The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 4, No 1
Articles in this issue
- Gormully and Jeffery present their complete 1889 range, covering the American Champion, American Light Champion, American Safety, American Light Safety, American Rambler, Ideal Rambler, American Ideal, and American Challenge lines.
- H. B. Smith Machine Co. reiterates the Star's world road and track records across multiple distances, arguing its record since 1881 of winning all first premiums proves it the best bicycle in competition.
- The King Wheel Co. promotes its lever-drive roadster, B. F. Goodrich advertises Akron-made bicycle tires and rubber handles, and Montgomery Ward offers its mail-order Buyers' Guide covering clothing and sundries for the season.
- The Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co. of Stamford, Conn. announces its new Eagle bicycle, combining the advantages of the ordinary and the safety, and invites dealer and agent applications.
- A visiting Montreal wheelman named Grigsby tells fellow club members how he and his friend L'Estrange, stranded by a snowstorm on a winter tour down the Lower St. Lawrence, welded their two Star bicycles into a makeshift quadricycle to cross the frozen crust, and were chased by a pack of wolves through a forest near Trois Pistoles.
- An essay arguing the ordinary bicycle is in fact safer than the safety type despite its reputation, because its simplicity and clean falls beat the safety's mechanical failure points and the ease that attracts unskilled riders, while conceding the safety's superior hill-climbing.
- Describes Hon. E. Moody Boynton's single-driving-wheel steam locomotive under construction in Portland, Maine, an eight-foot cast steel wheel driven like giant bicycle cranks and claimed capable of one to two hundred miles an hour on an elevated monorail track.
- A technical analysis of the proper banking angle for a racetrack curve, working out the slope needed to exactly balance centrifugal force against gravity at 25 miles per hour for curve radii of 165 and 140 feet.
- A state-by-state and foreign roundup of club news, races and tournaments from December 15 to January 15, including the Augusta, Georgia race meet results and racing news from Australia, England and France.
- By "Stamson": an essay praising the pleasures of cycling through a New England winter landscape, urging riders not to give up their machines for the season and describing the quiet beauty of frozen roads and bare trees.
- Reprints a Philadelphia Press interview with racing trainer Tom Eck recounting how his hair turned white overnight at age fifteen after a boating accident on Lake Scugog, Ontario, in which two companions drowned.
- By Charles Alexander Persons of Macon, Ga.: a history of cycling's early and enthusiastic take-up in the South from the 1870s velocipede craze through the Standard Columbia era to the current boom, with a defense of Macon and Southern hospitality against Northern slights.
- Capsule reviews of new books and magazines of interest to cyclists, including Harry Castlemon's juvenile novel "The Steel Horse, or The Rambles of a Bicycle," Bill Nye's "Thinks," and the new Columbia Calendar for 1889.
- Reprinted from the Baltimore Sun: describes the Baltimore wheelmen-led association of a thousand citizens petitioning to repeal the city's repaving ordinance and campaigning against cobblestones and poor country roads.
- Reports Glasgow clergyman Hugh Callan's 1,830-mile ride from Paris to Constantinople through the Alps, the Balkans and Bulgaria, including a bout of fever in Sofia, with plans to continue on to Syria and Jerusalem.
- Reports the six-day cycle-versus-horse race at the Omaha Coliseum, in which cyclists John Prince and Tom Eck covered 674 miles against Marve Beardsley's horse's 667.
- A list of United States patents issued on bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes and attachments from December 11 to December 25, 1888, compiled by solicitor Jos. A. Minturn of Indianapolis.
- A list of English cycle patents granted in November and early December 1888, covering lamps, saddle springs, home-trainers, a water-cycling apparatus, and the Quadrant Tricycle Company's own wheel patent.
- Lists newly elected officers for clubs including the Capital Bicycle Club of Washington, the Pennsylvania Bicycle Club of Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bicycle Club, and the United Wheelmen of Kansas City.
- A survey of new manufacturers and models for the 1889 season, covering the Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co., the part-wooden Sterling Cycle Co. machines, the new Indiana Bicycle Mfg. Co. of Indianapolis, the Warwick Cycle Mfg. Co.'s new line, the Pope Mfg. Co.'s first American tandem, and the Springfield Bicycle Mfg. Co.'s new "Volant" safety.
- By Joseph J. Bliss, first of two parts: an account of riding solo from Alameda to San Jose by moonlight and on toward the Lick Observatory atop Mount Hamilton, covering road conditions, a chatty farm boy's directions, and the view over the Santa Clara valley from the Grand View House, breaking off as the author nears the summit.
- Describes Arthur J. Readio's patent "clutch" device for bicycle steering heads, which lets a rider remove both hands from the handlebars while the spring-loaded mechanism keeps the machine on a straight course.
- A free-verse poem by "Tennyone" describing a solitary tricycle ride through quiet, moonlit, frozen streets and a roadside exchange with "The Philosopher," who remarks that the Moon and Sun are cyclers too.
- The Vandalia Line again promotes its direct Indianapolis-to-St. Louis service as the ideal route west, with solid trains, Pullman sleepers, and three daily departures guaranteeing connections at St. Louis.