The Wheelmen's Gazette, Vol 4, No 11
Articles in this issue
- Gormully and Jeffery announce the American Rambler can be furnished for use by both a lady and a gentleman, broadening its appeal beyond solo male riders for the first time.
- The White Cycle Co. of Westboro, Massachusetts challenge readers to name another safety that could climb Mt. Hood or Mt. St. Helena, arguing that only the White Flyer's unique design makes such ascents possible.
- H. B. Smith Machine Co. repeat the full list of Star championship victories in 1889 including L.A.W. national titles by Colie Bell of Ottawa, Kansas, and multiple state titles by W. I. Wilhelm of Reading, Pennsylvania.
- Ben L. Darrow of Indianapolis offers cycle dealers and manufacturers electrotype printing cuts in comic, artistic, and scientific styles at reasonable prices to illustrate advertising and printed promotional matter.
- Strickland and Pierce advertise their patented cycling shoe range: No. 1 hand-sewn and hand-stitched, No. 2 hand-sewn and hand-stitched, No. 7 ladies' tricycle shoe, the Ideal racing shoe, a sprint running shoe, and gymnasium shoes, all sent from the factory post paid.
- John F. Ellis and Co. of Washington D.C. again advertise their four cycling songs: "Swiftly and Silently," "Wheel on to Glory," "Listen to My Tale of Woe" (words by Eugene Field), and "Tandem Waltzes" dedicated to the L.A.W. Hagerstown meet.
- The Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co. reprints an American Athlete account of William Van Wagoner's scratch victory in the Wilmington 25-mile handicap road race on a 45-pound Eagle, overtaking the field and shooting over railroad tracks on one wheel.
- By Chas. H. Sieg: a fiction story of two college friends, David Cherry and the narrator, who each set out awheel or by lake steamer to visit the other on the same day; the narrator's Lake Michigan crossing turns into a fight for his life when David, driven mad by overwork studying medicine, tries to chloroform him in their shared stateroom.
- By Bill Nye: a comic sketch about the perils of mounting unfamiliar wheeled contraptions, climaxing with a preacher, the Rev. Mr. Halleujah, tipping over backward on a baggage truck while trying to impress passing young ladies.
- A state-by-state and foreign roundup of club news, races and tournaments from October 15 to November 15, 1889, plus a list of coming events including the Stanley Show in London.
- A selected list of United States patents on bicycles and velocipedes reported for the Gazette by C. A. Snow and Co., Patent Attorneys of Washington, D.C., for October 1889.
- A list of English cycle patents covering spring saddles, lubricators, cyclometers, collapsible tricycles, and J. B. Dunlop's improved frame for rear-driving safety bicycles.
- By Ralph Friedberg: a professional racer's memoir of his cycling career from building a homemade velocipede in Galesburg, Illinois in 1882 through trick riding, a stint touring in drag as "M'dlle Zinga Zikoff," and racing across America and Europe alongside Prince Wells and Wm. Woodside.
- A review of Robert P. Scott's new book, covering its history of cycle design from Dennis Johnson's 1818 wooden hobbyhorse through modern racing wheels, and its survey of cycle patents from around the world.
- By Charles Alexander Persons: a club's Thanksgiving outing engineered in secret by the janitor "Uncle Kerlumbia," who arranges a rendezvous at Rippling Waters mill with the rival Young Ladies' Cycling Club for fishing, a possum barbecue, and courting, before smoothing over his wife's anger at being tricked into it.
- By M. A. Holbein: detailed advice on conditioning for road races, covering training schedules for distances from ten to 100 miles, diet during training, correct saddle position for hilly versus flat courses, ankle action in pedalling, and a warning against 24-hour races for riders under twenty-one.
- By Chris Wheeler: Archie recounts to his wife Maud's cousin how a tandem tricycle mishap — two dogs, a runaway coast down a hill, a collision that wrecked the machine, and an improvised roadside milk-bath to clean up — led to his proposal of marriage.
- By "Stamson": an essay agreeing with Karl Kron that solitary cycle touring beats companionship, since mismatched paces, tastes and budgets make joint tours a source of friction.