The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 10, No 9
Articles in this issue
- Editorial introducing The Wheel to new readers, explaining its policy of covering only important and novel cycling events rather than every local item, and previewing detailed coverage of the upcoming League Meet and Lynn races in the next issue.
- Explains the paper's combination subscription scheme whereby readers can obtain a year's subscription to The Wheel at no extra cost by subscribing to partner publications including Outing, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and eighteen other periodicals at their regular prices.
- Brief racing column covering F. H. Shackleford's defeat by C. Dwyer in Australia (2m. 52¾s.), changes to the Lynn program substituting a five-mile open and three-mile handicap for the Pope Cup twenty-miler, C. B. Kern's win at the University of Pennsylvania games, the Princeton bicycle race won by Segur in 7m. 11s., a Lynn Cycle Club match between W. A. Rowe and F. S. Hitchcock, the Yale Bicycle Club's third annual tournament (June 12–13, $1,500 in prizes), and practice times at the Lynn track by Rowe, Knapp, and Kluge (best mile 2m. 49s.).
- Major feature article aimed at non-cyclists covering the history of cycling from Pierre Lallement's 1863 Paris demonstrations through Col. Albert Pope's revival of the Columbia bicycle in 1876, the current American trade with ~50,000 riders, varieties of cycles including safeties and tricycles, road and track speed records by riders such as W. A. Rowe (20 miles in 58m. 20s., beating the horse) and L. D. Munger of Detroit (259¼ miles in 24 hours), purchasing guidance, and descriptions of major manufacturers including Pope, Gormully & Jeffery, Overman Wheel Co., H. B. Smith Machine Co., Stoddard Lovering & Co. (Rudge), Wm. Read & Sons (Royal Mail), and A. G. Spalding & Bros.
- Commentary on Karl Kron's article 'Rotating the League Presidency' from the May Wheelmen's Gazette, quoting his argument that tact, good nature, and a capacity for keeping the peace are the chief qualities needed in the L.A.W.'s chief executive, and that Dr. Beckwith's fine appearance and graceful handling of a sixty-three-inch wheel add to rather than detract from his eligibility for the presidency.
- Lists entrants for the upcoming L.A.W. championship races at Boston across five events—one-mile championship, novice, handicap, invitation, and three-mile invitation—naming riders including C. E. Kluge, G. E. Weber, G. M. Hendee, W. A. Rowe, W. F. Knapp, A. B. Rich, and W. A. Rhodes; also reports results from professional and amateur races at Winona, Minnesota on May 7th, with Wm. Woodside winning the five-mile professional in 16m. 51½s. and E. A. Savage winning both amateur events.
- Humorous poem in which a cyclist is tormented by a sudden discordant squeak from his bicycle bearings and vows to find its source, suspecting a want of oil but fearing his bearings may fail before he reaches home.
- Report of the first Western Division tour of the L.A.W. touring department, organized by Tourmaster Burley B. Ayers of Chicago, in which ninety riders from St. Louis, Chicago, Ottumwa, and Kansas City set out on a ~45-mile round trip to Ballwin, seventy-five completing the route and dining at Delmonico's before the visiting wheelmen were cheered off at the depot by fifty St. Louis riders.
- Factory visit to the H. B. Smith Machine Company describing their spoke-molding machinery, patented conical hub nuts, hollow seamless oval-section tubing, steam-hammer hub forging, nickel-plating, and japanning facilities, along with a glimpse of a steam-powered three-wheeled cycle under construction, and an observation of record rider G. E. Weber at daily practice on the nearby nine-lap track; signed W. N. O.
- Boston correspondence reporting that League Meet preparations are complete—track at Union Grounds finished, 500 minstrel tickets sold, band to play at the Vendome during parade formation—along with League politics between Racing Board Chairman Bassett and Chief Consul Ducker over the amateur Rule H, the completion of a four-by-five-foot group photograph of Massachusetts Club members by the Notman Company, and a note on a custom 49-pound Cripper-type tricycle built by W. W. Stall for his wife; signed C. S. H.
- Letter from C. W. Baldwin, Secretary of the Orange Wanderers Bicycle Club (Orange, N.J.), formally protesting the N.Y. & N.J. Team Road Racing Association's proposed route as unsafe for forty racing wheelmen on narrow sidepaths and requesting trial heats by section so that only one club from each of New York City, Long Island, and New Jersey contests the final.
- Detailed 1886 technical description of the Rudge Light Roadster—covering its patented self-adjusting ball bearings, Warwick hollow-steel felloes, single tangential spokes riveted at the hub, elliptical hollow forks, curved dropped handle bars, and celebrated ball pedals—along with a record of achievements including George Hendee's League championship, H. D. Corey's Corey Hill rides, and W. H. Huntley's 257-mile 24-hour road record; sole U.S. agents Stoddard, Lovering & Co., Boston.
