The Cycle, Vol 1, No 5
Articles in this issue
- The Cycle analyses a proposal to create an intermediate class of riders, neither amateur nor professional, concluding that it would not remove the advertising value from amateur racing because manufacturers could still pay riders through salaries, partnerships, or cycle dealerships. The editors recommend coupling the proposal with a rule excluding all makers, dealers, and their employees from amateur races.
- Chief Consul Ducker visited Boston to finalise arrangements for the L.A.W. Meet of 27–29 May, expecting 5,000 wheelmen from every State; details are given of the reception, race programme at the Union Grounds, entertainment, hotels, and the parade route down Commonwealth Avenue.
- A reader signing as "Maud" responds to an earlier suggestion by "Daisie" about a uniform for lady cyclists, noting that a single style cannot suit all figures and that a plain skirt appropriate on the machine looks unsuitable on a tall woman walking in a room.
- Several readers submit competing solutions to a previously posed arithmetic puzzle about a man who buys and sells the same bicycle twice, arriving at profits ranging from $5 to $25 depending on interpretation; one reader humorously enumerates all the costs of ownership to show a net loss.
- The paper publishes the full result of the Massachusetts Division L.A.W. election, listing vote totals for Chief Consul and fourteen Representatives; Henry E. Ducker of Springfield was elected Chief Consul with 394 votes.
- Correspondent "Spokes" reports a boom in bicycling in Chicago, with dealers and manufacturers unable to keep up with orders; he visits Gormully & Jeffery, the Columbia agents, and the Star representative, and comments on the makers'-amateurs controversy.
- The Cycle praises the new road-book issued by the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland Divisions of the L.A.W., compiled by H. S. Wood and others, covering 20,000 miles of routes with road maps and given free to members of the sponsoring divisions.
- A dispatch from Melbourne dated 3 March reports that Con Dwyer, the one-mile tricycle champion of Victoria, attempted to beat the one-mile tricycle record under the auspices of the Victorian Cyclists Union, with his times compared to English and American records.
- The Springfield Bicycle Club's formal letter to L.A.W. President Beckwith protests the Racing Board's suspension of McGarrett, Hendee, and Westervelt, arguing that failure to answer questions is not proof of guilt and requesting that specific charges with proof be supplied before members are expelled.
- A contributor signing as "Daisie" reflects on how cycling has brought her to a quiet country mansion where she befriended an elderly woman whose life story — courtship, marriage, eleven children, and the quiet death of her husband just before their golden wedding — she recounts with affection.
- "The Historian" of the Record contributes a series of short humorous anecdotes about wheelmen: a vain cyclist outdone by a country girl's innocent wit, a wheelman offered milk alongside calves, and a Westerner puzzled by Boston's street signs reading "Dangerous Passing."
- A New Jersey correspondent presents a string of brief observations in a gently boastful tone: the division ranks fourth in L.A.W. membership, will soon have the best road-book ever issued, and expects a new half-mile race track to rival Springfield's.
- Correspondent "Stamford" describes early-spring club riding in Connecticut, noting that members on stiff-spring ordinaries are slow to start, while one officer rides comfortably year-round on an unstated machine; he paints a lyrical picture of a favourite road skirting a brook.
- In a letter dated Teheran, 9 March 1886, Thomas Stevens announces his departure eastward the next morning on his bicycle tour around the world, planning a route through Meshed, Merv, Bokhara, Samarkand, and Tashkend into Siberia, with the Russian minister having arranged for official obstacles to be removed.
- A miscellany column of short notes, jokes, and observations: a comic poem "'Twas a Funny Thing" describing a country family's encounter with a bicycle; remarks on tandems and sociables; news of the Humber patent dispute; and cycling anecdotes from Boston and elsewhere.
- A directory of bicycle club officers across America, covering clubs from Bay City, Mich., to San Francisco, Cal., listing presidents, secretaries, treasurers, and captains; the editors invite every club secretary to submit a postal-card return for a complete national listing.
- Racing results from the fifty-mile road race at Clarksville, Mo. (won by Weber in 3:07:42½), and a contested fifty-mile indoor race at Minneapolis between Prince and Woodside; upcoming race meetings at Binghamton, the Madison Square Garden, and other venues are also noted.
- Brief trade notes report that W. W. Stall expects to hire out about a hundred machines for the League Meet, that the Rudge Safety is improved for 1886 with double ball-bearings, and that Pope Manufacturing's nickel-plating process has proved durable over four years of use.