The Wheel Cycling Trade Review, Vol 3, No 25
Articles in this issue
- Reprinted from the Providence Sunday Journal, warning parents not to let boys ride too much after three of four candidates for Congressman Spooner's naval-academy appointment were disqualified for varicocele attributed to bicycle riding.
- Report on the annual gathering of the Providence and Massachusetts L.A.W. Divisions at Cottage City, covering the Massachusetts business meet (Charles S. Howard elected Secretary-Treasurer), the 200-strong lantern parade won by Sterling Elliott of Newton, and the race meet at Island Park with wins by Delabarre, Van Wagoner and Morse.
- Obituary for cycling writer I. Purvis Bruce ("Jack"), drowned the previous Sunday, mourning his loss to cyclists of two nations; signed L. B. G. and reprinted from the Providence Sunday Journal.
- Statistical note on Washington's street paving since 1873, comparing the three concrete pavements in use—standard sheet asphalt, coal-tar distillate and asphalt blocks—and their per-yard costs.
- Official-organ preview and full programme for the New York State Division L.A.W. annual meet of September 13–14, listing officers and committees, the fare-and-a-third transportation arrangement secured by G. R. Bidwell, and the planned parade, theatre party, Brooklyn run and Coney Island supper.
- Long first-person letter signed Tam O'Shanter describing the final German leg of the Elwell European tour—the fourteen-mile coast through the Höllenthal, beer hospitality at Freiburg, Baden and the Rhine towns, the meerschaum-pipe craze, and treasurer Higgins formally ending the tour at Cologne.
- Letter from San Francisco (signed S.) charging that illustrations in the Gazette were lifted from Bicycling News—e.g. a portrait labelled "A. C. Banker" was really J. H. Adams, and the "W. I. Wilhelm" cut was W. F. Ball of the Speedwell Club.
- Baltimore Sun dispatch reporting David G. Weems's three-ton Electro-Automatic Transit Company motor reaching two miles a minute for about ten miles on a circular track at Laurel, Md., with a five-mile Long Island track planned.
- Review of H. H. Griffin's twelfth annual book "Bicycles and Tricycles of the Year 1889," noting the decline of the ordinary, the dominance of dwarf safeties, and descriptions of ninety-four bicycles and fifty-one tricycles; published by L. Upcott Gill, price one shilling.
- Profile accompanying a portrait of W. F. Murphy of the Kings County Wheelmen, the path and road racer who won the local 25-mile road race on May 30 and recorded 1,700 miles in ten days the previous October.
- Professor J. S. Newberry of the Columbia School of Mines argues that Trinidad-asphalt pavement, as laid on London's Cheapside, is the cheapest and best pavement and the model for New York, provided it is given constant repair.
- Evening Post piece comparing New York's wealth and street mileage with Washington, Buffalo, Cincinnati and Columbus to argue the city can readily afford to pave every street with asphalt.
- Republished from the World, a lengthy plea for asphalting the neglected Grand Boulevard before the 1892 World's Fair, recounting its costly stone foundation and the petitions from property owners and livery-stable keepers backing Commissioner Gilroy's asphalt recommendation.
- Technical description of Hookham's patent spring-wire tire, which Singer & Co. of Boston have licensed, explaining how the spiral spring wire interlaces so the tire cannot stretch off, is compressed rather than stretched, and resists cutting.
- From the Irish Athletic and Cycling News, a denunciation of American professionals Ralph Temple and Morgan as parties to a large racing swindle, warning that Temple's planned racing in England cannot be believed.
- Signed "National," a humorous account of the D.C. Division's first monthly moonlight run, with about a hundred riders welcomed to Takoma Park by an ice-cream festival and a mock "Common Council" that elected the wheelmen colonels and majors and presented Chief Consul Atwater the freedom of the city.
- A second, livelier account of the same D.C. Division moonlight run to Takoma Park (signed Snohomish), noting the tandems of Atwater and the McGlatherys, a brakeless rented tandem that threw and injured the McGlatherys, and praising lady rider Mrs. Charlie Smith.
- Pacific Northwest correspondence mourning the Spokane Falls fire and describing plans for an athletic track and a Washington/Oregon exhibition tour by Halsted and Prince Wells, with a quarter-mile match race between them mooted for the firemen's tournament.
- Correspondence looking ahead to the 1892 New York World's Fair, reporting Lancaster wheelmen turning to road riding and a planned run to Mt. Gretna, and noting veteran Martin Rudy's wife, the city's only lady L.A.W. member, riding sixteen miles to Lititz.
- Erie correspondence (signed N.) describing the streets alive with wheels and complaining that the Herald's promised history of Erie bicycling appeared mangled, with the "Columbia" make struck out because it appeared too often in the dealers' list.
