The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 13, No 16
Articles in this issue
- The New York State Board of Officers plans to form a Roads Improvement Association for New York State, aiming to create a Road Commission to take charge of road maintenance, backed by the cycling trade and a forthcoming legislative campaign.
- Responding to the Bicycling World's invitation to 'fight' for class racing and time limits, the editor proposes four regional handicappers instead of one national handicapper, data-driven entry classification from competitors' best and last records, modest prizes, lower admission fees, and shorter handicap races of half to two miles to nurture 'plain, ordinary contests between gentlemen.'
- The Boston Globe's January 8th issue solicited opinions on boxing and the value of exercise from President Eliot of Harvard, Dr. Sargent, General Francis A. Walker, Abram S. Hewitt, Mayor O'Brien, Governor Ames, Roscoe Conkling, and others; Professor Sargent's warning against over-specialization in any one athletic branch — illustrated by the image of a boy developing a Hercules' arms and a pigmy's legs on parallel bars — was judged the most valuable.
- The Massachusetts Division L.A.W. Board of Officers met at Mieusset's restaurant in Boston under Chief Consul H. W. Hayes, reversing a prior vote on free distribution of the division road book and resolving to send its largest-ever delegation to the national Board of Officers meeting in New York on February 22nd.
- In a closely contested bowling match at the Long Island Wheelmen's alleys on January 6th, the home team defeated the Harlem Wheelmen 1,601 to 1,524, with F. P. Share (L.I.W.) and Lefferts (H.W.) posting the highest individual scores of 224 and 225 respectively; a return game was scheduled at Harlem's Lenhardt's alleys on January 19th.
- The 1888 Victor line features a refined Ordinary (Light Roadster) with a slightly enlarged axle and deeper felloes, a new Victor Junior in sizes 38–50 inches priced from $75 aimed at boys and shorter men, and a substantially redesigned Safety with a new braced frame, four sets of ball bearings at the spring fork junction, and a less-angled front fork reducing sensitivity by fifty percent; the tricycle is unchanged.
- The regular news column covers a broad range of cycling trade and club items: Maltby traveling to Paris to arrange a match against Canary or Kaufmann, A. G. Spalding & Bros. securing sole U.S. agencies for the Victor for 1888, Mrs. Elliott Mason earning the first thousand-mile medal given to a lady Harlem Wheelmen member with 1,105 miles in 1887, Captain Halsted logging 4,601 miles over 147 riding days in New York City, and events from the Manhattan, Kings County, Boston Bicycle, Hudson County, and Roxbury clubs.
- Correspondent 'Ralph' reports that the Maryland Division L.A.W., at a special meeting on January 7th attended by sixty to seventy members, voted to invite the League to hold its ninth annual meet in Baltimore around mid-June rather than the usual late May; he also urges dissatisfied members who criticize the Division to build its membership rather than crying it down.
- The Calumet Cycling Club of Brooklyn's Eastern District is moving to consolidate with the Kings County Wheelmen, which would bring K.C.W. membership to 135; the K.C.W.'s new club house, being built by New York contractor Dillingham, is expected ready by February 1st and will host three receptions — a private view, a Wheelmen's Reception, and a Ladies' Full Dress Reception — organized by a committee chaired by F. H. Douglas.
- Ledyard S. Haskell won a $25 verdict in Newark's Circuit Court after being arrested on the Fourth of July 1887 for riding on Bloomfield's sidewalks and compelled by Justice Hall to pay $2 to Constables Foster and Smith, with Judge Depue refusing a nonsuit and the jury upholding Haskell's claim that the $2 was illegally extorted since no formal charge had been made.
- The Brooklyn Camera Club held its third meeting at the Ilderan Club House, 71 Lincoln Place, on January 9th, adopting a constitution and electing W. F. Miller as President, Milton E. Baker as Vice-President, J. F. Borland as Secretary, and Howard Greenman as Treasurer; the twenty-five-member club set dues at $8.00 per year and hired an apartment in the Ilderan Club House for members' photographic use.
- A letter signed 'Justice' argues that New York's estimated ten thousand wheelmen should exploit the horsemen's push for a Central Park speedway by demanding a combine on road improvements, or else oppose every horsemen's movement with full force, noting the irony that cyclists were long denied access to roads the horsemen now seek to monopolize.
- Dr. William H. Austin, 24, a Bellevue Hospital physician and charter member of the Brooklyn Bicycle Company who joined the Kings County Wheelmen in May 1881 two months after its founding, died unexpectedly at his South Fourth Street home in Brooklyn; he is credited with organizing the first bicycle race meet in Brooklyn on June 23, 1883, at the old Williamsburgh Athletic Club grounds on Rutledge Street.
- A biographical profile traces Harry D. Corey's cycling career from 'bone shakers' in 1878 through thirteen prizes in 1883, breaking all records from one to ten miles at the Springfield Tournament, becoming the first rider to climb Corey Hill on an ordinary bicycle, descending Mount Washington, and breaking the twenty-four-hour record — to his new role as a Pope Manufacturing Company traveling representative after Stoddard, Lovering & Co. retired from the bicycle business.
- Reprinted from the Natchez Exchange, the piece argues that Natchez, Mississippi, with its fifteen-to-twenty-member bicycle club and dangerously rough streets perpetually torn up by street railway work, should designate Cemetery Street as a dedicated cycling boulevard, following the example of bicycle blocks in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, and New Orleans.
- The seventh installment of the Amateur Photography series provides detailed instructions for developing, fixing, intensifying, reducing, and printing from gelatin dry-plate negatives using the Beebe formula — covering oxalate-of-potash and iron developers, alum hardening baths, hyposulphite-of-soda fixers, gold-chloride toning baths, and printing frame technique for producing toned silver prints.
- A preview announces the Photographic Society of Philadelphia's annual exhibition on Wednesday evening at Association Hall, where instantaneous pictures of athletic sports, Constitutional Centennial parades, war ships, yacht races, Yosemite Valley scenes, and images taken with detective and vest-pocket cameras will be projected on a large screen.
- Singer & Co. of Coventry has purchased the American import business of W. B. Everett & Co. and opened a direct American branch house on January 1st with Mr. Ross — who practically managed Everett's operation for two years — installed as manager; the article praises Everett's two-and-a-half years of popular trade service and predicts a record 1888 season for Singer cycles.
- Connecticut correspondent 'Art' reports on prohibitively high cost estimates for a proposed macadam-making plant, the constant disruption of streets by sewer and gas companies, and notes that Facile bicycles are the only cycles seen on the roads this winter — with one rider missing only three weekdays of commuting to business.