The Bicycling World, Vol 8, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The lead editorial argues that no stock bicycle can suit every rider, since crank length, tire size, wheel weight and handlebar reach all need to be fitted to the individual much as a tailor fits a suit.
- A Chicago dispatch reports the St. Nicholas Toy Company reducing Capt. Brown's ungainly 60-inch Expert to a 16-inch trailing wheel, plus notes on Fred Smith's illness and the Chicago Bicycle Club's new clubhouse social and Thanksgiving hare-and-hounds chase, won by Van Sicklen.
- Civil engineer Sylvanus Butler's sworn certificate, made at the request of the New Haven Bicycle Club, remeasures the Hamilton Park trotting track and certifies it at 2,640½ feet under the League's eighteen-inch-from-pole standard.
- Springfield Bicycle Club member Henry E. Ducker rebuts criticism of the Hampden Park track's measurement from the September tournament and argues the L.A.W.'s new eighteen-inch-from-pole standard is unworkable on tracks with picket fences.
- Harvard Bicycle Club president Eliot Norton forwards a National Cyclists' Union official's letter warning that rider Robinson may have risked his amateur status in England by racing under L.A.W. rules.
- A Woodstown, New Jersey correspondent signing "Squeezicks" recounts local club doings around Woodstown and Salem, including a rider's chin-first header, a new riding school, and a visit from the Germantown 'Cycling Club.
- Karl Kron recounts his 1,422-mile solo tour from Detroit to Staunton, Virginia, completed over forty days and ending on the macadamized turnpike at Natural Bridge on 22 November.
- A miscellany column opening with Faed's comic verse "Boys" and running through brief items on C. A. Palmer's cyclists' autograph album, a group photo of the Chicago six-day race's professionals, and John N. Pearsons' New Hampshire road record.
- Signed "Ixion," a detailed 300-mile road test of the Rucker tricycle imported by the Cunningham Company, praising its low steering, Bown's ball bearings, Starley's balance gear and Britain's two-speed gearing.
- Philadelphia tailors resolve that members should appear in knickerbockers at their next trade convention and banquet, following the lead of a Chicago delegate who wore knee breeches.
- A roundel "after Swinburne" celebrating the bicycle, part of the paper's recurring cycling-verse feature of the same name.
- Henry W. Williams's monthly digest of new U.S. bicycle and tricycle patents, including Sharock and Snell's two-speed tricycle gear and Kirkpatrick's bifurcated saddle-tree.
- Race results from the Cincinnati Bicycle Club's fall meeting, the Olympic Athletic Club in San Francisco, the League of Champions' Denver exhibition featuring Eck, Rollinson, Prince, Higham and Armaindo, and club races at Merchantville, Pennsylvania.
- Club news roundup covering the Hamilton College and Utica Bicycle Clubs' joint Thanksgiving banquet, the Keystone Bicycle Club's Pittsburgh dinner, and meeting notes from the Marblehead, Wakefield, Boston, Thorndike and Star bicycle clubs.
- C.T.C. chief consul Frank W. Weston's notices on membership dues, the eighth annual meet at Harrogate, Yorkshire in August 1884, and new applicants from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
- The editor answers correspondents' questions about gearing and club reports, and asks for the addresses of trick riders Louise Armaindo and Elsa Von Blumen.