The Wheel World, Vol 1, No 1
Articles in this issue
- The editors introduce the first issue of The Wheel World, explaining its aims to serve the rapidly growing cycling community.
- A collection of humorous and punning cycling jokes and observations.
- A round-up of cycling club news, races, and events from Scotland and the north of England.
- A profile of amateur cycling champion H.L. Cortis, describing his racing style, achievements, and widespread popularity.
- A gossip column of short cycling notes, rumours, and observations from the southern counties.
- Practical guidance for cyclists navigating the hazards and etiquette of riding bicycles through busy urban streets.
- Midlands club gossip noting the Sheffield Bicycle Club's planned move from the Pomona to the Crown Hotel, a Brunswick Bicycle Club quadrille ball, and a Sheffield rider who broke his arm crashing into a wall near Bastow.
- London club notes on a mis-fired bugler election, plus news of departing I Zingari members E. W. P. Cambridge (tea-planting in Assam), E. York (bound for South Africa) and Tobias and Porritt (emigrating to Manitoba).
- T. Cowell-Berington criticises poor mounting, uneven pace and inadequate marshalling at the annual Hampton Court meet and proposes stricter starting and marshalling rules.
- A column of short cycling anecdotes, news items, and witty observations by the columnist Mephistopheles.
- A new tricycling column reporting the Kensington Tricycle Club's seventeen members (including four ladies) and printing the staff poet's comic verse "Sold" about a proposal made on a double tricycle.
- A comic playlet mocking a policeman near Esher who threatens lampless cyclists with prosecution until one of them quietly slips him a bribe.
- Practical advice for club runs after nightfall, urging every rider to carry a good lamp and clubs to keep two clear bicycle-lengths between riders to avoid pile-ups on loose stone.
- "W.S." laments bicyclists' declining manners towards suburban hotel-keepers and fellow riders, followed by a letter from "Indignant" about a clergyman careering on a tricycle down Winchester Road on a Sunday.
- The Oxford and Cambridge University Athletic Clubs, signed by presidents B. R. Wise and E. Storey, declare that bicyclists who race professionals for no prize may still be counted as amateurs.
- An editorial reviews the Bicycle Union's rocky start, including its failed railway-charges campaign, and welcomes the universities' new amateur-status compromise as a coming reconciliation.
- A new column inviting readers to report dangerous hills, illustrated by a cyclist heeding the Bicycle Union's warning board versus one who ignores it.
- Reviews of the Arab Cradle Spring saddle-spring and Mr. Butler's newly invented Pedal Slipper, an iron plate that grips a rubber pedal to stop feet slipping off in the wet.
- "Adze" surveys the trade: Carver's Nottingham works, Humber, Marriott and Cooper's new Beeston factory employing 112 men, and Hydes and Wigful's popular hollow-forked "Stanley" model.
- A directory of club runs for 10 and 17 April listing dozens of clubs — Alert, Temple, Kensington, Star, Lee Rovers and more — with their destinations and recommended inns.
- A calendar of forthcoming race meetings and social events through June 1880, including the Surrey B.C.'s spring meeting at Kennington Oval and the Hampton Court meet on 22 May.
- "Doctor" of the Star B.C. recounts a solo Easter run from London through Romford, Chelmsford and Colchester to Ipswich and Felixstowe.
- Racing notes on Easter meetings at Coventry, the Border City B.C.'s Carlisle sports, Gravesend, and the Newcastle six-day professional race won by Cann riding 1001 miles.
- A brief notice of W. T. C.'s illustrated shilling booklet "Romances of the Wheel", published by Iliffe and Co. of Coventry.
- The first in a series recommending touring inns praises the newly built Forest Hotel by Epping Forest, with its Watteau, Spanish and Japanese rooms.
- B.T.C. notes on the secretary's list of recommended hotels and Mr. Bryant's committee's efforts to bring tariffs down to a reasonable level.
- An essay reprinted from "One and All" traces the bicycle's likely descent from an eighteenth-century pedal-driven contraption shown to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at Versailles.
- A review of the Rovers B.C.'s comic bicycling burlesque "Velocipedeia", performed at Hackney Theatre with "Jupiter" as Handel Barr and "Arthur Grey" as Sir Cycle Backbone.
- A column of fireside jokes and verse, including "The Mournful Legend of Ten Little Bicyclists" and the staff poet's mock hymn for a cycling Sunday-school anniversary.
- A puzzle page of cycling-themed acrostics, a diamond puzzle, transpositions and decapitations, contributed by "R. C. N. Brittan" and "Harry E."
- "Adze" reports brisk trade at Hillman, Herbert and Cooper, Baylis and Timms, and Baylis, Thomas and Co., plus the coming match pitting Derkinderen against Keen and Cooper.