The Cycle, Vol 2, No 17
Articles in this issue
- Daisie collects final 1886 mileage reports from lady cyclists including a Traveller-tandem rider first to Magnolia on the North Shore tour, the Baroness of Lynn who completed the Cape Ann circuit solo, and correspondents from Somerville and Maplewood who rode 600–848 miles; she closes the column by noting her own modest 500-mile season.
- Hugh Callan recounts hair-raising episodes from years of cycling across Europe and the Near East — runaway descents in Austria and Switzerland, horse stampedes in Hungary and Serbia, arrest on the Servian-Turkish frontier, riding through a Greek earthquake, and a snowstorm ride from Ayr to Glasgow — winning a Tit-Bits prize for best cycling story.
- Charles J. Scherer of Memphis, a Civil War veteran who rode 4,859 miles in 1886, disputes the pedal-mount technique described in the previous issue and sets out a detailed safe method with step-by-step hand, foot, and body positions that he says carries the rider into the saddle in thirteen feet with no risk of a header.
- A correspondent reports winter cycling club news from Brooklyn: the Kings County Wheelmen plan a pool tournament and new headquarters near Bedford and Fulton avenues, the Brooklyn Bicycle Club has formed tobogganing and skating sub-clubs, and Dr. Brush's statistical survey of the club's sixty-five members records a combined 1886 mileage of 55,743 miles with A. B. Barkman topping the list at 8,086.
- A miscellany column mixing short verse (the three-verse song "Wheeling" set to the air "Sailing"), brief jokes and puns, and news notes including Louise Armaindo's illness after a six-day race, Ralph Friedberg joining the American team for Europe, and Charles Hopkins of Wellington's new purpose-built tricycle house.
- Captain Walter Collins of the Sun Star Club of Cleveland reports the club's 1886 riding record of 1,359 miles over 32 runs, with H. E. Chubb making 27 of them, and describes three club tours including a 300-mile trip through Canada in September.
- The Bellville Intelligencer reprints a humorous account of two Ramblers who attached stiff brushes to their bicycle forks to try cycling on frozen bay ice; both ended in falls, prompting tongue-in-cheek safety advice to carry feather beds and charter a handcar instead.
- A brief notice reports the upcoming annual stockholders' meeting of The Cunningham Company — the firm credited with introducing cycling to America — and speculates that despite being currently inactive it may yet revive its Harvard and Gale machines.
- W. M. Woodside and W. J. Morgan, joined by fancy-rider Ralph Friedberg, will sail for Britain on the Belgravia 5 February to tour famous English tracks; a farewell athletic and trick-cycling exhibition is announced for Columbia Rink, Boston, 22 January.
- N. L. Collamer's prize-style cycling story tells how law clerk Will Buckley persuades May Manning onto a Humber tandem, the brake snaps on a steep hill above a washed-out bridge, and Will drags himself off the machine to slow it with his body — saving May's life and winning her love in the process.
- Delegates from Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois meet St. Louis representatives to finalise plans for the L.A.W. annual meet on 20–21 May: a Mississippi River excursion to Montesano Springs on the Friday, a parade to Forest Park and grand banquet at the Lindell on the Saturday, with a road race at Clarksville the following Monday.
- The Missouri Club's executive committee declines the Ramblers' membership application on a charter technicality, prompting a heated Ramblers' meeting in which Al Stewart was accused of misleading the club and retorted that the American Wheelman had published falsehoods.
- Officer election results for several clubs: Thomaston Cycle Club (3 January), Chicago Club (11 January, with R. Philip Gormully as president), the Columbia Bicycle Club, and the Boscobel Bicycle Club of Lynn.