The Bicycling World, Vol 9, No 24
Articles in this issue
- Editorial urging American manufacturers to reduce tricycle weight from the current 100–110 lbs to around 80 lbs, arguing that lighter machines would attract light riders and ladies and grow the market. Notes an English front-leading racer's surprise win at the Metropolitan track as evidence that lightness matters.
- Short editorial notes on the effort to appoint James G. Lathrop as trainer for Harvard athletics, the outcome of the Weber 100-mile road race protest (check-taker absence; Weber's route confirmed), and the inequity of C.T.C. American members' annual dues going entirely to the English headquarters.
- First-person account by a novice rider of a solo day tour on a 54-inch Standard Columbia, covering machine preparation, multiple roadside repairs (bent handlebar, buckled rim, broken saddle spring improvised with a rubber wringer strip, loose bearings), and the resourcefulness required to complete the journey despite repeated mishaps.
- Fred Jenkins rebuts Treasurer H. S. Kidder's renewed accusation over eleven Albany Bicycle Club members' League fees, naming the individual applicants and detailing how the money was forwarded to League Treasurer W. V. Gilman and New York State Division secretary Benjamin G. Sanford, and offering Kidder $250 to prove any impropriety.
- Fred Jenkins responds to the Bicycling World's report that he refused to warn N.A.A.A.A. championship contestants their races were not run under League rules; he recounts being turned away by N.A.A.A.A. president Mr. Badeau at the Williamsburgh meeting and argues it would be a disgrace to the League to disqualify the three racers over the mix-up.
- Harold Serrell, representative of the New Jersey Division, L.A.W., announces a new three-section (Northern, Middle, Southern) parchment road map of the state, priced at fifty cents per section, available from Dr. G. Carleton Brown, Serrell himself, and William J. Morrison, with custom route-marking offered for an extra fee benefiting the division treasury.
- F. A. Elwell's enthusiastic letter proposing Bermuda as an ideal winter cycling destination, praising the island's smooth roads, mild climate, and compact scale, and urging American wheelmen to organise a touring party to the islands.
- List of recently issued U.S. bicycle and tricycle patents compiled by patent solicitor Henry W. Williams of Boston, including a tension-wheel patent to Samuel T. Williams, velocipede patents to E. T. and D. Higham and Edgar E. Sell, a bicycle-support patent to Edmond Redmond, a steering-bar patent to Abram G. Powell, and a bicycle lantern-holder patent to Chester C. Richardson.
- Reprinted correspondence from The Cyclist debating spoke design after a rider's frequent breakages, weighing direct-screwed against lock-nutted and 'laced' spokes; respondent 'Faed' draws on the failures of several laced-spoke tricycles and a Humber tandem to argue that direct, butt-ended spokes are strongest, with a postscript on using two spoke-grips to avoid twisting during adjustment.
- Miscellaneous editorial notes on cycling affairs, club events, and personalities in the final weeks of the 1884 season.
- Race results from the week of 17 October 1884, covering amateur and professional events at various tracks across New England and the mid-Atlantic states.
- Club news from around the country, including autumn social events, officer elections, and plans for the off-season.
- Cyclists' Touring Club American Division news, including danger-sign fund progress and reports from divisional correspondents.
- Editorial answers to reader questions on machine maintenance, League rules, and touring equipment.