The Wheel World, Vol 3, No 16
Articles in this issue
- Argues that bicycling's growth is far from exhausted, tracing its expansion from a handful of adventurous athletes in 1869-70 through married "veteran" riders like McCullum Hill to a growing "rising generation" of boy cyclists.
- Argues no amateur ever learned to ride purely to race, citing how Cortis, Liles, "Jarge" and Milner all took up racing only after first mastering road riding, and warning novices against training too hard, too soon.
- By Bab Yardley: a satirical essay predicting bicycling will transform the English stage, envisioning a tragic Hamlet soliloquy delivered astride a machine and farces built around club-man mishaps.
- A poem by Faed on a racing man's weary training grind, contrasting the dreary discipline of track "spurts" with the healthier pleasures of touring the open road.
- Signed "Spectator": reviews the first Amateur Bicycle Championships held in the provinces, at Leicester, where Hillier won the mile as expected, and notes the Coventry trade's Starley testimonial fund.
- Signed "Spanks, Junr.": covers the Bristol and Western Counties' Meet at Shaftesbury and previews the Fire Brigade sports and evening concert planned for the Yeovil meet on 24 August.
- Chatty notes on the summer heatwave (blamed on "Comet B."), the shift from nickel-plated to enamelled machines, costume choices for hot weather, and the Alexandra Palace lessees' unfulfilled promise to improve the track.
- American notes signed "An Odd Spoke" on Frank Weston's planned second English tour, the coloured rider Albert Pierce's challenge to race any distance, and Boston amateur and professional race times.
- A letter from "E.L.D.", reprinted from the New York Sunday Courier, describing a lone wheelman's summer rides around Canton, Pennsylvania, including a wild downhill race with a pursuing bull-pup that ended fatally for the dog.
- A mock-tragic poem signed "Strigilis" about a penniless 'cycling poet reduced to begging outside a club pub, who is finally led away by a policeman to the workhouse union.
- Club notes on the new Manor Park B.C. at the Golden Fleece, Wanstead Flats, the Belsize and North Warwickshire clubs' overnight meet at Buckingham, and the Centaurs' bathe in the Wey after tea at Weybridge.
- No. 1: a profile of Robert T. Cork, hon. sec. of the Bicycle Union and of the Lombard B.C., praising his tireless committee work and describing rides with his young son "Bob".
- By Henry Sturmey: a review of Palmer & Co.'s "Interchangeable" bicycle of Six Ways, Birmingham, explaining its American-style interchangeable-parts manufacture and patent adjustable double ball bearings.
- By W. H. French, Chief Consul of the Bicycle Touring Club: a touring account of the roads around Ashendon, Wotton and Grendon Underwood in Buckinghamshire.
- A poem of remorse for accidentally running down and killing a yellow-hammer while riding in April 1881.
- Racing gossip praising "Jarge"'s clean sweep of amateur bicycle and tricycle championships for the Stanley B.C., and Wyndham's return to form at the L.B.C. race meeting.
- A tabulated continuation of race results through June and July 1881, including the Bicycle Union's provincial championships at Leicester and Surbiton, where G. L. Hillier won the mile, the twenty-five miles and the fifty-mile championship.
- Reports court cases including A. B. Cunliffe's conviction for assaulting cyclist Francis Edward Clarke at Eccles, Charles Bayer's six months' hard labour for stealing bicycles under false pretences, and cabman James Gosling's fine for trying to ride down Surbiton cyclists.
- Irish racing notes signed "Athcliath" on the Banbridge Athletic Sports, the Phoenix Bicycle Club's races in Phoenix Park, and Patrick Donovan's win of the Richmond B.C.'s eight-mile championship.
- Eastbourne notes on the E.B.C.'s run to Sittlington, an attempt to race a traction engine, and the Weymouth B.C.'s evening "fruit run" ending in a nasty crash on the Preston Road.
- By "Scriptor Cyclicus": practical beginner's advice on choosing between single and double-driving tricycles, front versus hind steering, and trialling a machine properly before buying.
- A comic pun-laden verse, signed "Stone Horse" of the Temple B.C., recounting a hapless rider's succession of bicycling accidents from a first-mount spill to a broken neck.
- Compiled by Hart and Co., Patent Agents: a list of new applications for letters patent for tricycles, bicycles and velocipedes lodged during June and July 1881.