The Bicycling World, Vol 5, No 24
Articles in this issue
- Four members of the Manchester (N.H.) Club paid a fraternal visit to Milford's lone rider, J. P. Melzer, who showed them his collection of stuffed birds. The road to Bedford is about half sand and hills, while the north road via Amherst to Milford averages good for strong riders; the sandier south road was taken on the return.
- An editorial urging the L.A.W. board of officers, meeting in Boston today, to address the state, county, and sectional wheel organizations forming around the country, which threaten to swallow interest in the national League unless its officers and chief consuls keep in closer touch with clubs and consuls.
- The editors oppose proposed amendments to L.A.W. rules 25 and 26 on amateurs and professionals, adopted at the Chicago general meeting last May, arguing the changes would create laxity among wheelmen and lower bicycling's standing; the rules harmonise with those of the Bicycle Touring Club and National Athletic Association.
- A dissection of the contradictory figures Col. Albert A. Pope and Mr. Pratt gave the tariff commission about the cost of steel in a bicycle — Pope's answers imply a machine of over 136 pounds of steel or $102 in material against a $90 retail Columbia — concluding neither gentleman is qualified to represent wheelmen on the tariff.
- The Cincinnati Bi. Club elected Jos. F. Meader, Jr. president and W. A. Whiting captain; the Manchester (N.H.) Bicycle Club elected Park H. Kelley president and Clarence H. Wilkins captain, with Capt. W. V. Gilman of the Nashua Wheel Club as guest; the Roxbury Bicycle Club announces runs to Hingham, Wellesley, and Lexington.
- Race reports from Milwaukee's meeting at Janesville (Parker Sercombe won the mile in 3.50 and the five-mile; G. W. Dickens took the quarter-mile in 55 seconds), Harrisburg's professional handicaps between W. J. Morgan, Louise Armaindo, and H. Wilson, the Toronto Bicycle Club field meeting, Lewisburg, and briefs from Meriden, Berea, Haverhill, Sharon, Newark, Brockton, Northampton, Montreal, Hanover, and Elmira.
- Correspondent O. Downs Allison critiques current construction — tire fastening, deep U rims, rear cone and ball bearings, narrow tread — and calls for a better ball-bearing pedal, judging the Expert roller saddle-spring clip a humbug that wears flat in a week.
- "Chic" reports the Citizens' Club excursion to Boston was a triumph, with Doc. Beckwith dubbed "The Long-legged Venus"; the Ixion Club has booked a fifteen-mile road race for its club championship on election day, from 59th Street headquarters to the Peabody House at Yonkers, the first event of its kind in New York.
- "Steno" announces the Pullman Rowing and Athletic Association's new six-lap cinder track, opening 21 October with Chicago Bicycle Club entries including Conkling, Brown, and Philbrick; the Chicago Bicycle Club has declined to join the League of Chicago Wheelmen and voted to keep its old gray uniform.
- "Cyclos" attacks the L.A.W. racing rules' insistence on the standing start and ban on trotting rules as servile copying of English custom, urging the racing committee to permit the flying start — as used in the Buffalo races — and to class riders by record time instead of guesswork handicapping.
- E. M. Senseney, Chief Consul of Missouri, relates how the Missouri Bicycle Club of St. Louis joined the L.A.W. but never received the promised printed court decisions on wheelmen's road rights when sued after a buggy upset, nor a medal won at the Chicago meet, leaving over fifty St. Louis members doubting the League's efficiency.
- "Ixion" recounts a fifty-four-mile jaunt by the Jersey veterans Smith, Brown, and Jones from the 23d Street ferry up the Boulevard through Kingsbridge, Hastings, and Irvington to Tarrytown on the Tappan Zee, finding relentless hills, superb road near Tarrytown, and a dollar-apiece dinner at the wretched Vincent House.
- A description, from the Tricyclist, of the Dual open-fronted tricycle with two 42-inch drivers and an 18-inch rudder wheel, whose double set of cog wheels and lever-worked intermediate gears let the rider shift between a 50-inch gear for the level and a 34-inch gear for climbing; it weighs about ninety pounds.
- F. M. Gilley explains geared-level, geared-up, and geared-down tricycles and gives the formula for the resultant wheel — the driver diameter multiplied by the ratio of crank-shaft to driver gear teeth — with worked examples gearing a 50-inch driver down to 44 or up to 54 inches.
- A satirical acrostic poem whose initial letters spell out Albert A. Pope, mock-eulogising him as a foe of high tariffs whose everlasting cry is "Patents are lies"; it is signed "Not Bribed".
- Ten members of the Citizens' Bicycle Club of New York spent several days in Boston as guests of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club, riding under Capt. C. P. Shillaber through Cambridge, Arlington, Waltham, and the Newtons, being entertained at Col. A. A. Pope's residence, and dining at the Woodland Park Hotel at Auburndale on a forty-mile day run.
- Replies to correspondents: a subscriber in Athens, Ga. is told how to true a wheel by manipulating the spokes, and P. B. of Hamilton, Ohio learns that the Harvard, Premier, Yale, British Challenge, and Sanspareil are the favourite English machines among American riders.
- League membership notices and applications forwarded by corresponding secretary Kingman N. Putnam, including the Falls City Bi. Club of Louisville, Ky., additions to the Missouri Bi. Club of St. Louis, and the City Bi. Club of Brockton, Mass.; visiting wheelmen are invited to the Massachusetts Bicycle Club headquarters at 194 Columbus Avenue.
- In the makers' 24-hour road race for Facile safety bicycles from Anderton's Hotel, London, to Bath and back, W. A. Snook covered 218 miles to win the silver cup, passing Sutton and Vesey at Hungerford; twenty-six men started on 29-30 September, and some fifteen others earned medals for covering 128 miles.
- "London W." welcomes the League officials to Boston for the meeting, calls the roll of retired pioneers (Johnson, Stall, Dean, Gideon), salutes Brother Pitman's enduring enthusiasm, and pokes fun at the Pope tariff testimony and the visiting New York "Citizens".
- News paragraphs: the L.A.W. race meeting is at Beacon Park today with a Bicycling World silver cup for a five-mile race; John Keen announces he will soon visit America to again race Prince; a bicycle club is organising in Los Angeles; C. W. Nairn, London editor of the Cyclist, fractured his wrist in the Facile road race; and Capt. W. V. Gilman of the Nashua Wheel Club has averaged 150 miles a week.
- Full programme for the Fourth Annual Meet of Philadelphia Bicyclers on 26 October 1882, held with the Bicentennial Celebration: a grand meet and procession in Fairmount Park at 10 a.m., dinner at Belmont Mansion, and seven race events at the Gentlemen's Driving Park under L.A.W. sanction, with entries to G. D. Gideon and a hotel list for visiting clubs.