The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 1, No 7
Articles in this issue
- Flintham and Frampton of Topeka, Kansas advertise decorative miniature bicycle handle-bar pendants in nickel or gold, available in straight, dropped, or cow-horn styles as cycling souvenirs.
- The Wheelmen's Gazette offers a combined subscription bundle of eleven cycling periodicals and manuals, including Outing, The Bicycling World, and The Wheel, to any club or individual for $10 against a $14 list price.
- The H. B. Smith Machine Company of Smithville, New Jersey advertises their safety bicycle's road records for 50 and 100 miles, L.A.W. championships won, and hill-climbing contest victories since 1881.
- Howard A. Smith and Co. of Newark promote a full stock of second-hand wheels of all sizes and styles, alongside cycling sundries such as helmets, lamps, and uniforms.
- C. W. Spinney of Fitchburg, Massachusetts promotes elegant curved nickel handle-bars at $4.50 complete with brake lever and bracket, available for all cycle models at trade discounts.
- William Read and Sons advertise the Royal Mail bicycle's continued strong sales, citing the Grip-Fast rim, ball-bearing head, and tangent spokes as six key improvements for the season.
- Buchholz's Photographic Studio of Springfield, Mass. advertises portrait photographs of prominent racing wheelmen including Wood, James, Furnivall, Illston, Rowe, Woodside, Langdown, Prince, and Frazier at 35 cents each or four for a dollar.
- An editorial laments that the fall racing meets, though covering eleven days across five large meetings, were not the financial success hoped for, and argues that the amateur/promateur distinction should be abolished so America can lead cycle racing.
- Reports the season's road and track records: W. A. Rhodes's and F. F. Ives's new hour and mileage marks at Springfield, Wm. A. Rowe's 21-mile-in-an-hour ride, and Stillman G. Whittaker's certified 50- and 100-mile road records at Crawfordsville, Indiana, complete with the notarized affidavit of his times.
- Rebuts the London Cyclist's charge that the Springfield Bicycle Club fabricated claims that English amateurs would attend its tournament, laying out the club's dealings with British manufacturers and Henry Sturmey over the visiting riders.
- Chicago correspondent "Chris" muses on public indifference to cycling, describes safety bicycles and "Rover" and "Facile" machines seen in the park, and previews the Philadelphia race meet amid the Gideon/Association for the Advancement of Cycling dispute.
- Correspondent "Verax" of Chicago gives an eyewitness account of Stillman G. Whittaker's certified 50- and 100-mile road record ride near Crawfordsville, Indiana, ended by a collision with a cow, and reports the rain-postponed Indianapolis race meet.
- Paris correspondent reports on "Baby" Daniels's abandoned military cycling demonstration amid rumors he was a German spy, his Pau-to-Calais tricycle record, and recent French track championships won by Médinger.
- A narrative poem by "T. W. E." describing a cyclist who saves a runaway tricyclist from a collision with a train on a steep descent, the two later marrying and revisiting the spot a year on.
- A comic ghost story signed "Dodd," in which a student out for a night ride near a graveyard meets the skeleton of a former bicycle owner, riding a homemade wheel built from wagon and plow parts.
- F. B. Hawkins of the Brooklyn Bicycle Club rides 202 miles in twenty-four hours over Long Island roads, paced by F. B. Jones and later by Adams and Ticknor, finishing on foot after his crank broke.
- Chapters II and III of President Bates's serialized novel: orphaned in plague-stricken Montreal, Innocente Baudry travels to Ontario seeking her late father's chosen guardian, is menaced by the mill-owner Owen Barfell, and is arrested for theft after a vision of the Rev. Pyromander Sadiron.
- P. C. Darrow continues his cross-country touring travelogue, describing the Erie Canal tow-path from Schenectady to Buffalo, the road on to Erie, and repeated encounters with the "day before yesterday" tall tale from canal-side loafers.
- Karl Kron reports on the progress of his forthcoming road-book (nearing 800 pages), his flight from New York jury duty to West Springfield, and his own cyclometer-measured rides from Greenwich to New Haven and on to West Springfield.
- Poultney Bigelow's letter rebuts a rumor aired at the L.A.W. meeting that Thomas Stevens was a paid exploiter of a bicycle brand, affirming that Outing alone funds and directs his round-the-world tour and that he may ride any make he chooses.
- Two reader letters: P. C. Darrow of Indianapolis praises his Expert Columbia's reliability over a thousand-mile westward tour from Boston, and a Worcester correspondent recounts four bicyclists colliding with a farmer's pigs on a downhill coast.
- Short paragraphs on L.A.W. politics and Dr. Beckwith's presidency, the Bicycling News's return, a Cleveland tandem record by Collister and Huntingdon, and other cycling-world gossip.
- A Connecticut correspondent, "Stamson," reports new converts to Facile riding, a moonlight run to Greenwich, and the Solitary Club's planned wheel to the Springfield tournament.
- A Brooklyn correspondent surveys local cycling life — a bicycle-themed oil painting at the Museum of Arts, a carriage accident injuring a wheelman on the Boulevard, and the Kings County Wheelmen's fourth annual race meeting — closing with a tournament poem signed "Mattie."
- Full results tables for tournaments at Lockport, N.Y.; Cleveland, Ohio; the New Jersey Division L.A.W. races at Millville; the Connecticut (Hartford) Bicycle Club meet; and the Lynn (Mass.) Cycle Club Association tournament, naming winners such as Hendee, Rowe, Rich, and Woodside.
- Monthly list of U.S. patents granted for cycling devices — wheels, saddles, tires, and steering gear for velocipedes — compiled for the Gazette by patent attorney Shipley Brashears.
- Signed "Royal Camp," a humorous account of riding into Paris exhausted and dishevelled after a hard day's touring — torn breeches from a stunt between two stone posts, an impromptu street race with a carriage — and drawing crowds astonished by his front-steered Star bicycle.
- The Christchurch Bicycle Club of New Zealand celebrates the opening of new clubrooms with a prize ceremony and toasts, and former secretary H. Oakey recounts the club's founding in 1881 and its growth to ninety members.
- A column of short cycling notes from Noblesville, Indiana, signed "X. X. X.," naming Wainwright, Hollinsworth, and the Hulman brothers as the state's leading riders and touting Indiana's roads.
- A reprinted New York Tribune humor sketch in which an overweight, bejeweled society woman on Riverside Drive asks a passing bicyclist where she might buy a tricycle to help her lose weight.
- Thomas Stevens describes how his Columbia held up after Central Asian soldiers who captured him damaged its wheel, and other papers debate whether moving the Columbia racing team to Springfield for record attempts was an unfair "deal" with Lynn.