The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 11, No 14
Articles in this issue
- The regular news column for December 31, 1886, covering cyclist marriages, club officer elections in Pittsburgh and Allegheny, the Missouri Division L.A.W.'s road-improvement bill, and the CTC half-yearly meeting in Glasgow; includes a sub-item on J.E. Marshall and Mr. Broen's bicycle ride from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth (nearly 600 miles in eleven days) through South Africa's gold-field region.
- Reports that round-the-world cyclist Thomas Stevens has arrived in Shanghai after a harrowing journey from Canton through southern China, including an attack by a stone-throwing mob at Kin-gan-foo where soldiers barely protected him; Stevens' first-person dispatch from Kiukiang, dated November 16, is reprinted in full.
- Correspondent's column covering the 142-hour professional race at the Washington Rink (Schock, Morgan, Armaindo), a wager dispute between Prince from Omaha and Morgan, the Mercury Club's failed attempt to rent club rooms, and Grant Bell's winter preparations at Smithville, N.J.
- Brooklyn cycling notes covering the Ilderan Bicycle Club's progressive euchre party (first prize won by A.L. Calkins), Schwalbach and Willdigg's new bicycle and lawn tennis emporium set to open March 1, and the Brooklyn Bicycle Club's Christmas Day ride to the Shelter Dairy.
- Chief Consul Geo. R. Bidwell's circular letter to L.A.W. representatives urges prompt membership renewal toward a target of 2,400 members, citing two key benefits: a free New York State road-book and the division's legal defense fund for wheelmen sued over frightened-horse incidents.
- Full report on Albert Schock of Chicago winning the Minneapolis 142-hour race with 1,405 miles, surpassing Waller's 1882 record of 1,404½ miles and beating Morgan by 240 miles, with day-by-day scores; College Hospital physicians found all three contestants maintained normal temperatures and lost only modest weight.
- A self-aware satirical fiction piece by 'Titnam,' presenting the impoverished widow Flood and her seven children on New Year's Eve, then abruptly handing the unfinished plot to the reader to complete — the editor's joke being that any proper holiday story must somehow incorporate a bicycle.
- Trade news column noting Overman Wheel Company's square rubber pedals, Dr. Jaeger's wind-stopper sleeve patent in London, Premier bicycles' 100-guinea promateur challenge offer, D. Rogers & Co.'s Cunard company shares, S.F. Heath & Co.'s Minneapolis bicycle school reopening January 10, and the Wheel Board of Trade's new black list for untrustworthy cycle-trade parties established at a Boston meeting.
- Practical Q&A drawn from the Bicycling News prize competition, covering the first professional mile record (J. Moore, Wolverhampton, 1874, 3m. 01s.) and first amateur championship (Lillie Bridge, 1871), methods for removing paint from a bicycle backbone, and recommended lubricants including sperm oil and glycerine-plumbago mixtures.
- Three reader-submitted methods for extracting a broken spoke from a bicycle hub: threading a new spoke over it to force it out the other side, using a hardened steel rod and hammer, and drilling a slot in the broken end to unscrew it with a gimlet or small screwdriver.
- Multiple reader tips on mounting a high-wheel bicycle by pedal, progressing from assisted methods (a friend holds the machine) to independent running mounts, with advice to practice first against a wall, lean the bicycle slightly inward, and spring quickly as the pedal begins to rise.
- Reader-sourced methods for permanently securing bicycle tyres in the felloes, including dissolving tyre cement in naphtha to make a thin glue, heating the rim until cement oozes out and binding it tightly, boring a hole for thin copper wire, and binding loose sections with leather bootlaces between every second spoke.
- Travel narrative by 'Cunard' recounting an impromptu tricycle tour from north London through High Barnet, St. Albans, Bedford, Northampton, and Birmingham, highlighted by moonlight riding on the Avenue of Elms between Dunchurch and Coventry and a driving-chain snap on the steep hill outside Eaton on the return journey.
- Review of English cycling annuals for 1886–87, chiefly 'Cycledom' (the Cyclist's Year Book) by Iliffe & Son, which features a 50-page serial 'Ah Fong the Chinese Wonder,' photography essays by Henry Sturmey, biographical sketches, racing calendar, two stories, thirteen cycling poems, and 62 pages of illustrated advertisements including Pope Mfg. Co. and Overman Wheel Co.
- The Wheel announces a reader competition for chatty descriptions of cycling tours, with three prizes: first prize ($6.25) comprising one-year subscriptions to Outing, Bicycling World, The Cycle, Wheelmen's Gazette, and The Wheel; competition closes January 1.
- Calendar of upcoming cycling club social events: the Massachusetts B.C. Athletic Entertainment on January 6 and the Somerville Cycle Club's Ball on January 23.