The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 9, No 12
Articles in this issue
- Wide-ranging digest covering LAW and CTC news, riders including Percy Furnivall, L.D. Munger, and W.A. Rowe, club activities from Minnesota, Ohio, England, and Australia, the Nottingham B.C.'s withdrawal from the N.C.U., and cycle-race results from the Los Angeles Athletic Club's Thanksgiving Day meeting won by G.A. Von Brandis.
- Boston correspondent reports on the Massachusetts Club's upcoming grand indoor carnival, the controversy over A.A. McCurdy's 24-hour road record disputed by cyclometer-maker Joseph Butcher (who alleges pacemaker Woodman of Chelsea rode McCurdy's machine and inflated the distance), and the L.A.W.'s acceptance of Boston as its next meeting venue, plus short Points items on local club social events and L.D. Munger's challenge for a 24-hour road race.
- Editorial profile of A.G. Spalding & Bros.' bicycle department at 241 Broadway, New York, describing manager Frank N. White's buying trip to England, the firm's direct-tangent-spoke Spalding bicycle built by Hillman, Herbert & Cooper of Coventry, the Kangaroo safety machine's 100-mile road record, and their new U.S. agency for Humber bicycles, tricycles, and the Cripper tricycle.
- First-person memoir by a New York cycling pioneer recalling his first rides at Koster & Bial's bicycle school in September 1879, Wentworth Rollins's large riding school at the American Institute (where Walter Clarke beat champion L.H. Johnson of Orange, N.J.), and the founding of the New York Bicycle Club in late December 1879 with Kingman N. Putnam as Secretary.
- Report on sculptor M. Bartholdi's conferences with engineer Gen. Stone over the Statue of Liberty, noting the pedestal will take two more months and dedication is planned for 3 September (anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles), with the New York World's popular subscription funding the pedestal and miniature souvenir statuettes available.
- Editorial defending American wheelmen against English cycling papers' refusal to accept Springfield tournament records by W.A. Rowe and others, condemning the conduct as petty and unsportsmanlike, and quoting the Canadian Wheelman's rebuke that England's cycling press has lowered itself in the eyes of the continent's cycling fraternity.
- Excerpts from Outing for December describing Thomas Stevens's bicycle journey southward through Slavonia with cautious Hungarian companion Egali, including muddy roads, a roadside tavern stop among sheepskin-clad shepherds who reverently saluted the American flag, and Stevens's current winter stay in Tehran, Persia.
- Satirical column of rhetorical questions probing cycling journalism and racing politics, including jabs at English papers' credibility after the Springfield records dispute, whether John S. Prince will accept Neilson's challenge, whether L.A.W. Racing Board chairman Bassett will explain Lewis T. Frye's reinstatement, and whether the St. Louis Fair Grounds track is a little short.
- Review of 'Rhymes of the Road and River' by 'Chris Wheeler,' published by E. Stanley Hart & Co. of Philadelphia, praising the cycling and rowing poetry collection as fresh, breezy, and harmonious while noting some pieces might have been omitted.
- Club notes from the Harlem Wheelmen (silver cup from the K.C.W. team race of Nov. 3 on display at 104 W. 124th St.), Capital Bicycle Club's Dec. 12 officer elections with John M. Killits as President, Ilderan Bicycle Club of Brooklyn's annual meeting with Howard Greenman elected President, and Cleveland Club's memorial for H.O. Beckwith with Victor Place set to team with C.H. Potter on tandem next season.