The Bearings, Vol 11, No 19
Articles in this issue
- Chicago road race officials meet past midnight to revise the May 30 results, disqualifying dozens of riders whose numbers did not appear on at least two Evanston checking lists; unable to settle time prizes fairly, they announce a supplementary twenty-mile straightaway race for June 15 with the original $400 in time prizes plus an added $100 from Morgan & Wright.
- Letter from Chicago rider C.H. Peck disputing Referee Sheridan's published claim that Peck had admitted being beaten by Bainbridge and De Cardy; Peck alleges he had not yet met Sheridan at the time, was deliberately run down by a Thistle Cycling Club member stationed on the course, and that his namesake A.P. Peck of the Lincoln Cycling Club suffered a broken collar bone in a similar collision.
- The relay ride between Chicago and New York departs from the Pullman Building at 9 a.m. Wednesday, with H.R. Winship and John Larson ("the terrible Swede") taking the first stage to Grand Crossing eight miles out before a small crowd of about fifty.
- Boston correspondent reports that Tom Eck travelled to the Waltham A.C.C. tournament to arrange a Zimmerman-Johnson match race but was refused; Zimmerman tells The Bearings he will do only exhibition miles this summer before sailing to Australia in August for sixteen engagements; a dispute over the September 2 Waltham national circuit date between the Consolidated Cycling Clubs, Press Cycling Club, and Hartford Wheel Club is resolved in the C.C.C.'s favour after Hartford withdraws.
- One thousand spectators attended the Pendergast Wheelmen's Decoration Day meet at Marvin Park, Jamestown, N.Y., where Buffalo riders C.H. Werrick, C.W. Davis, W.E. De Temple, and B. Brinkworth competed; De Temple won the one-mile handicap in 2:25 and race summaries are given for five events.
- T.D. Fenton, a new rider starting on a four-minute mark, upsets the previously unbeaten Jensen in the Salt Lake Cycle Co.'s fifteen-mile handicap, riding to first place in 49:40 and collecting $315 in prizes; on the same afternoon Fenton travels to Ogden and captures time prize in the Wasatch Club's ten-mile race, with D. Soffe finishing second place on one pedal.
- Paris dispatch: at the Velodrome de la Seine, Belgian Houben defeats Pittsburgh sprinter George Banker by less than an inch in the deciding heat of a best-two-of-three match before 8,000 spectators to claim the European sprint championship; at the Buffalo track, 18-year-old Jimmy Michael sets a world 100-mile record of 4:02:45 paced by twelve Gladiator triplets and seven tandems, beating Huret by eight laps and breaking A. Linton's marks at 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, and 160 kilometres.
- Editorial sharply criticising the handling of the Chicago road race: checkers at Evanston were unreliable, some recording the same man twice at that point, sworn affidavit evidence from Osmun and others was disregarded, and honest men such as C.V. Dasey and Tracy Holmes were grossly slandered by negative evidence; the editorial praises the decision to run a supplementary race as the best move the officials could have made.
- Editorial on the Zimmerman-Johnson impasse: McDermott has blocked the match despite Zimmerman's earlier willingness; the Johnson of 1895 is far faster than the 1893 version Zimmerman once dominated; the editorial deplores the pugilistic challenge-and-bluster style of professional racing and calls for open racing instead of arranged hippodrome-style contests.
- Editorial arguing that the Chicago road race must be moved to a straightaway route like the old Pullman course, where the shortest way to the finish is the race road itself and cutting the course is impossible; quotes experienced cyclists who say only such a layout can guarantee honest results, and predicts the race will return to the Pullman course within a year.
- Editorial note on George L. Emerson, disqualified from second place and first time in the Chicago road race on accusations of cutting the course: though he has always borne an excellent reputation, affidavit after affidavit has been filed against him, and the cycling world waits to see whether he can vindicate himself in the June 15 supplementary race by matching the fast time he claims to have made.
- Milwaukee dispatch: E.W. Fry of the Badger Wheelmen, who wore no number and was thus excluded despite finishing after Dvorak in the May 30 race, challenges Fairmon and Stobbard to reride the Chicago road race course; also covers the rained-out Milwaukee Decoration Day parade, the 72-mile Green Bay-Fond du Lac relay completed four minutes under schedule, the 100-member Oshkosh club organised by Division officers, and the Pastime Club newly formed as Green Bay's second cycling organisation.
- The El Paso Cycle Track Association held its most successful Decoration Day meet before about 1,500 spectators; Carl Krueger finished first in the road race but was protested for alleged outside pacing, while William Schroeder had the best time of 49:37 despite being badly hurt after running into a barb-wire fence; several accidents damaged wheels on the poor course roads.
- London correspondent covers the formal opening of the Trafalgar Club at Chelsea with handicap and scratch races; Henry Sturmey's motion at the N.C.U. council to create a Class B of unlicensed and trade-connected amateurs; licensing chaos with Arthur DuCros and R.J. Mecredy (editor of Irish Cyclist) disqualified; the festive opening of the Catford cement track before 10,000 people with six events and several British records including F.W. Chinn's quarter-mile in :30 2/5; cyclist access to Hyde Park roads granted from July 3 after a ninety-MP petition; R.L. Jefferson reaches Moscow and begins his return; British road records broken by Ernest Steel (London-Liverpool, 203 miles in 12:29) and W. Neason (Bath and back, 211 miles in 12:31:04).
