The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 8, No 9
Articles in this issue
- The paper's front-page news column of club, race and trade paragraphs, including Thomas Stevens passing through Brighton, England on his round-the-world ride before starting for Vienna, F. R. Cook's claimed 207½ miles in 24 hours on the Pacific Coast, Prince and Morgan racing horses at Charlotte, N. C., and the Ixion Bicycle Club's coming fifty-mile road race from its 60th Street club house.
- Boston cycling correspondent covers Memorial Day racing plans, the rivalry between Corey and Burnham at the Cambridge Club road race, and Massachusetts Bicycle Club news including 62 machines in the wheel room and Lieut. C. F. W. Hill's crash on Heath Street hill in Brookline.
- Reports on P. Harvard Reilly's dancing schools on Fifth Avenue (New York), Hartford and Worcester, including a well-attended closing reception at Allyn Hall, Hartford, with the American Brass Band of Providence performing under D. W. Reeves.
- Humorous editorial explaining how the editors, having vowed to skip their annual spring poem, were besieged by would-be poets and retreated to Morrisania to produce the satirical verse 'In the Spring,' gratuitously dedicated to Grover Cleveland.
- Results of the Philadelphia Athletic Club's first monthly games at the Athletic Base Ball track on May 18th — one-, two- and five-mile bicycle handicaps largely won by H. S. Kavanagh of Cohoes, N. Y. amid complaints of poor handicapping — plus L. J. Kolb's two-mile win at the Philadelphia Fencing and Sparring Club's games.
- Follow-up on John S. Prince's claimed mile record of 2m. 35½s. at Charlotte, N. C. against four trotting horses on May 25th, drawing on the Charlotte Observer; the editors decline to accept it, citing unknown track conditions, obscure timekeepers Thornwell Gilmer and O. F. Asbury, and a likely flying-start advantage.
- Account of the Citizens Bicycle Club's Friday-evening run to D. G. Yuengling Jr.'s establishment at 128th Street and 10th Avenue, New York, attended by about fifty members including Congressman Viele, Dr. Beckwith and Prof. Miller, with songs, story-telling and clam chowder.
- Review of Henry S. Wood's cyclist road-book for Pennsylvania and New Jersey, compiled with Eugene M. Aaron (Chief Consul of Pa.) and Dr. G. Carleton Brown (Chief Consul of N. J.), covering forty-five mapped routes with road conditions; price $1 from E. M. Aaron, Lock Box 916, Philadelphia.
- Trade write-up for T. J. Kirkpatrick's Perfect Hygienic Bicycle Saddle of Springfield, Ohio (price $6), describing its double-end springs, central cut to prevent chafing, absence of a metal frame under the leather, and weight distribution over the ischial tuberosities to relieve perineal pressure.
- Report on the annual American Division C. T. C. meet at Cleveland on May 18–19, where membership grew from 300 to 700 in a year and St. Louis was chosen for the 1886 meet, followed by Cleveland B. C. race results (quarter-mile won by W. H. Wetmore in 43¾s., five-mile by Geo. F. Snyder in 19m. 26½s.) and an evening concert at the club's new rooms at 927 Euclid Avenue.
- Humorous first-person sketch of a cycling tourist who stops at a roadside house advertising 'Refreshments' to find nothing, then endures stale bread and questionable roast beef at a dilapidated League hotel before riding off.
- Letter from Karl Kron (Washington Square, N. Y., May 14) recommending county road maps from G. H. Walker & Co. of Boston, a free Berkshire Hills map from the Berkshire Life Insurance Co. of Pittsfield, and the New Jersey map supplement in 'Descriptive America' (50c.), while noting his own touring volume is still months from the press with 2,828 subscribers.
- Short comic poem signed 'Tonah' in which a confident cyclist speeds toward a roadside encounter only to be undone by a fresh rut in the road.
- Reprints a Herald dispatch from Charlotte, N. C. (May 25, 1885) reporting John S. Prince's mile in 2m. 35½s. timed by three Charlotte Bicycle Club members against four trotting horses; the editors surmise Prince rode an intermediate flying-start mile and urge him to attempt the record at Springfield under proper conditions.
- Fixtures calendar for May–September 1885 listing meets, road races and tours (the Ixion 50-mile road race, the Yale B. C. two-day meet at New Haven on June 5–6, the L. A. W. sixth annual meet at Buffalo on July 2–3, the Springfield B. C. tournament September 8–10), entry-closing dates, and brief notes from the Fall River, Portland and Brunswick (New Brunswick, N. J.) clubs.
- Four-day programme for the Massachusetts Bicycle Club's June 17–20 tour from Boston north through Salem, Gloucester, Newburyport and Portsmouth and back, about 155 miles under Captain Shillaber, with night stops at the Pavilion in Gloucester and the Merrimac House in Newburyport.
- Reports that L. A. W. President Beckwith has established a Touring Board, modeled on the Racing Board, to select annual tour routes and establish league hotels; the committee is chaired by Burley B. Ayres of Chicago, with F. A. Elwell, Geo. R. Bidwell, H. S. Livingston and W. S. Bull.