- Cincinnati letter (signed Safety) noting the Hamilton County Fair fall races, the Athletic Club race at the Oakley track, a fine spin over the macadamized Lexington Pike in Kentucky, and the appearance of a new lady rider on a Columbia tandem.
- California correspondence describing the Bay City Wheelmen's picnic run to San Mateo with the Stockton Oak Leaf and San Jose Garden City Wheelmen, a visit to the Spring Valley Water Works dam, and a swim at the beach.
- Stamford letter (signed Stamson) praising touring over the "stand-still act," reporting Cycler Cumming securing the Solitary Club for a jaunt to Pound Ridge, the macadamizing of Main Street, and local regret at the death of "Jack."
- New Orleans notes (signed Bi.) on A. B. Harris beating C. M. Shute in a one-mile Louisiana Cycling Club match race, new safeties taken up by Chief Consul Hodgson, Captain Frederic and others, and R. M. Hill receiving the city's first tandem bike.
- Comic account (signed Coaster) of the Hudson County Wheelmen's annual visit to the Pennsylvania Bicycle Club in Philadelphia—the run out the Lancaster Pike to the Devon Inn, the dinner of the "Starvation Army" sixty-two, and a mock road race back to Broad Street station.
- St. Louis correspondence (signed Ithuriel) on the Track Association's tournament programme including a Harding-vs-Ring match, the demise of the St. Louis Cycle Club and birth of the Cycling Club and North St. Louis Bicycle Club, and the Missouri Bicycle Club meeting that rebuffed raising associate members' power.
- Signed "Doodle" under the Buffalo heading, an account of the Zigzag Bicycle Club's first century run from Erie to Buffalo on August 10, plagued by breakdowns and accidents, with Geo. H. Luetti climbing the famed Silver Creek Hill on a Light Champion; twenty starters, fifteen finishers in 10h 10m riding time.
- Long calendar of forthcoming American and English race meets, road races, tours and division meets from mid-August through late October 1889, including the New York State Division Meet and the Pennsylvania, Iowa and Louisiana Division meets.
- Report of the Toronto Bicycle Club's race meet at the Rosedale Grounds on August 22, called the most successful ever held in Canada, with a 200-strong parade and event wins by W. S. Campbell of Niagara Falls, F. W. Doll and H. H. Sansom, plus an exhibition quarter-mile by little Florence Creed.
- Results (signed Vic.) of the bicycle events at the Utica Retail Grocerymen's first field day at Richfield Driving Park on August 7, including wins by J. A. Fuller, J. C. Robbins and W. S. Nicholson and a three-cornered race of wheels, runners and walkers.
- Coverage of the English championship meeting at Paddington on July 27—the one-mile tricycle, five-mile bicycle and 25-mile tricycle championships and the Synyer–Osmond five-mile struggle—plus Schwalbach's reception at the Brooklyn Fifth Avenue Casino and assorted English and world records by J. E. L. Bates, J. H. Adams, Synyer and Osmond.
- Programme of the twelve-event Louisiana Division L.A.W. meet at Audubon Driving Park, New Orleans, with entries to Ridgley P. Randall, fifty-cent fees and six thousand invitations to be issued; signed Harry Hodgson, Chief Consul.
- Notes on Hartford Wheel Club preparations at Charter Oak Park, with the team of Forster, Cornell, Dresser, Reid, Harding and Shea under trainer Corcoran, and anticipation of Canary's first American appearance in four years.
- Column of short trade and racing items: a Columbia tandem safety prize at the Pennsylvania races, English handicap results at Coventry and Paddington, Lozier and Yost planning a Toledo factory, and Fred T. Merrill's "Cycle Castle" store in Portland, Oregon.
- Brief Philadelphia notes: the Philadelphia Bicycle Club's ladies' moonlight run, Charles Frayne off to Brazil, Sam Crawford back on the road, A. E. Binns returned from a European tour, and a South End Wheelmen 10-mile club road race.
- Itinerary of the Scranton wheelmen's tour returning via New York, detailing the day-by-day programme from August 21–24 through Newark, Dover, Milford and the Water Gap back to Scranton.
- Brooklyn correspondence urging the city's three clubs to recruit unattached riders and reporting the defeat of the Long Island Wheelmen's age-limit reduction, followed by "Atol's" whimsical dream of unmasked correspondents' pen-names.
- A dealer's testimonial letter (signed C. H. S., Bridgeport, Conn.) praising the Warwick Perfect Safety as the handsomest, best-built crank safety he has ridden and predicting a busy season selling Warwick wheels.