The Springfield Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 3, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Editorial arguing that American wheel manufacturers have neglected saddle comfort, pedal design, handle grip, and properly equipped tool bags, with praise for the Victor pedal and the Pope Manufacturing Company's forthcoming new saddle.
- Editorial on the makers' amateur debate, defending the Springfield Bicycle Club's policy of offering large public prizes rather than privately inducing racing men to attend, and responding to critiques from Chief Consul Kirkpatrick of Ohio and 'Chris Wheeler' in the L.A.W. Bulletin.
- Report on a London court ruling by Judge Buckly that the common law against fast driving does not apply to cyclists, after a wheelman was acquitted for coasting Clapton hill at sixteen miles per hour.
- Preview of the Genesee Bicycle Club's third annual tournament at Rochester Driving Park on September 17, 1885, offering $1,200 in prizes across ten events including a five-mile race for L.A.W. members.
- Letter from 'Pakeha' in Christchurch reporting on a record-breaking season for the New Zealand Cyclists' Alliance, with championship wins by F.A. Cutten, W.H. Langdown, and I.A. Stewart, and noting the arrival of the first Kangaroo safety bicycle in the colony.
- Miscellany of short cycling intelligence items covering riders and clubs from across America and England, including notes on Hendee, Prince, Furnivall, Hamilton's injury, L.D. Munger's 24-hour road record, and Karl Kron's subscription progress for 'Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle.'
- Correspondence from the Stamford Wheel Club describing a lantern parade of thirty-one wheels at the Brunswick, recent club runs to Dumpling Pond, and the club rooms stocked with bound cycling periodicals.
- Correspondent 'Willhelm' covers Ohio cycling news including Asa Dolph's Springfield lithograph honor, the Buckeye Bicycle Club's new 24-hour state road record of 158 miles, and the amateur-professional debate.
- Humorous poem tracing a record-hungry cycling tourist speeding through the Berkshires toward the Springfield tournament, ending with the rider buried in a sand drift still gasping 'For Springfield.'
- Section of reader correspondence including Karl Kron's appeal for tourists' birthdates for 'Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle,' an account of the Bay City Wheelmen's second annual tournament in San Francisco (July 25-26), a road-tour letter from 'Mack' describing a ride from Smithville to Burlington, NJ, and a club note from the Winona Bicycle Club on their new quarter-mile clay track.
- Club election results for the Ashtabula Bicycle Club, Clinton Bicycle Club, Greenfield Wheel Club, Perth Amboy Cyclers, St. Louis Star Bicycle Club, and Suffolk Wheel Club of Boston, followed by a calendar of coming race meetings through October.
- Full results of the August 13 tournament at Pittsfield, with E.P. Burnham of Newton winning the two-mile, three-mile, five-mile, and tricycle events, and Geo. E. Webber of Smithville taking the half-mile flying start.
- Results of the August 15 Chicago meeting including N.H. Van Sicklen's 25-mile record ride of 1h 21m 14¼s on a Columbia Racer, with split-mile times published in full.
- Reports on the 50-mile professional championship at Ayleston Road on August 3, won by H.O. Duncan over F. Wood by half a yard in 3h 5m 42½s, and the 10-mile championship won by R. Howell in 31m 11s, both to be contested before sailing to America for Springfield.
- List of fourteen US patents granted for cycling devices in the month ending August 18, 1885, compiled by patent attorney Shipley Brashears of Washington, D.C., covering bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes, and accessories by inventors including E.G. Latta (assigned to Pope Manufacturing) and J.A. Lamplugh of Birmingham.
- Extended preview of the Springfield Bicycle Club's fourth annual tournament at Hampden Park (September 8-10), with a full hotel directory and rates, railroad information, committee names, officers of the meeting, track conditions, and the complete three-day race programme.
- Interview with Manchester cyclist H.R. Goodwin about his record 2,054½-mile ride across Great Britain in exactly 19 days on a 40-inch Facile safety bicycle, including details of roads, weather, food, and a celebration at Anderton's Hotel in London.
- Account of George W. Baker of St. Louis riding a Victor bicycle 1,500 miles to Boston in 19½ actual days on the road (July 1-28), averaging nearly 79 miles a day and setting a record of 80 miles from Terre Haute to Indianapolis in eight hours.
- H.D. Corey of Boston claims an American safety bicycle 24-hour road record of 203⅛ miles on a Rudge Safety on August 8, with a detailed account of his course through Newton, Waltham, Salem, Lynn, and Brighton verified by cyclometer and posted cards to L.A.W. chairman Abbot Bassett.
- Update on Thomas Stevens's world bicycle tour: he arrived at Constantinople on July 2 after 2,500 miles across Europe, is awaiting cooler weather, and is undecided between the Teheran and Euphrates routes for the next stage of his Columbia bicycle journey.
- President Henry W. Williams of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club publishes twelve rules for safe riding, covering wheel selection, saddle position, pedaling technique, descending hills, and how to handle bad road surfaces without losing the wheel.
- Summary of Rev. L.H. Blake's sermon at Westfield on August 16 drawing on 1 Corinthians ix:25, endorsing outdoor sport including cycling as wholesome recreation while warning against excess and the distraction of championship tournaments from serious study and work.
- Biographical sketch of Col. Albert A. Pope tracing his Civil War service in the 35th Massachusetts regiment, postwar mercantile career, and founding of the Pope Manufacturing Company in 1877, which introduced bicycles and tricycles to America on scientific manufacturing principles.
- Extended first-person narrative by 'Scribe' of the L.A.W. Down-East Tour from Boston to Moosehead Lake and Bar Harbor, Maine, in mid-July, describing the 35-man party's travel, club hospitality at Bangor from Mr. John L. Crosby, the Pine Tree Wheel Club's races, and a moonlight sail on the Penobscot.
- Comic poem reprinted from the Walton (N.Y.) Chronicle recounting a four-man bicycle tour by a banker, druggist, jeweler, and editor from Walton through Sidney, Unadilla, Cooperstown, and Richfield Springs, featuring headers, mud, a frightened farmer, and a forty-cent dinner at the Pond Lily Hotel.
- Memoir by Karl Kron (an excerpt from the forthcoming 'Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle') recounting his first encounters with the velocipede craze at Yale in spring 1869, including learning to ride, daily journal entries, and a celebrated incident in which his machine frightened a horse on Dwight Street, leading to a lawsuit threat from the owner Rosenbluth.
- Short extracts from other cycling papers on a Malden man towing a baby carriage behind his tricycle, Gaskell's challenge to race Hendee, the 'Big Four' tour's effect on bar-rooms, and the anomalous position of 'makers' amateurs' at seaside resorts.
- Short piece praising the dozens of American clergymen now touring on bicycles as a sign of the times, contrasting them favorably with austere predecessors, and suggesting Cotton Mather would never have believed in witchcraft had he taken morning headers on a bicycle.