The Bearings, Vol 11, No 13
Articles in this issue
- Minneapolis wheelmen and civic leaders successfully lobby to defeat the Downs Bill that would have banned cycle racing and athletic sports on Decoration Day; A.A. Hansen also sets a Minnesota century record and rides 200 miles in 17:48.
- Eddie Bald wins the two-mile scratch race at the Garden City Cyclers' track opening in San Jose on April 19, defeating Coulter, Foster, and Ziegler in a world-record time of 4:15⅛, breaking Ziegler's previous record set at Denver.
- Bald lowers his own competition-mile record from 2:05⅛ to 2:04 on a road wheel at the second San Jose meeting on April 20, while the hometown crowd hisses former idol Otto Ziegler for his poor showing.
- The formal opening of the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field in Philadelphia features a two-mile bicycle race won by Osgood over Wiborn and Douglas; plans also advance for a New York-to-Philadelphia tri-state relay involving long-distance rider Frank Dampman.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago rules that any rider expelled for non-payment of dues cannot enter the May 12 Chicago road race until debts are cleared; eight new clubs are admitted to membership including the Irving Park and West Side Cycling Clubs.
- An American medical missionary in Armenia writes that Pittsburgh cyclist Frank Lenz was killed at Koordali on the Alishgird plain in May 1894, with eyewitnesses having seen his body at Zedikan two days after his passage through Karakalessen.
- Trainer Tom Eck, speaking to The Bearings' correspondent in Syracuse, refuses to answer L.A.W. Racing Board charges against rider John S. Johnson, denying allegations of missed engagements at Wilkesbarre and Baltimore and extorting appearance fees.
- San Jose correspondence reports Bald's heated altercation with amateur heavyweight champion Jack Kitchen during a relay race, plus a serious trackside pileup in which Oscar Osen lost several teeth and Charley Wells suffered bruises.
- The southern racing circuit is nearly finalised, with the first meet scheduled at Castalian Springs, Miss., May 6–8 and a major event planned in Memphis on May 17 during the interstate military drill.
- Wisconsin Division officers hold open club meetings to recruit L.A.W. members and plan a Decoration Day parade; the Milwaukee North Side Club becomes the first cycling organisation in the state to admit ladies, organising a nine-member Ladies' Auxiliary.
- The Stearns, Morgan & Wright, and Spalding racing teams are training at the Louisville track ahead of the season, with an impromptu Class B meet planned for May 4 at the Glenville horse track.
- Editor Barrett argues that Canada, Scotland, Ireland, and England are all converging on a Class B intermediate category, but condemns England's rule barring its unlicensed amateurs from competing against Scotland's Class B men as self-defeating legislation.
- Editor Barrett publishes an itemised account of the $721.82 collected and $400.35 disbursed from a reader fund for invalid cyclist Myrtle Hopkins—including physician fees of $138, hospital bills, and a $100 item obtained by agent Frank Allison—in response to a challenge from Cycling Life.
- Short editorial reflecting on reports that Chicago's North Side ladies are forming a cycling club with a real clubhouse, playfully wondering whether it will adopt billiard tables, a bar, and other standard features of male cycling clubs.
- Feature explaining how Trinidad asphalt is transported from an island lake via an 1,800-foot offshore wharf, refined in New York, mixed with heated sand and carbonate of lime at 250°F, and compressed by steam rollers onto a concrete base to form the cycling-friendly surfaces common in American cities.
- About 10,000 spectators watched four Patriot's Day road races hosted by the Dedham Cycle Club in Massachusetts; Tom Butler, starting from 3 minutes in the ten-mile handicap, beat scratch men including his brother Nat Butler and Eddie McDuffie and also won the silver time-prize watch.
- Oakland, Cal., city council considers a proposed ordinance backed by the Acme and Reliance cycling clubs that would levy a $2 annual licence on every bicycle, with all proceeds dedicated to the city street fund.
- Washington D.C. correspondent reports that Mr. Mun Yew Chung of the Chinese legation has purchased a Victor wheel intending to ride in his silken robes; also covers the Michaux Club's five-day tour to Washington and Rev. E.B. Bagby's twenty-member ministerial bicycle league.
- The Draisane Club, a socially exclusive mixed cycling organisation named after Baron Drais, has been organised in Providence, R.I., with Howard O. Sturgess as president and Miss Madaline Goddard as secretary.
- The Cleveland Wheel Club is preparing its annual twenty-five-mile Decoration Day road race and considering switching afternoon track events from the unsafe C.A.C. Park to the Glenville horse track; the club also plans to blacklist riders who owe $129 in unpaid 1894 entry fees.
- U.S. general appraisers rule, following Arnold v. United States, that a bicycle imported from Canada by W.C.P. McGovern is not 'personal baggage' and must pay 35 per cent ad valorem duty under the 1894 tariff act.
- Baltimore's Park Cycle track managers appear likely to vote to allow bottled beer on the grounds after sustained lobbying by 'wet' factions claiming dryness has driven riders to a nearby roadhouse; two national circuit race dates assigned to Baltimore are also going begging.
- Short profile introducing Fred Gerlach of Chicago, newly appointed to the L.A.W. Racing Board's District D, as vice-president of the Illinois Cycling Club, a patent lawyer, and one of the organisers of the now-disbanded Americus Cycling Club.
- Official L.A.W. Racing Board notices declare Clarence A. Davis and others to Class B, suspend three Los Angeles riders pending investigation, and assign board members Douglas Robert and Fred Gerlach to districts covering the South and Midwest, with special representatives for California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Arizona.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports on an unprecedented packed N.C.U. London Center meeting where a Polytechnic and Catford club faction failed to unseat Dr. Turner and Robert Todd; Turner's resolution pledging the center to honest amateurism was carried and the old general committee is almost entirely re-elected.
