The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 8, No 2
Articles in this issue
- Front-page run of editorial news squibs: Hendee in training for a mile-record attempt at Springfield May 30, the Yale College Club's May meet for the Pope Cup and 25-mile championship, a long pen-portrait of Karl Kron and his 2,600-name subscription list, and the full three-day Memphis Cycle Club race programme of April 30–May 2.
- Boston correspondent on the season-opening Fast Day rides: the Massachusetts Club's 38 members under Captain Shilaber touring the Newtons, some 250 cyclists at Chestnut Hill reservoir, and hungry wheelmen jostling for seats at Bailey's Hotel, South Natick, and the Essex House, Salem.
- Gossip column replying to Secretary Aaron's jibes in the Official Gazette, noting C.K. Alley's new tandem tricycle, mocking the 'Leeming's Training Tonic' claim about Sandy Sellers, praising Buffalo's lady tricyclers, criticising C.T.C. Gazette editor Ernest R. Shipton over the Duke of Albany, and ribbing the Bicycling World's new C.W. Reed cartoon and Webb's spill from a Humber.
- Karl Kron's letter to the Editor rebutting a note in the Cyclist and Athlete signed 'V.M.H.' of General Wayne, Pa. publicly demanding his money back for the long-delayed 'Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle'; Kron shows no subscriber of those initials or that address exists among his 2,658 names and explains his payment-on-delivery policy.
- Newly elected officers of the Noblesville, Md. Bicycle Club (President W.E. Dunn, organised March 11), the Portland, Me. Wheel Club (President C.H. Lawson), and the Northampton Bicycle Club (President Dr. Daniel Pickard), now 33 members strong with about fifty dollars in the treasury.
- Thomas Stevens, who rode San Francisco to Boston in 1884, sailed from New York April 9 aboard the City of Chicago for Liverpool, planning to wheel through Europe, Turkey, Persia, China and Japan to complete the first round-the-world bicycle journey, writing a series of articles for Outing en route.
- The National Association of Amateur Athletes' special meeting of March 21 at the Metropolitan Hotel adopted a new amateur definition, amended by Mr. Castner to bar those who competed in open competition for money; after three hours of debate led by O.T. Johnson and L.E. Myers it passed by a two-thirds vote, effective May 1, 1885 (signed 'Clipper').
- Roller-skating news and squibs: an estimated $60,000,000 invested in American rinks, nineteen skate factories at Richmond, Ind. (including M.C. Henley's), Edward B. Dickinson's $100 diamond medal for a mile professional race at the Brooklyn rink, and George Francis Train lending skates to children from his bench in Madison Square.
- Short Boston notes: the success of The Wheel's special number, the Charlestown Bicycle Club's coming third-anniversary celebration, the crowd of admirers around the Pope Mfg. Co.'s new light roadster, and Frank Nelson elected treasurer of the Boston Bicycle Club vice W.B. Everett, resigned.
- Detailed account of the opening reception of the Massachusetts Bicycle Club's new Newbury Street clubhouse, 'the finest cycle club edifice in the world,' attended by some 600 cyclists including Col. Albert A. Pope, Thomas Stevens, R.P. Ahl and Abbott Bassett, with its gymnasium, bowling alley, ladies' parlour and a chandelier of gilded bicycle-wheel gas burners (signed 'Lewee').
- F.A. Elwell announces an eleven-day, 159-mile summer wheel tour from Boston to Moosehead Lake and Bar Harbor, Maine, departing July 17, with a day-by-day itinerary through Greenville, Monson, Dexter and Bangor, where the Pine Tree Bicycle Club will host a reception and races at Maplewood Park.
- Further Boston notes: the Springfield Bicycle Club circulating its Massachusetts L.A.W. state-officer ballot headed by Chief Consul Henry E. Ducker, the Nemo Cycling Club admitting members only in male-female pairs, and the correspondent's argument that the League should abolish its amateur rule and hand racing to an independent board.