The Springfield Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 2, No 7
Articles in this issue
- The Gazette boasts that its September Springfield tournament received extensive cable dispatches and full reports in the English cycling papers Cyclist and Wheeling, costing £150 each, cementing Springfield's reputation as the great cycling center of America.
- Champion George M. Hendee attempts to break the world one-mile record at Springfield's Hampden Park on October 16 during the Grand Army field day, setting new quarter- and three-quarter-mile world records (38 1-5 and 1:59 respectively) despite cold, windy conditions that kept the mile at 2:42 4-5.
- An editorial celebrating Springfield's dominance in cycling—holding the U.S. championship three consecutive years, with Hendee and teammates Parsons, Westervelt, and Norton among the fastest men in the world—and the remarkable growth of the Gazette to a 10,000-circulation monthly.
- A Washington police court case in which Charles McKnabb was fined one dollar for running his bicycle into Professor A. Cammack in a crowd, with the judge ruling that a wheelman surrounded by pedestrians is obliged to dismount rather than push through.
- Short notices of elderly cyclists, including an 82-year-old man seen riding in New Haven and Major Knox Holmes, aged 72, who covered 115 miles in a ten-hour tricycle match against ex-champion G. L. Hillier.
- An essayist signing as 'Wilhelm' argues that cycling clubs provide wheelmen the collective political and legal strength to secure road rights and repeal hostile legislation, citing the Kenton Wheel Club's successful fight to overturn a Kentucky law banning bicycles in Kenton County.
- Letters from readers: a Hartford correspondent ('H.') reflects on the growth of cycling after the tournament season and argues for less racing-centric coverage; 'Rollo Rambler' reports Maine's first cycling meet by the Pine Tree Wheel Club of Bangor; 'Hill Climber' describes Miss Annie E. Sylvester's fancy riding exhibition in Faribault, Minn.; 'Phil. Peppercorn' of Passaic, N.J. advocates for women's cycling; and a Brooklyn Bicycle Club member reports a club photograph and road race to Coney Island won by Spelman in 23½ minutes.
- A reprint from London Truth in which Henry Labouchere marvels at cyclist English's 20-mile-in-59-minutes Crystal Palace performance, unaware that Springfield's records had already surpassed those he calls the most wonderful he has seen.
- News briefs from bicycle clubs across America and Canada, including the Connecticut Bicycle Club's gold medal for Sanders Sellers, the Northampton Bicycle Club's 33½-mile road race won by E. E. Davis, the Bristol Bicycle Club's first race meeting, and notes on clubs in Cleveland, Toronto, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Montreal, New Orleans, and Berkshire County.
- Officer listings for newly organized or recently elected club officers in the Bay City Wheelmen (San Francisco), Cleveland Bicycle Club, Dartmouth College Bicycle Club, Eurota (St. Louis), Indianapolis, Lynn, Metropolitan (Des Moines), New Orleans, Nonantum, Orange, Pine Tree Wheel (Bangor), Burlington (Wis.), Mercury Wheel (Mansfield, Ohio), and Toronto Wanderers clubs.
- A wide-ranging column of short cycling items covering the Kangaroo safety bicycle's American distribution by A. G. Spalding & Bros., W. M. Woodside's planned 1885 professional tour of England (accompanied by John Brooks), Hendee's quarter-mile world record, H. C. Finkler's corrected mountain climb account, the L. A. W. racing board appointment of Abbot Bassett, and miscellaneous industry gossip.
- Full results from multiple fall 1884 tournaments: Wheel Club of Denver (September 11 and 13, dominated by H. G. Kennedy), the Boston Union Athletic Company's first annual tournament (September 25–29, featuring Sellers, Gaskell, Chambers, Woodside, and Prince), Troy Bicycle Club annual races, Minneapolis Wheelmen's second annual meet, League of Essex County Wheelmen at Lawrence, Mass., Omaha Bicycle Club's first tournament, and Scranton Bicycle Club's first race meeting at which the one-mile ride-and-run Springfield record was broken by five seconds.
- A comparative table of bicycle path records against trotting-horse times showing Americans are not far behind on the track, while American 100-mile road records (led by Geo. Webber on a Star, 9:20:00) lag more than two hours behind English road records, attributed to superior English road conditions.
- Report of a ten-hour match at Crystal Palace on September 29 between 78-year-old Major Knox-Holmes on a tricycle (conceded 'miles for years') and ex-champion George Lacy Hillier on a bicycle; Hillier covered 146 miles to the Major's 115, but the Major won, setting tricycle path records from 101 to 115 miles.
- A humorous poem reprinted from the Canadian Wheelman, in which a new cyclist catalogues his repeated headers and bruises before finally mastering the wheel and proclaiming there is no sport like wheeling.
- A first-person account by Wm. Jay of the Salt Lake Bicycle Club's August bicycle tour to Yellowstone Park, describing the journey from Salt Lake City via Ogden and Beaver Canyon to Fire-Hole Basin, visits to the Lower, Middle, and Upper Geyser Basins including Old Faithful, the Grand Falls and Canyon, and Yellowstone Lake, with adventures including headers, a failed chicken hunt, and a meeting with fellow wheelman McGowan of the Capital Club of Washington who served as their guide.
- A column quoting and commenting on other cycling publications—Bicycling World, London Cyclist, New York Times, World, and others—on topics including Hendee's £4,500 prize collection, the prospect of sending American amateurs to race in England, the Springfield police mishap during the Hendee-Sellers race, and women tricyclists at the Springfield tournament.
- Reprinted from the London Cyclist, professional champion R. Howell recounts his American tour: training on a Rudge Home Trainer aboard ship with Sellers, Sellers's 2:39 mile at Hartford, Howell's six wins from eight starts at Springfield, his defeat by Prince caused by a dose of beef-tea, the disputed Sellers-Hendee rematch at Boston, and a rough return voyage on the Adriatic.