The Cycle, Vol 2, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The Cycle refutes Fred Wood's complaint that he was fined without notice for loafing at Springfield, documenting that the dressing-room clerk notified him and the referee warned him twice on track. The paper also details how Wood broke his pre-race agreement with Rowe to share the pace in the final championship heat.
- Responding to the rival World's charge that the League stays idle while the A.C.U. fails to enforce its rules, The Cycle argues the League would not have been passive had similar violations occurred on the path, and notes certain riders who competed under A.C.U. rules would have faced scrutiny under League rules.
- A comic short story in which the roguish but charming tramp James Brown Bartlum turns up destitute at his wealthy uncle Theophilus Brown's Boston mansion and, over two months, manoeuvres the irascible old man into accepting Walter Hayman's suit for Isabel's hand. The tale satirises the "makers' amateur" system through Bartlum's cheerful confession that he has made a living breaking records for bicycle manufacturers.
- Cycling correspondent reports from New Haven on recent club runs to Milford and Waterbury, the New Haven Bicycle Club's membership growth, William Wait's marriage, and Dr. Ruickoldt's serious bicycle accident resulting in a broken forearm. H. C. Backus's two century road runs are also noted.
- Obituary for Arthur Cunningham, 56, a pioneer Boston bicycle importer who died after taking a header from his bicycle on Lake Street, Brighton, with peritonitis setting in three days later. A correspondent writing to the Herald argues the accident was caused less by cycling than by Cunningham's pre-existing rupture, poor health, near-sightedness, and his decision to walk a mile and a half home and clean his machine before seeking medical attention.
- A cycling club member, Bob Gorman, recounts being caught on a high railroad trestle at night when a train approached, running for his life in the dark and jumping clear just as the engine reached him. He landed in bushes at the edge of a swamp, was found by the train crew, and was carried to Shadyville with no injury beyond a bent handlebar on his wheel.
- The regular miscellany column opens with a poem, "Tricycling," describing a romantic autumn tandem ride with Jenny on a Humber, followed by a November note on the approaching end of the cycling season and the shift to club balls and whist tournaments. Briefs follow on: the six-day race at Minneapolis; Fred Palmer's Ohio road record of 162 miles; F. F. Ives challenging Whittaker; Geo. Singer promising a sturdier road wheel; N.C.U. amateur-rule debates; a Norwegian lawyer's bequest to buy bicycles for schoolchildren; and other short items.
- A participant's account of the final stages of the ladies' second annual tricycle tour, riding from Gloucester to Newburyport against a howling gale and then back to Boston the next day. Incidents include a lady's dress caught in the gearing for nearly an hour, a broken tandem axle that sent a couple into a stone wall bank, and a visit en route to an elderly Rowley woman, nearly sixty, who rides tandems for pleasure.
- Cycling correspondent reports from New Orleans on a pending 50-mile race challenge issued by A. M. Hill to local riders, the new Crescent Wheelmen's club-record five-mile race time of 17.45, and T. L. Halliday Jr.'s bike ride from Cairo, Illinois to Mobile, Alabama.
- Racing results from New Orleans on 23 October: the Crescent Wheelmen's five-mile race won by C. T. Mitchell in 17.45, with a description of the race tactics. Also notes Stanton's commanding 20-mile win over Keen at Lilliebridge, England.