- Paris correspondent reports the reopening of the Velodrome Buffalo on April 8; C. Huret won the 100-kilometer race and collected all intermediate prizes totalling 1,250 francs, while eighteen-year-old T. Linton finished just one lap behind; a Houben–Wheeler match for 5,000 francs a side is arranged for July 7.
- Boston clubs celebrated Patriot's Day April 19 with rides to Lexington and Concord and a midnight Paul Revere course; the Chicago Cycling Club also beat the Illinois C.C. nine games to six in the final of a bowling tournament to win the city's cycling club championship and a $50 silver trophy.
- Fictional editorial dialogue in which a restless young cyclist repeatedly asks The Bearings editor for job recommendations; the editor declines but nudges him toward a $6-a-week position at 'old Speedy,' which the young man accepts and a year later has risen to retail manager at $1,200 a year.
- Anecdote in which a well-dressed boy of twelve in a New York cycle store, asked if he knows Charley Murphy, dismisses him as one of 'those second raters' who can't truly race, to Murphy's infinite disgust.
- Feature on the 150-member Unique Cycling Club, a Detroit ladies' organisation affiliated with the Detroit Wheelmen whose dances and club runs have attracted new D.W. members and already produced the marriage of D.W. secretary Mr. Gardner to former club secretary Miss Grace Stiff.
- New York correspondence covers the Riverside Wheelmen's inaugural entertainment at Jaeger's, the Amsterdam Wheelmen's reception at Abingdon Square, the K.C.W.'s vote to remain in the Metropolitan Association, and the fatal boulevard accident of wealthy cyclist Robert Center, struck by a coal wagon at Seventy-second Street.
- Boston report on the Antiskale Process Brazing Co., formed by four prominent wheelmen including Arthur Sidwell of Union Cycle Co. and William Herrick of Morgan & Wright, claiming their accidentally discovered brazing process does in half a minute what the old process took half an hour to achieve.
- A Bearings reporter visits the Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. factory in Chicago and finds the plant doubled in size with two shifts running day and night; over 800 wheels already sold, 800 agency applications turned away, and Boston agent J.W. Mclndoe placing a 3,000-wheel order under a 60-day delivery forfeit.
- Brief editorial review of the white chain lubricant by the Allerton Lubricant Co. of Chicago, which keeps the chain bright, does not soil hands or clothes, and resists climatic changes; samples available by mail for 25 cents.
- Mexico City correspondent estimates 1,000–1,200 cyclists in the capital and 400–500 each in Puebla and Guadalajara; American brands Stearns, Ramblers, Columbias, and Victors have displaced English wheels, but high silver exchange premiums and import duties roughly double the dealer's cost in local currency.
- Chicago inventor Otto Cullman's patented tubular bicycle hub, made from a plain seamless tube without flanges, features bent-tip spokes inserted from the outside that lock tangentially; severe tests by Chicago manufacturers bent frames and rims without affecting the hub or spokes.
- Philadelphia correspondent reports unprecedented tandem demand with Stearns, Union, Cleveland, Stormer, Rambler, Eclipse, Wilhelm, and Syracuse brands all on two-to-eight week back-order; Stearns agents Weise & Bowen surrendered their sample machine to a customer and now take orders with a two-week minimum delivery guarantee.
- Kansas City correspondent reports brisk bicycle business almost entirely in high-grade men's wheels, with roughly 200 persons still awaiting orders; livery stable and carriage house proprietors say the cycling craze is ruining their business, and several buggy firms have converted to selling bicycles.
- Description of the Garvin Machine Co.'s automatic slotting machine for bicycle spoke nipples, in which rotating disks grip and release work automatically, finishing a nipple every three seconds or 10,000–12,000 per day.
- Dallas correspondent surveys the booming bicycle trade in Galveston—W.F. Stewart's Remington agency, Galveston Cycle Co. promoting Waverleys, E. Dulitz doubling prior-year sales—and San Antonio, including France & Thiele as longtime Rambler agents and R.H. Hofheinz organising a San Antonio Rambler racing team for the Texas circuit.
- London correspondent reports excellent trading in Coventry, with the Centaur Co. having dispatched over 2,000 machines to America and receiving 300-machine telegram orders; he dismisses the spring chain-wheel as contrary to mechanical principles and notes rumours that D.W. Bassett may be leaving Humber's Beeston factory.
- The National Cycle Board of Trade announces it persuaded the Madison Square Garden Sportsmen's Show not to exhibit bicycles, is developing a stolen-bicycle recovery scheme, and will hold a board of directors meeting around May 7 at the Vanderbilt Building in New York.
- Extended Washington D.C. feature marvelling at a city where an estimated 60 per cent of residents ride; profiles District Cycle Co. (exclusive Columbia and Hartford agent claiming 25 wheels sold daily), Cline Bros. (Victor, Waverley, Crawford), and W.T. Robertson & Co. (Rambler, with a giraffe-bicycle street parade), noting that Stearns racer W.F. Sims is employed at the District store.
- Brief corporate notes: the Combination Cycle Co. incorporated in Jamestown for $150,000; the Weldless Steel Tube Co. incorporated in Pittsburgh for $250,000; Rochester Cycle Co. resumes manufacturing after a $7,000 factory fire; and Union Cycle Mfg. Co. of Needham reports total assets of $87,392.
- Short product and trade items including the Emerson gore bicycle shoe from R.B. Grover & Co. of Brockton, felt grips from the Felt Saddle Pad Co. of Fredonia, Zimmerman's training book at 60 cents, a Dodson aluminium lamp bracket at 75 cents, and news that William Martin has been signed by E.C. Stearns & Co. to ride a Stearns in Paris.