The Velocipedist, Vol 1, No 2
Articles in this issue
- The editors present further velocipede history with engravings borrowed from the Scientific American and The Sun, illustrating Gompertz's improvement of Baron Drais's machine, an English monowheel, a steam velocipede, and the Lallement and Hanlon Bros. crank and reach improvements.
- Argues American ladies will take to the two-wheeled veloce and describes a lady-designed machine with a cane-seated chair shown at the Hanlon Bros' Hall on Broadway, plus a buttoned riding dress; quotes the Sun on why velocipedes cannot be made cheaply.
- A humorous Chicago letter signed Earnest Travers de Vere on the city's velocipede fever, the Duryea & Pearsall and Mr. Miles riding schools, Brainard's sales of the Pickering machine, and the writer's own comic mishaps and proposed steeple-chase challenge.
- Argues that physical degeneration stems from muscular atrophy through disuse and praises the American velocipede as a physiologically constructed machine giving natural, healthful exercise of every muscle.
- A Scientific American correspondent at Yokohama reports a gentleman riding a velocipede safely to Yeddo and says many have sent home for the machines.
- Invites reader questions on velocipeding and kindred subjects for answer in the journal.
- Summarizes a quarter-mile race for a silver cup at the Temperance Hall Rink, won by William W. Allen over William Wood in a run-off.
- Reports the first race at Richmond & Co.'s Grand Street Velocipede Hall in Jersey City, where the cup was awarded to Rogers after Horton was found to have ridden only seven of eight laps.
- The Prospect Park Association announces a $1,500 grand velocipede tournament for its 1869 spring meeting, with handicapped races expected to draw 20,000 spectators.
- Offers a tongue-in-cheek etiquette code for Park riders, advising confidence without rashness, dignified salutes, tipping the boy who holds your steed, and borrowing a friend's veloce rather than buying.
- Surveys Brooklyn riding grounds, including Washington Park's concrete plaza, the Scrimshaw-paved Bedford Avenue and Nicholson-block Clinton Street, and criticizes Central Park's commissioners for restricting velocipedes.
- Reprints the Newark Evening Courier's favorable notice of the new tinted-paper monthly edited by T. R. Pickering and W. Chester King.
- Describes a reception and hop at the Hanlon Brothers' Velocipede Hall on Broadway, with feats by Frederick Hanlon, Professor Abner S. Brady and T. R. Pickering, and dancing to Grafulla's Seventh Regiment band.
- Prints ten numbered reader responses to the Boston Transcript's call for a rhyme for 'Velocipede,' including a comic dialogue signed Mrs. H. C.
- A poem celebrating velocipedes as cheap, tame steeds that will supersede the horse in cost, beauty and speed.
- A poem signed G. S. with a 'Ride, ride, ride' refrain urging men of means to ride the veloce through Broadway.