The Bicycle. - The San Francisco Examiner, 25 Apr 1887
The Bicycle.
The Bay City Wheelmen received six applications for membership at the last meeting.
It is the intention of the club to give another of its pleasant smokers within the next two weeks, to which the local riders will be invited.
A number of the members rode to Taylorville yesterday, while others went to Livermore.
Meeker and James, the captain and lieutenant, respectively, of the Bay City Wheelmen, deserve much credit for the condition in which they brought the members home from the century run. It was greatly due to the schedule, to arrange which they were compelled to ride to San Jose and back three times, that such a good showing was made.
The run was started twenty minutes late, but this time was made up before Redwood City was reached.
The total time consumed on the Louis Ramblers' run was thirteen hours and thirty-four minutes; of the Bay City Wheelmen, thirteen hours and twenty-one minutes. The resting time for the Ramblers was two hours and twenty minutes; the Bay City Wheelmen's rest was about three hours, making a total riding time for the Ramblers of eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, and for the Bay City Wheelmen ten hours and twenty-one minutes. All the Bay City wheelmen finished excepting two, whose wheels broke, and a number of the strong road riders did not start. This is the first successful century run ever held on this coast. The riders wish to thank the San Jose club, Bailey, Cole, Hall, Mangrim, Reed, Johnson, Thornton and McIntosh for the kindness shown them and hope to return the compliment some time.
Word has been received from Chief Consul Welch. He expected to reach Los Angeles today and would start for home about Friday. He rode seventy-two miles last Monday and averaged about fifty miles every day.
The Bay City Wheelmen wish to dispute, in a friendly manner, with the St. Louis Ramblers their claim that no other club in the country could turn out so many men for a century run as they could. The score is now even, 14 to 14.
A glance at the table below, credited to the New York Sunday Mercury, will apprise the reader how the different athletic records compare with that of the bicycle at distances. Above 100 miles some great feats of endurance and time have taken place. A. A. McCurdy, on the Star bicycle, holds all road records from 150 to 305 miles, which he has traveled in twenty-four hours. W. A. Rowe, on a Columbia, covered over twenty-two miles in an hour's run at Springfield, last fall, and John S. Prince has traveled 767 9-10 miles in forty-eight hours on an indoor track, riding an "American Champion” wheel.
