The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 6, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The front-page miscellany column reports P. M. Harris of the Ixion Club clocking 3:17 for the mile at the Citizens' meet, Karl Kron's forthcoming book 'X. Miles on a Bicycle,' Fred Ingraham ('The Jedge') marrying Miss Gertrude Julia Leverich, the Springfield Club's 28-inch silver race vase on black onyx, and Ira Perego's furnishings exhibition in Washington during the L. A. W. meet.
- A letter signed W. C. H. warns American clubs against building asphalt racing tracks — citing the dangerous Astor lower grounds course at Birmingham — and recommends cinder or grass tracks, comparing the Crystal Palace, Belgrave Road, and Surbiton courses and giving practical advice on cheaply marking out and rolling a grass track.
- A detailed itinerary for a July 29–August 6 cycling tour of Maine's Kennebec Valley, starting from Trinity Square, Boston, with stops at Gardiner, Augusta, Waterville, Skowhegan, Bingham, and the 'Forks,' limited to fifty riders at a cost under $25, organized by Frank A. Elwell of Portland.
- A correspondent signing 'Del Savid' describes the Schenectady Bicycle Club — formed last November out of the older Mohawk Bi. Club and now in the League and C. T. C. — listing officers including President S. R. James, Captain Jacob W. Clute, and Secretary-Treasurer Ed. L. Davis, while lamenting the city's brutal cobblestone streets.
- A letter signed 'Racer,' self-identified as a professional, rejects the charge that professionals sell races, noting that Springfield amateurs finished the mile within 3 seconds yet escape suspicion, and defends Lee's records against Cortis and Keith Falconer by arguing full-time professionals naturally out-train part-time amateurs.
- A narrative sketch signed 'Brun' continues the Lancaster Pike series with a romance: a young Philadelphia wheelman, Roseburn, rescues a lady called Blumine from a charging bull on the Overbrook hill using his dog King Charles and an alarm bell, leading to their first introduction at her gate.
- A Boston correspondent signed 'Lkwee' (May 5, 1884) reports dissatisfaction with the League's executive management, details the Ramblers' May 30 race meeting programme of ten events with $500 in prizes, notes new clubs formed at Orphan's Corner and Neponset, and reports Stall and Burt taking a South End Columbia agency.
- Reports the May 1st departure from City Hall Park, New York, of Woodside and Morgan on their transcontinental ride, fitted with McDonnell and Excelsior cyclometers; by May 5th they had reached Lancaster, Pa. (166 miles) over heavy, rain-soaked roads with help from wheelmen along the route.
- The editors' miscellany column covers Washington meet politics and 'reformers,' calls for stricter League membership vetting with proposers and seconders, describes the silver Willard's Hotel Cup offered by Col. Staples for the three-mile race, and tells of Chas. H. Jenkins building a twelve-lap cinder track at Louisville for just $4.
- A humorous five-stanza poem by 'Ninon Neckar' hailing Philadelphia's Lancaster Pike as the finest road anywhere for a bike or trike, while wryly conceding the city's hundreds of miles of rough cobblestone streets around its twenty-mile smooth stretch.
- A travel notice advising New York wheelmen to make up parties of ten for the midnight B. & O. Railroad train to Washington on May 17 (rate $4.90, bicycles at half a cent per mile), with details from C. P. Craig of 315 Broadway.
- The 'Cycling Publishing Company sets out its formal offer to the League to produce a four-page monthly 'Official Gazette' at 20 cents per member, arguing the League cannot economically self-publish — citing cost estimates of about $1,612 a year and a letter from C. T. C. secretary Shipton confirming that club's Gazette runs at a net loss of roughly £25 a month in postage alone.
- A correspondent signed 'The Crab' from Randolph, western New York, reports the Randolph Bi. Club at seventeen members with a free winter hall from lawyer A. Wentworth, argues the League meet should rotate to Cincinnati or Cleveland for western wheelmen, and chides Karl Kron for endlessly delaying his book with prefatory columns.