L. A. W. Bulletin and Good Roads, Vol 24, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Reader letters on railroads and steamboats and their bicycle charges, including F.M. Smith of Chester, PA on routing freight via free-carrying lines, John Melvin on the Plymouth Line and Nantasket Line boats, H.O. Folger reproducing New York canal tow-path instructions from Supt. Geo. W. Aldridge, and a Bradford writer urging Pennsylvania wheelmen to shun the Erie Railroad.
- The editor reviews the 1896 L.A.W. annual Meet in Louisville, praising Gen. Castleman's bicycle parade, the watermelon feast at the Iroquois Club House, the steamboat excursion on the Ohio, the races, and the Kentucky hosts' hospitality as the League's greatest Meet yet.
- The L.A.W. membership committee, meeting at Louisville's Galt House on Aug. 14, expelled F.J. Tinsdale for conduct detrimental to the League after he misrepresented the organisation before the New York senate committee on the Armstrong Bill.
- The editor argues that Portsmouth, VA's proposed $1 annual bicycle tax is unjust because bicycles cause negligible road wear compared to steel-shod horses and narrow-tired drays, which should each be taxed at least $1,000 by the same logic.
- The Pennsylvania Railroad's general manager has issued a circular directing employees to handle bicycles carefully and treat passengers courteously, which the editor greets with ironic celebration while noting wheels are still not carried free.
- Dr. S.A. Defoe of San Diego describes the 63-mile wheel ride from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon across the Colorado plateau, praising the hard smooth road and the canyon's Titanic chasms, and announcing an L.A.W. tourist trip planned for late August.
- Quoting Joseph B. Bishop's July Forum article, the editor argues that the bicycle's greatest contribution is forcing demand for scientifically built roads, and predicts the day when a rider may wheel from New York to San Francisco over smooth highways.
- Rev. John F. Clymer of Troy's State Street Methodist Church argues in a sermon excerpt that the bicycle is a medium of health, an instrument of democratic equality accessible to women as well as men, and a mechanical emblem of divine life and progress.
- The local Cycle Board of Trade reports that fifteen dealers have shifted $15,000 of freight and express business away from railroads charging excess bicycle rates, routing it instead to the B&O, Reading Railroad, and U.S. Express Company.
- The editor reprints the Boston & Bangor Steamship Co.'s folder charging $1 per bicycle per trip and calls it short-sighted, noting that most up-to-date steamboat companies now advertise bicycles carried free.
- Col. F.V. Greene of New York City reviews bituminous paving materials — including French, German, Cuban, and Trinidad asphalts — covering their properties, extraction, refining, and use in street pavements, sidewalks, and waterproofing structures such as New York's High Bridge arch.
- The editor argues that proper cycling posture — sitting upright with saddle high enough for full leg extension and maximum ankle flexion — is both more graceful and more healthful than the hunched scorch position, illustrated with a verse by Robert Grant.
- Reports the founding of the Logan Wheel Club of Altoona, PA, led by Pennsylvania Railroad officials including master mechanic G.W. Strattan and assistant medical examiner Dr. D.M. Easter, with the aim of protecting wheelmen's highway rights and lobbying for good roads.
- H.N. Francis argues that individual complaints about road conditions are ineffective and calls on wheelmen to form local organisations to press for highway improvement, citing a Rhode Island town where organised civic groups achieved major progress in public schools and highways.
- George Appleton of Providence recounts how cyclometers turned family bicycle rides into a competitive mile-recording race, with his son catching him fraudulently winding up the counter and the whole family ending up compromising on fictitious learning-to-ride miles.
- Benj. H. Glover of Chicago explains the correct way to clean a bicycle chain with gasoline and oil it sparingly at the joints — not along the whole length — and advises keeping each link freely articulated to minimise friction.
- D.G. Hogarth, the first man to take a bicycle into Upper Egypt, describes riding across desert camel paths, pebbly stretches, dust-covered rock, wind-blown sand waves, and salt pans at a pace far exceeding any four-footed Egyptian beast.
- J.A.S. Redfield of Lockport, NY suggests road-book corrections for the Albany-to-Niagara route based on two trips in June 1896, recommending the north side of the Mohawk from Schenectady to Herkimer and the road parallel to the railroad from Newark to Rochester.
- Deputy-Secretary John Hamilton of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture condemns road supervisors who build roads high at the sides and depressed in the middle, making drainage impossible, and warns farmers that continued mismanagement will see road work taken out of their hands.
- The L.A.W. official listing of 1896-97 officers — President Sterling Elliott, Secretary Abbot Bassett, and Treasurer E.S. Hartwell — together with the standing committees (Membership, Rights and Privileges, Racing Board, Transportation, Highway Improvement) and the full roster of state and territorial Division officers from Alabama to Wyoming.
- The L.A.W. Racing Board lists riders suspended for false entries, unfair dealing, and unsanctioned and Sunday races across New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Oregon, and Kansas, those transferred to the professional class, the debarring of trainer "Choppy" Warburton, and sanctions granted for race meets nationwide.
- Short official notices from the divisions, including a $25 theft-reward order from New York Chief Consul Isaac B. Potter, Indiana Chief Consul Wallace Sherwood's appointment of vice consul Walter B. Hassan, a Pennsylvania nominating committee, and a complete Oregon Division roster of officers, committees, local consuls, and League hotels.
- The state-by-state list of applications for membership published under Article III, totalling 860 new names from Arkansas to Wisconsin, alongside Chief Consul Isaac B. Potter's notice to New York members about delayed road books, road maps, the honor badge, and fraudulent "L.A.W. Headquarters" hotel signs.
- The editor's replies to reader queries — on bicycle collecting, the bloomer question, posture, and route publication — followed by the "Is It Dangerous?" letter on cooling the head with water while riding and C.A. Hall's gasoline method for washing a blue-and-white sweater.