- Announcement of a ten-day L.A.W. clerical wheelman tour beginning August 3rd from New York, riding 334 miles through the Hudson Valley, Albany, Saratoga, and Cooperstown, with a day-by-day itinerary, a list of 21 newly enrolled clergy participants from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Iowa, and information about a 10 per cent manufacturer's discount on bicycles for clergymen, coordinated by Rev. Sylvanus Stall of Lancaster, Pa.
- Short trade items noting H. C. Hart's holdfast cement and Philadelphia second-hand machine stock, T. Hunt Sterry's repair shop in Brooklyn, the Cyclists' Supply Co. of Fitchburg cutting prices on sundries, Anson P. Merrill & Co. of Fall River's compact bicycle lock at $1.25, Theo. Goetze & Co.'s 'Not English' cycling hose, Ira Perego's Fulton Street outfitter (official L.A.W. and C.T.C. supplier), Geo. R. Bidwell's new 313 W. 58th St. club-house, James F. Pedersen's medals and $20 split-second chronograph watches, and George W. Rouse & Son's instalment-plan dealership in Peoria.
- Brief notice that the course for the N.Y. & N.J. Inter-Club 25-mile road race has been changed to Clinton Avenue running along Springfield Avenue to beyond Milburn with four laps of 6½ miles each, starting from a white stone marker about 1½ miles from the horse-car stables.
- Brooklyn cycling column covering the delayed Park badges assigned by club seniority, the unridable condition of the West Side Drive due to unrolled gravel, the Wayside Wheelmen merging into the Kings County Wheelmen, a gold badge presentation to drill-team Capt. Pettus, the Brooklyn Bicycle Club's first road race of the season won by Hawkins over Slocum, an upcoming K.C.W. annual spring meet with band concert on June 19th, a moonlight parade on June 17th, and the departure of fancy rider Wm. D. Bloodgood for Europe to recuperate from rheumatism; signed 'Tattler.'
- Poem by Geo. Francis Train ('Jadea on Wheels') from Madison Square congratulating cyclists, referencing Thomas Stevens' round-the-world bicycle tour through Persia, urging Boston wheelmen to organize a 'Cosmos Wheel Club' touring Concord, Lexington, and Yorktown, and encouraging Rev. Sylvanus Stall's clerical touring party to visit the Lebanon Shakers.
- Miscellaneous cycling notes: the Lynn Wheelmen's post-race dance at Exchange Hall, the new Columbia Safety on exhibition at Pope's Boston office, the Ixion Bicycle Club's 50-mile Decoration Day road race at Orange, the arrival in New York of New Orleans-to-Boston tourists Hill, Fairchild, and Fairfax escorted by W. C. Herring of the Ixion Club, Boston credited with 1,200 riders, the Springfield B.C.'s acclaimed minstrel performance, and the Elizabeth N.J. Wheelmen's planned 52-mile Monday run via Newark, Summit, and Morristown.
- Announcement of a 100-day World's Pastime Exhibition at Chicago opening July 4th, devoted to manufactured articles for pleasures and pastimes across twenty-three classes including cycling, with bicycle races and a board of reference including Colonel Pope, John Wilkinson, J. O. Blake, A. G. Gormully, and Jno. B. Jeffery, to be held in a permanent 500×200-foot building on Cheltrenham beach.
- Calendar of forthcoming cycling events for May–July 1886 listing the League Parade and Races and Lynn Bicycle Club inaugural meet (May 29–31), Irvington inter-club contests (June 5), N.Y. & N.J. 25-mile Inter-Club road race (June 12), Kings County Wheelmen moonlight run and annual spring meet (June 17 and 19), Capital Bi. Club spring race meet in Washington D.C. (June 26), Canadian Wheelmen's Association annual meet in Montreal (July 1), and L.A.W. tour from Rochester to Harper's Ferry (July 5–16).
- Wide-ranging gossip column covering the Connecticut Bi. Club's resolution on Rule H, a record weekly gain of 388 new L.A.W. members, cancellation of the St. Louis-Chicago team race, the C.T.C. annual general meeting in London (only 60 attendees), the three-way L.A.W. presidential race between Dr. Beckwith, H. E. Ducker, and Stephen Terry, John Prince's confidence for beating Neilson at Lynn, the Colorado B.C. fifteen-mile handicap road race at Denver (Petrie first in 55m. 20s., Van Horn from scratch in 55m. 18s.), a Brockton police crackdown on sidewalk cycling prosecuting Rev. O. D. Thomas, and debate over the amateur question via Racing Board member Ewing Miller's letter in the Bulletin.