The Bearings, Vol 11, No 14
Articles in this issue
- Philadelphia correspondent reports that L.A.W. Chairman Gideon will allow professional bicycle races alongside amateur events under League sanction, citing plans by promoter O.S. Bunnell for a professional meet at Alcyon Park, Pitman Grove, N.J. on Decoration Day; also covers Asbury Park's $10,000 fund-raising effort and the Woman's Cycling Club formation in Chicago.
- Profiles Douglas W. Robert, sporting editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, newly appointed to the L.A.W. Racing Board—the first St. Louis wheelman to hold an important national appointive office—noting his work organizing the 1894 circuit tournament and St. Louis cycle show.
- New York city letter covers the Cycle Club of Brooklyn's final winter reception featuring trick rider Le Roy See and football on wheels; rumors that South African long-distance champion L.S. Meintjes will race in America with C.M. Murphy; and the M.A.C.C. monthly meeting where the Brooklyn Bicycle Club and five other clubs resigned while Kings County Wheelmen paid dues in advance.
- Reports that bicycles were a centerpiece of Los Angeles's 'La Fiesta de Los Angeles,' with the Rambler branch fielding a tribe of Indians on Ramblers, prize-winning wheels smothered in California poppies, and Cycle Row proclaimed the most interesting block in town.
- Results of the H.J. Pigott Cycle Co.-promoted Atlanta road race over ten hilly miles on April 26: Charles Langford won from the 2-minute mark, with Lawrence Thompson, A.V. Groce, and John Queen among the other prize-winners while scratch men Hugh Caperton and George Quinn finished late after jockeying poorly.
- Preview of the three-day track meet at Castalian Springs, Miss. on May 6–8, with tandems used for pacing in all open events and expectations of several southern records falling on the freshly prepared track, with excursion trains expected from Memphis and New Orleans.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports on magnificent Easter cycling on the Bath road, R.L. Jefferson's plan to ride a Swift bicycle 4,200 miles from London to Moscow and back in 50 days starting April 19, and two major racing trophies: the Essex Cycling Union's Armour Vigoral shield and the Anerley B.C.'s Carwardine challenge cup (over 650 ounces of silver, valued above $1,575).
- Editorial endorsing Chairman Gideon's decision to sanction professional races alongside L.A.W. amateur events and maintain a blacklist of disqualified professionals, crediting The Bearings as the originator of the three-class racing scheme and calling it a step toward the League's full recognition of professionalism.
- Editorial urging wheelmen—especially cycling leaders—to wear neat, well-fitting knickerbockers, negligee shirts, and proper caps rather than business suits or dirty sweaters, arguing that appearance in cycling costume reflects on the sport; includes notes on Vienna's 6,300 strictly regulated wheelmen and a notice on the 50-cent book 'Zimmerman Abroad and Points on Training' by J.M. Erwin and A.A. Zimmerman.
- Tom Eck is scraping the Kirk Park track in Syracuse and assembling a top-flight training camp; L.C. and E.C. Johnson are arriving from Louisville along with the Stearns and Syracuse coteries, while the Century Cycling Club voted to offer only Class A events at its July 4 tournament after Class B riders' poor showing last year.
- Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Dean reverses the lower court and rules that cyclists must pay a 1-cent-per-mile toll on every turnpike road in the state, declaring a bicycle propelled by man is nonetheless a 'carriage' under the law.
- E.C. Hodges, owner of the Bicycling World, is president of the Charles River Athletic Association, which plans a new metalithic three-lap cycle track on the Cambridge end of the Harvard Bridge within a $250,000 athletic complex, aiming to open for the Boston Press Cycling Club's June 17 meet.
- Satirical account of Springfield, Mass. Marshal Hendrick stationing himself with a stopwatch at Union Street to catch speeders; after long waiting he timed cyclist William Wheeler at 16 mph—over the 10 mph limit—and had him arrested, while the article also covers the Massasoit Club's forthcoming road race and wheelmen's objection to bicycle taxes without road improvements.
- Washington D.C. cycling is booming among society elites, including 25–30 Metropolitan Club members; a new 'Queer Wheelmen' club of 25 has formed with charter officers R.B. Clokey and L.O. Slack; and the Columbia National Guard's pioneer bicycle corps—the first in the U.S.—has disbanded after organizing as early as 1892.
- Obituary for veteran French racing cyclist Medinger, 38, a bicycle manufacturer famed for his grand-stand riding style and for repeatedly beating Wheeler and pressing Zimmerman; shot dead by his jealous wife, who then killed herself.
- Detroit correspondent reports the Michigan Division state meet will be held at Battle Creek with $5,000 in prizes; the Detroit Wheelmen's first 1895 club run on April 21 drew 129 riders to Mt. Clemens; and a new Wheeler Saddle Co. has been organized locally to manufacture a revolutionary lightweight saddle.
- Louisville track story of G.A. Phillips from Denver—a slight 135-pound unknown who arrived appearing green—who clocked a paced mile in 2:10¾ at Fountain Ferry Park, surprising veterans Steenson, Callahan, and Carter; Phillips holds the Colorado state record of 2:16¾ from August 1894 and is riding a Sterling on an 80-gear.
