The Cycle, Vol 1, No 19
Articles in this issue
- The Board of Officers has issued mail ballots on two resolutions: Call No. 1 to restore suspended promateurs as amateurs, and Call No. 2 to have the League abandon racing entirely; The Cycle argues both are now redundant since the A.C.U. has provided an outlet for the racing men and no good reason remains to surrender the League's racing authority.
- The Cycle quotes Wheeling's concern that G. P. Mills, aged twenty, slept only six hours in five days beating the Land's End to John o'Groat's record, and argues that such feats of pure physical endurance teach dangerous lessons and risk permanent damage to young riders.
- A noted yachtsman warns that if professionals enter yacht racing they will drag the sport to their level just as has happened in athletics, and urges yachtsmen to keep the sport clean before it needs cleansing — drawing a direct parallel to cycling's own amateur controversy.
- League president Bates is acknowledged as dissatisfied with current management and desiring radical changes, but The Cycle argues the Board of Officers already functions like a representative congress with proxies available to even distant divisions, and that a published agenda would improve attendance.
- The column's editor steps aside for a week and gives the floor to contemporary lady writers on cycling, including Violet Lorne on baby tricycle carriages in Southampton, advice on suitable dress and skirt lengths for lady tricyclists, and a correspondent's defence of early-morning and evening riding in hot weather.
- President Bates writes to the Contributors' Club arguing that the L.A.W. is an impractical hodge-podge governed by bureaucracy rather than its members, and proposes replacing the annual mass meeting with an elected annual congress of state delegates with paid expenses and full legislative powers.
- Prof. C. H. McLeod of McGill University has invented an electrical timing apparatus tried successfully at Montreal races, using a clock-driven cylinder chronograph that records each rider's finishing time to the hundredth of a second via wire contacts at start and finish.
- The Canadian Wheelmen's Association membership committee expelled two members and stripped three others of amateur standing after they competed at a Hagersville race offering money prizes.
- Sacramento wheelmen organised a club, engaged the press, and persuaded the directors of a riverside turnpike road to open it to cyclists at a ten-cent toll, reversing a long-standing ban enforced by a belligerent gatekeeper.
- At a special board meeting on 25 July the New York State Division passed three resolutions opposing the proposed amendments to strip the L.A.W. by-laws of all racing provisions, and sustaining the president's removal of the Massachusetts chief consul.
- A miscellany of short cycling notes including a humorous poem about a bicycle lesson that leads to a marriage proposal, and brief items on champions, the Connecticut Bicycle Club programme, a fatal header by an English manufacturer, and Dan Canary's extended English engagements.
- Racing results from the Montreal Bicycle Club handicap road race to Valois, the opening of the Elmira Bicycle Club's new four-lap track, and upcoming race meetings of the Harlem Wheelmen and the New Jersey Cycling and Athletic Association.
- G. Gatehouse rode two miles on a tricycle in 5 min. 57⅖ sec. (best on record) at London on 15 July; Mecredy won the 25-mile N.C.U. tricycle championship at Alexandra Park; and an unverifiable claim that Berridge covered twenty miles within the hour on a Rover Safety is dismissed.
- Club news covering the Bay City Wheelmen's semi-annual election in San Francisco, Denver's club growing to ninety-three members after abolishing the initiation fee, and the New Britain Bicycle Club's newly elected officers.
- Calendar of upcoming cycling events from August through October 1886, including the Iowa Division tour, the Connecticut Bicycle Club meet at Hartford, the Springfield tournament, the Lynn Track Association fall tournament, and the St. Louis illuminated parade and interstate meet.