The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 11, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The weekly column of short news items covers Louis B. Hamilton's planned switch to a Star, the L.A.W. touring route book being prepared by Burley B. Ayers, Arthur Cunningham's fatal fall in Brighton, Furnivall's mile record rejection by the N.C.U. Records Committee, and debate over the amateur definition at the N.C.U. meeting.
- Stillman G. Whittaker rides 50 miles in 2h 55m 46s and 100 miles in 6h 43m 59s without a pacemaker on a straightaway surveyed road at Crawfordsville, Indiana, beating Geo. Weber's American 50-mile record by nine minutes and McCurdy's 100-mile record by over an hour on a 51-inch American Champion.
- Edward J. Shriver of the New York Bicycle Club reports on circulating individual endorsement cards to L.A.W. members in New York City urging each to sign and send them directly to the Park Board in support of opening Central Park to cyclists.
- The Ixion Club opens the metropolitan cycling social season with a private evening concert at their club-house, attended by thirty to forty members and guests, with a full programme of piano and vocal selections and a spontaneous recitation substituting for an absent tenor.
- Geo. B. Thayer of Hartford recounts his 4,224-mile solo bicycle journey from Vernon, Connecticut, through Chicago, across the Rockies, into California's Yosemite valley, north to Yellowstone, and back east, completing the entire trip on a 46-inch bicycle for $275 total.
- A tricycle dealer delivers a lady's machine to the White House grounds and Washington observers report hearing laughter and seeing a lady learning to ride in the evenings, sparking public speculation that Mrs. Cleveland is the tricyclist.
- The Owl's column ranges across city cyclists' abbreviated racing-tight costumes, W.C. Herring's plan to run for the State Assembly to secure better roads, the failed Statue of Liberty illumination on a rainy night, and a visit from an offended New Manhattan Bicycle Club member protesting his club's characterisation as juveniles.
- A five-stanza poem by Arthur Dudley Vinton, reprinted from Outing, tracing a cycling courtship from a chance meeting of a bicycle and a tricycle through moonlit chats to marriage and a life ridden side by side.
- A comic narrative, reprinted from Wheeling and signed 'Wee Flowret,' follows the overconfident Buggins through a series of mishaps on his first tricycle outing, culminating in his broken machine being towed at terrifying speed behind a horse-drawn trap down a steep hill.
- The news department covers a humorous near-drowning anecdote involving a Waterbury watch mainspring, George Lacy Hillier's hissed retort at the N.C.U. meeting over the secret suspension act, English riders James and Wood's complaint that the Springfield Club fined them $20 and $10 for loafing, and the Owl Club of Chicago's hop at the Lakeside Rink featuring fancy riding by Prince Wells and Ralph Friedberg.
- Short notes report the Kings County Wheelmen won the second Inter-Club road championship at Irvington with H.J. Hall Jr. finishing first, F.F. Ives of Meriden challenges Whittaker to a 50- or 100-mile road race, and the upcoming Minneapolis six-day professional race will feature Louise Armaindo, W.M. Woodside, W.J. Morgan, and Ralph Friedberg.
- A poem by W.S. Russell, written expressly for The Wheel by a bicycle agent, contrasts the warm welcome and refreshments a sunburned, knickerbockered cyclist receives at a farmhouse with the same maiden's contemptuous refusal of a barefoot, hungry tramp.
- Thomas Stevens writes from Calcutta on September 14, 1886, describing 1,400 miles of Indian roads cycled through monsoon rains and fever country from Lahore to Calcutta, attributing his survival to daily exercise, and announcing plans to push immediately to China and Japan to reach home by Christmas.
- The Mount Vernon Bicycle Club holds their sixth annual dinner at Mansion House, Yonkers, with guests including Capt. Smith of the Citizens' Club, Capt. Luscomb of the Long Island Wheelmen, and Lieut. Bridgman of the King's County Wheelmen; toasts include doubling L.A.W. membership and the rights of wheelmen on the road; signed 'Epi.'
- An unsigned editorial defends the young Springfield reporter 'Morris,' who published rumors that Wood had been paid $1,500 by the Pope Manufacturing Co. to let Rowe win the international race, arguing that Morris merely printed gossip heard by every cycling pressman at the tournament, and that Rowe could have beaten Wood without any subsidy.