The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 3, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Pope Manufacturing Co. introduces the Veloce Columbia, a rear-driving safety bicycle of the most improved pattern for the 1888 season, accompanied by the latest free catalogue.
- The Rudge Agency at 152 Congress Street, Boston announces a large consignment of Rudge Bicyclette safety bicycles and Rudge Light Roadsters has just been received, with agents wanted in unoccupied territory.
- The Springfield Bicycle Mfg. Co. updates its distribution network with five regional wholesale partners and a retail showroom at 147 Washington Street, Boston, offering both plain and ball-bearing models.
- C. H. Ross and Co. of Albany promote their improved detachable luggage carrier for crank and Star bicycles at $1.00, described as absolutely the best and most convenient carrier made and stronger than the previous year.
- H. B. Smith Machine Co. announces the new 1888 Star is ready for the market, promoting it as the best road bicycle and best hill climber available, perfectly safe with no headers.
- B. F. Goodrich Co. of Akron, Ohio advertises their range of bicycle tires in hard and soft rubber, along with spade grips, pedal rubbers, and handle options, inviting dealers to request price lists.
- The Vandalia Line railway advertises its direct service from Indianapolis to St. Louis and points west, with train departures at 7:30 AM, 11:55 AM, and 11:00 PM and prompt connections at St. Louis.
- The Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railway announces a new Chicago express train leaving Indianapolis at 6:30 AM, arriving in Chicago at 1:30 PM, with elegant Pullman sleeping and chair cars.
- A Chicago hotel waiter tells a party of touring wheelmen how he once borrowed a decrepit American Star for a club run, watched it vanish from the club house overnight, and hired the absurd detective firm of Nowall & Pounce, whose interrogation over the machine's habits and appetite ends the installment "Concluded Next Month."
- An editorial argues that tinkering with the amateur definition by the A. C. U., not spectator indifference, has killed amateur cycle racing in America, contrasting well-supported German and Norwegian amateurism with France's purely pecuniary professional racing scene.
- A compiled list of United States patents issued on bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes and attachments from March 6 to April 17, 1888, credited to solicitor Jos. A. Minturn of Indianapolis.
- A list of English cycle patents granted from mid-February through late March 1888, covering steering gear, tricycle wheels, saddles, a combination knife, and a combined tricycle-and-parcel-cart.
- Reports W. L. Van Horn's offer of prizes for a Denver road race on April 29, the newly furnished rooms of the Social Wheel Club, and a stalled road-race arrangement between the Ramblers and the St. Louis Cycling Club.
- An editorial urges clubs with surplus treasury funds to invest in road improvement rather than expensive race tracks, arguing good roads, not race meets, secure the long-term future of cycling.
- Outlines the planned July 8 start of the Indiana Division's league tour from Indianapolis through Rushville, Connersville, Brookville and Cincinnati, then five days through Kentucky to Louisville and by boat to Madison.
- A state-by-state and foreign roundup of club elections, races and touring news from April 15 to May 15, 1888, plus a list of upcoming meets and races and a report on the L. A. W. Baltimore meet program.
- A Baltimore correspondent details the three-day program for the June 18–20, 1888 League meet: a business day devoted to League reorganization, an editors' race and parade to Druid Hill Park, League championship races at Arlington Driving Park, a smoker concert, and a Chesapeake Bay excursion to Annapolis and Bay Ridge.
- Reports that the insolvency of the Springfield Printing Co. has delayed Karl Kron's giant 150-page, 90,000-word supplement of press notices and specimen pages for "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle," and previews its list of section headings.
- A Paris, Illinois correspondent ("M. O. D.") describes a winter trip to Southern California and Denver, then reports on the local "Meteors" club's mounts and plans for a Mammoth Cave tour.
- A Los Angeles correspondent reports the Los Angeles Wheelmen's preparations for their May 30 spring race meet at Agricultural Park, naming racers Woodworth, Percival and Wing and their record ambitions.
- A detailed specification write-up of the Dart Safety, the Dart Tandem Bicycle, and the Ladies' Dart Bicycle, covering their frame construction, adjustable ball bearings, and mounting features for novice and lady riders.
- Reports that the U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed all five of Pope Mfg. Co.'s patent-infringement suits against R. Philip Gormully and the Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co., ruling their old license had ended cleanly in 1886 and that the defendants' machines did not infringe.
- Discusses the growing early-closing movement giving shop workers a weekly half-holiday, noting the Pope Mfg. Co.'s free lithograph sign advertising a store's closing hour.
- By Joseph J. Bliss, the first of four installments describing a Washington's Birthday tour from Alameda through San Leandro, Milpitas, San Jose and Gilroy toward Monterey, with detailed road conditions and an overnight stop at the League hotel in Gilroy.
- An editorial contends wheelmen get the most benefit from their local club, then their state division, and least from the national League, and argues men should be recruited into clubs first rather than compelled to join the League.
- A dialect poem in which a rider praises a quiet, little-known back road he keeps secret from the crowds, and the girl he has come to love who lives along it.