchester, N.H. correspondent ('Scribe') surveys road conditions around the city with consuls W.H. Chase and C.H. Wilkins, rating the routes toward North Weare, Nashua and Lawrence (via Derry, Salem and Methuen) as 'fair to good' apart from bad sand near Methuen, and proposes 'fp' as a standard road-sign abbreviation for foot-path.
- 'Vedette' of Louisville, Ky. answers wheelmen who doubt the L.A.W.'s worth, arguing that, like any organized society, cycling needs enforceable rules to keep the sport respectable, and that increased membership rather than the League's youth explains its still-modest resources.
- 'Geesee' of Marblehead, Mass. clarifies an earlier editorial: the two bicyclers who dodged the gatekeeper's fare and rode along the beach at Point of Pines were strangers met at Revere Beach, not members of the Marblehead Bicycle Club, whose riders she vouches have never been found wanting in courtesy.
- Henry E. Ducker of Springfield, Mass. proposes that League consuls agree a maximum prize value for one-mile and five-mile amateur races to curb runaway spending, citing the Springfield Bicycle Club's $700 in July 4th prizes and the jump from one bicycle in the city on 1 July to two by September as proof cycling is booming.
- A Pittsburg correspondent (signed '1097'), replying further on the prize-value debate, invokes the laurel-wreath prizes of the ancient Pythian games as a precedent for modest awards, and brushes off the Chicago Tribune's mocking 'aesthetic athlete' jibe at the League.
- 'Kanuck' recounts the Montreal Bicycle Club's excursion, led by Capt. H.S. Tibbs, of twenty-one riders to Quebec by boat on 30 June, where they were hosted by Capt. Campbell's Quebec Bicycle Club with a parade and drill on Dufferin Terrace, a dinner at the St. Louis Hotel, and a visit to Montmorenci Falls.
- The Quincy Bicycle Club (two clubs, over 60 riders) rode to Dedham for Sunday dinner; the Marbleheaders made a wheel trip to Manchester; Wellesley College ladies have taken up tricycling; the Citizens' Club of Gotham took an all-day run; and Lincoln Park in Chicago has been opened to wheelmen.
- The Alpha Tricycle Club of Newton formed on 11 July with eight members including several ladies — among them J.W. Carter, James R. Carter, and Melvil Dui, secretary of the American Library Association; the club plans to import an English Club Sociable; the new Tricyclist journal by Lacy Hillier is reviewed; and E.F. Bixby suffered a tricycling accident on Columbus Avenue.
- General League of American Wheelmen membership information (dues, admission via Cor. Sec. Kingman N. Putnam) followed by new Applications for membership from the Marblehead, Missouri, Kankakee, Zanesville, Peoria, Newton, Worcester, Lancaster and Hackensack Bicycle Clubs, a list of unattached members, and corrections to previously published names.
- Corresponding Secretary Kingman N. Putnam's recruiting appeal urging every amateur bicycler to join the League of American Wheelmen, citing its influence in obtaining fair treatment from railroads and officials, its rules governing races, and its more than 2,500 members.
- Second instalment of a White Mountains, N.H. cycling tour, giving turn-by-turn road conditions from Franconia past the Profile House, Franconia Notch and Flume House to Bethlehem, the Fabyan and Crawford Houses, Upper Bartlett, Glen Station and Jackson; closes with notes that Hon. I. Keith Falconer rode 994 miles from Land's End to John o' Groats in under 13 days, and that Boston Bicycle Club delegate Frank W. Weston sails for the Touring Club meet at Harrogate, England.