The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 1, No 9
Articles in this issue
- Pope Manufacturing Co. offers a Columbia-branded day-by-day calendar for 1887 suitable for office or home, available by mail on receipt of twelve two-cent stamps.
- The Springfield Bicycle Mfg. Co. promotes the King Safety Bicycle invented by Rev. Homer A. King, citing its lever drive, hill-climbing ability, and safety against headers, backed by rider testimonials.
- The Bicycle Herald and the Wheelman Evangelist announce their merger into a monthly publication covering both cycling progress and Christian life topics, with premium offers for subscriber agents.
- Wheeling magazine's Christmas annual, to be written by W. McCandlish and F. Percy Lott, is advertised as a satirical and humorous cycling publication available at 25 cents from the Gazette.
- J. A. Lakin and Co. of Westfield, Massachusetts advertise the Simplest Cyclometer with a balance weight and lantern attachment, supplied with a certificate of accuracy and priced at $10.
- The Gazette offers a combined post-paid subscription to Outing and the Wheelmen's Reference Book alongside the Gazette itself, all three for three dollars to any address.
- S. T. Clark and Co. of Baltimore advertise new and second-hand bicycles, tricycles, and tandems available on instalment plans for clergymen, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.
- A whimsical poem signed "T. W. E." credits Fleetwing, the fairy god of speed, with fashioning the bicycle from a rainbow backbone, sun-and-planet wheels, starlit spokes, and a palm-leaf saddle.
- Reports Alfred A. McCurdy's 305-mile, twenty-four-hour road record set November 5-6 on the Boston Bicycle Club's course near Waltham, with full timing splits and sworn certificates from officials J. S. Dean, A. E. Wiswell, and the American Cyclists' Union's Eastern District Racing Board.
- Reprinted from the Belgian News, this recounts a 100-kilometre cycle trial near Chatelet witnessed by war- and post-office officials Capt. Regibo, Lieut. Pardoen, and M. Wiguelen, won by M. De Gand, testing bicycles for military dispatch-carrying.
- A sharp editorial on the ongoing "Coventry Ring" newspaper feud between the Wheelmen's Gazette and the English cycling papers the Cyclist and Bicycling News over disputed correspondence involving Iliffe, Sturmey, and Hillier.
- Reprints Citizens' Bicycle Club secretary Knight L. Clapp's letter to Outing editor Poultney Bigelow, offering a complimentary banquet to Thomas Stevens on completion of his round-the-world bicycle journey.
- Surveys the closing French cycling season, road records by F. De Civry, J. Wick of Bordeaux, and Osmen De Lafitol, American trick rider Canary's engagement at the Folies Bergères, and C.T.C. French consul A. De Baroncelli's new road guide.
- Philadelphia correspondent "Chris" recounts a peace brokered between the feuding Pennsylvania and Germantown clubs by Frank Read, Captain C. A. Roberts's rained-out Fairmount Park Thanksgiving parade, the growing Century Wheelmen, and George B. Gideon's new Lancaster Pike record.
- A tribute poem signed "T. W. E." inscribed to Thomas Stevens on the completion of his around-the-world bicycle tour.
- Chicago correspondent "Verax" backs Abbot Bassett's Cycle stance on abolishing the amateur rule, recounts a Bicycling World editor's mock reprimand over a racy item about an Oak Park dance, and reports Gormully & Jeffery's expanding factory and W. J. Morgan's planned trip to Europe.
- Describes the Ilderan Bicycle Club's season-opening entertainment of piano, zither, and banjo performances, and the Long Island Wheelmen's club run to Irvington, N.J. to watch the N.Y. & N.J. road race, where Harry Hall and H. Greenman outperformed favorite Valentine.
- A comic sketch, signed "Juno," about Samuel and Ophelia Wiggleby's disastrous first tandem-tricycle outing, ending in a crash while racing their rivals the Peterbys and the sale of the wrecked machine.
- Pope racing-team manager A. L. Atkins, interviewed by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, credits Hendee's pace-making as superior to Rowe's and recounts Rowe's sudden "sickness" before their scheduled one-mile match race at Lynn.
- A Connecticut club letter, signed "Stamson," on a Thanksgiving Day cut short by weather, a farewell run to Tarrytown, and reminiscences of an old road trip through Andover and Ashtabula, Ohio, naming local riders Frank Osborn and Bert Beals.
- Karl Kron's letter reports the near-completion of his 800-page cycling history "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle," detailing electrotyped chapters, the remaining 36-page gap, and his plan to mail subscriber copies around the book's third anniversary.
- F. B. Hawkins breaks A. B. Barkman's 24-hour road record with a 207.5-mile ride from Brooklyn out through Jamaica, Babylon, and Hicksville and back, paced in relays by club members W. S. Mead, F. B. Williams, G. E. Todd, F. B. Jones, W. S. Vail, and Elmer Skinner.
- Lists newly elected officers for nine clubs, including the Allegheny (Pa.) Bicycle Club, Ann Arbor (Mich.) Bicycle Club, Brookline (Mass.) Cycle Club, East Hartford (Ct.) Wheel Club, Holyoke (Mass.) Bicycle Club, Illinois Cycling Club, Marblehead (Mass.) Ramblers, Waltham (Mass.) Ramblers, and the Washington (D.C.) Cycle Club.
- A monthly patent digest compiled by O. E. Duffy lists new U.S. bicycle and tricycle patents, including three velocipede patents by H. A. King of Springfield and others by D. H. and L. H. Rice, C. E. Duryea, and T. B. Jeffery.
- Excerpted from Karl Kron's C.T.C. history, a roundup of correspondents' complaints, including Edward Easton and Irish Cyclist editor K. J. Mecredy, about overpriced, poor-quality Cyclists' Touring Club "recommended" hotels in England.
- A letter from W. J. Parry, consul of the Victorian Cyclists' Union at Sandhurst, describes a newly built but flawed racing track and the month's inter-colonial race meetings, mentioning champion rider Con Dwyer.
- Thomas Stevens, writing for Outing, describes an overnight stay in a squalid Koordish mountain village near Mount Ararat, sharing bread and yaort with the household of the local Sheikh.
- A Philadelphia Medical News piece makes the public-health case for better street paving, comparing asphalt, Belgian block, and a new fire-brick pavement being tested in Chicago and Cleveland.
- A New York Sun interview with an up-town tailor on 1886 menswear trends argues that tennis and bicycling are pushing fashionable men toward knee breeches.
- A Wheeling editorial on the promateur controversy argues that amateur Furnivall's cycling success, bankrolled by a friend's $500, is no different from a wealthy amateur funding his own racing, defending Gatehouse and Furnivall by name.
- Condensed from Karl Kron's chapter for the Wheelmen's Reference Book, this traces the League of American Wheelmen from its May 1880 Newport founding by Kirk Munroe and Charles E. Pratt through six annual meetings and membership growth to over 4,250.
- New York attorney Isaac B. Potter reviews wheelmen's legal right to the public highway, citing Macomber v. Nichols, Adolph v. Central Park, and a Brooklyn board of aldermen ruling that bicycles are entitled to street use like any other vehicle.
- A Boston Herald reprint of H. D. Corey's report on his England buying trip, covering Sidney Lee's record rides, the new chain-driven "Rover" safety bicycle, and Coventry manufacturers' views on ball heads, spade handles, and tandem axle failures.