- Milwaukee's Wisconsin Division wheelmen will contest their rights in court after John French was deliberately run down by commission merchant P.J. Bolstad on Kinnickinnic Avenue, leaving French badly hurt and his bicycle a total wreck; also reports an epidemic of bicycle thefts across Milwaukee and the 10th anniversary banquet of the Milwaukee Wheelmen, presided over by toastmaster Henry P. Andrae.
- Humorous fiction piece in which high-society dandy Arthur Du Puyser Grey visits The Bearings' editor to ask whether he can learn to cycle without making an exhibition of himself; the editor proves his worth by swapping suits with Grey and introducing him at a cyclists' lunch room, and reports that six weeks later Grey had ridden two centuries and become the envy of his social set.
- Official L.A.W. Racing Board notices: the quarter-, half-, and two-mile national championships are assigned to the Asbury Park Wheelmen on July 11–13; additional circuit dates granted to Scranton and Carbondale, Pa.; Charles A. Deman of Cedar Rapids suspended pending investigation; and a lengthy list of sanctions granted for events from Pasadena to Patchogue.
- Extended travel narrative in which Monsieur Jean (a French visitor), Madame, and X make a 56-mile round-trip bicycle excursion from Manhattan to Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow via Washington Heights, Yonkers, the Croton Aqueduct, and Dobbs Ferry, with lively commentary on American revolutionary history, road hogs, cable-car-slot riding, and Hudson River views.
- Technical editorial arguing that narrow tread transfers pedal power more directly—analogous to a runner's nearly straight foot-track—reduces frame side strain, and improves stiffness, explaining how top makers achieve narrow tread by using adjustable cups, dished sprocket wheels, and narrow cranks while maintaining wide ball-race spacing.
- St. Louis wheelmen's street-cleaning agitation succeeds: Mayor Walbridge appoints wheelman A.N. Milner as street commissioner, and the new sprinkling superintendent orders sprinklers to leave a dry half-width lane on key cycling streets morning and evening.
- Editorial analysis of the unprecedented 1895 bicycle boom: two years of hard times created pent-up demand that has arrived all at once, and the cycle trade's newspaper advertising—combined with society's high-profile adoption of cycling—has enlisted the nation's dailies to push bicycles in front of an entirely new public.
- Washington D.C. trade survey covers Spalding (with Class B giant Paul Van Boeckmann as a draw), Rambler at C.L. Palmer & Co., Columbia (stormed by buyers during Colonel Pope's visit), Sterling, and Elmore dealers; also profiles veteran racer H.W. Higham, former 'Champion of Wales,' now proprietor of Washington's oldest cycle establishment with a rusted 1880 Star bicycle gathering dust in his yard.
- London correspondent reports on the Scottish Tire Co.'s expansion, an improved Dunlop wing-nut valve, Humber & Co.'s record 700-machine London sales and doubled 1895 output, the failed Stanley/National cycle show amalgamation talks, the Saracenic Wood Rim Co.'s booming ash-rim business, and the Auto Machinery Co. of Coventry turning out over 1,060,000 ball bearings in a single week.
- Obituary for E.B. Preston, head of E.B. Preston & Co. (makers of the Czar bicycle), who died in Chicago on Saturday April 27 of a brain tumor; the firm—in the rubber business since 1868 and in cycles since 1894—will continue under Mrs. Preston, John Peterman, and a Mr. Edwards as trustees.
- Feature on the Barnes Cycle Co. of Syracuse and its Barnes Special (19 lbs, 4½-inch tread, Sanderson tool steel bearings, black enamel with white rims, $100) and Barnes Superba; demand has been so intense that rival dealers from New York's Cobb & Archer and two Denver rivals traveled to Syracuse to secure consignments.
- Reports a bicycle-buying frenzy across Chicago: Monarch Cycle Co. is 1,100 wheels behind orders; Hales & Anderson cannot meet demand for Ariels and Wolff-Americans; Indiana Bicycle Co. is 3,000 behind; Spalding is considering running three 8-hour shifts; and Miss Pullman, daughter of the sleeping-car magnate, is among those taking riding lessons at Spalding's crowded school.
- Humorous account of St. Louis jobber A.F. Shapleigh ('Syracuse Dan') and Philadelphia rival Supplee Hardware Co. both converging on Syracuse Cycle Co. vice-president John C. Bowe to demand more crimson rim bicycles; the dispute climaxes when Supplee accidentally runs a lawn mower over Shapleigh's hair while he slept on Bowe's couch.
- Short trade news items from across the country: E.C. Stearns & Co. running 800 men 22 hours daily in Syracuse; Rouse, Hazard & Co. in Peoria beginning manufacture of the Overland bicycle; Pottstown Cycle Co. building a new factory; and new firms opening in New Jersey, Illinois, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
- Short cycling items: M. Newman & Co. doubled staff to meet bloomer suit demand; the Englewood Wheelmen's 600-man Chicago stag party; the Sterling team (Warren, Brown, and Maddox) training in Chicago; and Pope Mfg. Co. offering a Mason & Hamlin piano valued at $925 for the best 25-mile road race time on a Columbia bicycle between May 1 and October 1.