The Wheel: Journal of Bicycling, Vol 9, No 16
Articles in this issue
- The weekly news column covers S. Golder's NCU-accepted 50-mile record, the upcoming Stanley Show at Westminster's Royal Aquarium, the amateur championship debate between Percy Furnivall and W.A. Rowe, and detailed race reports from Minneapolis's Washington Skating Rink (three-mile series won by Joseph Fellows and E.A. Savage) and St. Louis's Globe Rink (five-mile handicap won by H.C. Morris after a collision between Whittaker and Stone).
- A prominent Boston wheelman makes the case for handicap over class racing, arguing that handicaps produce more exciting competition and faster times for the whole field, and proposes L.A.W.-supervised state handicappers paid a small fee per race; A.L. Atkins of Pope Manufacturing Co. is quoted as most decidedly in favour of the system.
- The Boston Club's January annual meeting elected the committee's full ticket including President E.C. Hodges and Captain R.J. Tombs, voted to amend the by-laws requiring every member to join the L.A.W., and resolved to hold a grand reception at the club house in lieu of the usual annual dinner.
- The Massachusetts Club's January meeting saw President Williams and Treasurer Benson announce they would not seek re-election, four members expelled for non-payment of dues, and the club vote to admit non-resident members without an initiation fee at $10 annual dues.
- Reports on 1886 officer elections at the Wakefield Bicycle Club (President E.N. Heath, Captain E.D. Albee, best home-trainer time 2.10) and the Somerville Cycle Club (President W.R. Maxwell, Captain Eugene Sanger), which adopted a revised constitution and admitted nine new members.
- C.A. Hazlett cites L.A.W. by-laws and documentary evidence that the New Hampshire Division was formally organized on September 18, 1882 at Portsmouth — predating Massachusetts — entitling it to first position in the League parade, a precedent already recognised in the official Gazette of June 25, 1885.
- Brief Boston-area cycling notes including W.E. Crist's visit as guest of Harry Corey, the Somerville Club's 1,000-mile season on called runs, Massachusetts Club billiard tournament standings (L.T. Pratt leading), and L.H. Johnson's hundred-dollar wager that a rider can ascend Eagle Rock Hill on an ordinary crank machine without power-traps.
- F.A. Elwell of Portland, Maine, announces a sixteen-day cycling party to Bermuda departing New York on March 2nd via the Quebec Steamship Co., promoting the island's hard coral roads, tropical scenery, and delightful climate as a wheelman's winter paradise within 50 hours' sail of the city.
- The regular column recounts the infamous 1882 wheelmen's ball at Standard Hall where treasurer James Revell absconded with subscription funds, leaving over a hundred carriages turned away, then traces the Citizens B.C.'s growth from 1882 through the landmark 1883 L.A.W. meet in New York attended by 876 wheelmen in four divisions.
- Formal resolutions from the Brooklyn Bicycle Club, signed by President A.B. Barkman, mourning the death of Charles Godfrey Koop — a pioneer wheelman of Brooklyn and long-time club member and officer since the club's foundation — with condolences extended to his family.
- A feature on the Capital Bicycle Club of Washington D.C., tracing its history as one of America's oldest cycling organisations (founded January 31, 1879, by H.S. Owen, Max Hansmann and others), detailing its purchase of a lot on 15th Street for a new three-storey clubhouse, its landmark long-distance tours — including Hansmann and Schooley's 1879 Washington-to-Boston ride — and current officers under President John M. Killits.