The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 7, No 4
Articles in this issue
- Front-page editorial chat on the Ixion Club's forthcoming Yonkers road race, the cyclists' potential 2,500-vote bloc in the New York mayoral election, 'exclusive' clubs (Newburyport, the Boston 'Sponge Club'), the growing Ladies' Tricycle Club, and Benton's $100,000 New Haven factory fire.
- A comic sketch, signed Georgius, in which a Wanderers' Bicycle Club youth, having split his tight uniform breeches in a fall from his wheel, clings to a fence and refuses to escort his sweetheart Jemimarjaneanne.
- Reprinted from Land and Water, an account of the English CTC — founded 1873 in Yorkshire, now some 16,000 members at Fleet Street, London — praising its consul and approved-inn networks but detailing the mismanagement of its scattered 'wandering' councils and absent executive.
- G. O. Clayton's letter to Karl Kron on a tour with Charles Griswold of the Aurora Wheelmen through northern Illinois and Wisconsin (Aurora, Sycamore, Rockford, Beloit), cut short by the equinoctial storm, reporting hilly, stony, sandy roads and urging Rand, McNally & Co. to print cyclists' road maps.
- Capt. C. W. Edgerton of the Fort Wayne Bicycle Club grades each pike road radiating out of Fort Wayne through Allen County — the Bluffton, Piqua, Lima, Goshen, Huntington and other routes — for surface, hills and ridability.
- Karl Kron reports his subscription canvass for 'X. M. Miles on a Bi' (Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle) has reached 2,003 one-dollar pledges, still 997 short, and that he has reprinted 2,000 prospectuses from the Springfield Wheelmen's Gazette.
- Report from the Scranton Republican of the Scranton Bicycle Club's first annual tournament, with clubs from Binghamton, Pittston, Wilkesbarre, New Milford and Owego attending; J. R. Schlager took the club and State championships, the Binghamton team won the tug-of-war, and the evening reception featured George H. Nash's fancy riding.
- Results of the Capital Bicycle Club's annual fall races at Athletic Park, Washington, D.C., on October 17; Howell Stewart won the five-mile Flint challenge cup (19:12½) and three-mile handicap, while William E. Crist took the half-mile and open mile.
- The Manchester (N.Y.) Bicycle Club's annual meeting at Manchester Driving Park on October 18: Frank O. Moulton won the half-mile in 1:49 and Nat K. Noyes took the eight-mile handicap gold medal.
- From the Village Vigil, the editor's claimed informal road record on his Star bicycle — the sixteen-plus miles from Bamfordville to Mount Joy and back in 1 hour 30 minutes without a single dismount.
- Geo. M. Hendee's failed attempt to beat the world's mile bicycle record at Hampden Park, Springfield, on the 16th, posting a fast 38 1/5s quarter but finishing the mile in 2:42 4/5, short of the 2:39 record.
- The Illinois Division L.A.W.'s first annual championship meet at Rockford on October 15; Phil Hammell won the one- and five-mile championships over N. H. Van Sicklen, and W. G. E. Pierce took the two-mile handicap and three-mile dash.
- Editorial arguing that two-speed gearing suits rough American roads, citing Pitman's win on a two-speed Columbia tricycle over Dudley and Burnham's single high-geared Vietors at the Boston century road race, and suggesting a 56-inch maximum gear.
- A humorous touring anecdote, signed Secretary, in which the narrator seems to coast effortlessly up a New York grade in 1882, only to discover the propulsion was the breath of a following rider, Tertius, 'the blower from Weedsport.'
- Preview of the November 1884 Outing, highlighting its expanded yachting coverage, J. A. Fraser's leading 'A Scamper in the Nor'west' and Sylvester Baxter's illustrated 'Wheeling among the Aztecs.'
- Capt. C. W. Edgerton's day-by-day account, sent at Karl Kron's request, of a 226-mile June tour with S. D. Bond from Lima to Xenia and return through Wapakoneta, Sidney, Piqua, Troy, Springfield and Dayton.
- News miscellany: Hendee and Canadian champion T. W. Eck endorsing the Duryea saddle, English rider H. L. Cortis reported dead, James Copeland's first overland Sydney-to-Melbourne tricycle ride, the Paris championships, and a reprinted Springfield Wheelmen's Gazette tribute to the defeated English visitors.
- Chief Consul C. G. Ross's circular calling Vermont L.A.W. members to a meeting at the Rutland Bicycle Club on October 22 to organize a Vermont State Division, the membership having passed the required threshold.