- At the New Jersey Division '95 meet in Trenton, manager Shafer and his Spalding stars Sanger and Titus narrowly avoid suspension by appearing trackside without racing kit after frantic telegrams from Chairman Gideon; Charlie Murphy, who rode at Cohoes instead, is also threatened with expulsion but Willis Troy smooths things over; Cabanne ("the Black Cloud") has won five of six open scratch events on the national circuit this season; Murphy is proposed to substitute for Johnson in a best-two-of-three match race series on June 29 for a $500 trophy at a Grand Rapids driving park.
- First annual meet of the Everett Cycle Club in Everett, Washington: morning handicap road race from Snohomish (10½ miles) won by King in 34:30, and afternoon straightaway events on Rucker Avenue including the quarter-mile dash won by Davies in :28; summaries are given for five events.
- Philadelphia dispatch: the Decoration Day professional race meet at Pitman Grove, the first sanctioned by the League of American Wheelmen, draws over 3,000 spectators and impresses observers that cash-prize riders try harder than amateurs; Chairman Gideon tells The Bearings he favours professionalism and will continue granting sanctions, but says the League cannot formally adopt a two-class rule until the next national assembly; an interstate 150-mile relay race from New York City to Riverton, N.J., is announced for the following Saturday.
- Louisville correspondent gives a detailed account of Mike Dirnberger's record-breaking week at Fountain Ferry track: paced by the Syracuse (Crimson Rim) quadruplet of O'Connor, Terrill, Coburn, and Hamilton, he set world records for one mile flying start (1:45 flat), two miles flying start (3:51 4/5), one-third mile unpaced (36 2/5), and two-third mile flying start (1:09 4/5); trainer Lyman fires a revolver to signal final sprints; F.G. Barnett also tied Sanger's unpaced mile record of 2:07 1/5.
- Buffalo: Adolph Goehler of the Rambler B.C. covers the 25-mile Martin course in 1:09:26 against time with pacemakers, beating E.F. Leonert's Decoration Day competition record of 1:10:30; a profile of 18-year-old Warren Monroe Peckham (5 ft 1½ in, 120 lbs), who won the Martin road race outright in only his second race, is included; Dirnberger returns to Buffalo with trainer Lyman and discusses potential straightaway record attempts on the Delaware Boulevard course.
- Toronto Bicycle Club meet at Rosedale track attracts 2,000 spectators; Otto Ziegler sets the fastest mile ever ridden in Canada at 2:04 2/5 paced by two tandems despite a strong westerly wind; Colin Harbottle and C.R. Coulter of the Yost team also compete, but Harbottle is upset in the 500-yard Class B event when he and Ziegler sit up thinking the field is behind them, allowing McLeod of Sarnia to come through and win.
- San Francisco: 10,000 attend an open-air Mission district good-roads meeting; the board of supervisors street committee approves $80,000 for paving Folsom Street with bituminous rock; a 2,000-rider bicycle parade with red fire and Japanese lanterns follows; the correspondent also reports an apparent organised bicycle theft ring operating across California, with suspect G.A. Palmer escaping police in Santa Rosa after running a fraudulent cycle store backed by a local banker.
- The San Jose Road Club meet drew fewer than 500 spectators and suffered from poor handicapping that caused scratch men including Wells, Foster, Castleman, and Burke to quit the two-mile Class B race; the only notable result was W. Harris lowering the coast novice mile record from 2:31 to 2:27 1/5 in a heat.
- At the Albany County Wheelmen's meet at Rigfield track, Cabanne defeats Bald by less than six inches in the mile open and by a tire's width in the two-third-mile after a thrilling homestretch battle against a field that included the newly entered Bald, Tyler, the Johnson brothers, and Sims; Bald wins the half-mile open from eleven starters including Cabanne; race summaries for five events are given.
- The American League of Racing Cyclists holds an Albany meeting chaired by M.L. Bridgman, with Tom Eck dominating discussion in terms hostile to the L.A.W.; racing men show more allegiance to their manufacturer contracts than to professional racing; a committee of Eck, Tyler, Kirkpatrick, Conn Baker, Brown, Murphy, and Shafer is appointed to confer with the Cycle Board of Trade on taking up professional racing.
- L.D. Munger, after two weeks in New York City, completes arrangements to open a cycle factory there.
- Technical article translating French metallurgist Lomenherz's experiments on steel behaviour under heat: detailed tables of temperatures and heating times for English, German, and tungsten steels to produce each colour from light yellow to sea green, for both hollow and solid, tempered and untempered specimens; followed by discussion of malleability, hardness, sound test, polishing, and the influence of sulphur, silicon, manganese, and copper on steel quality, with descriptions of natural, puddled, cemented, and open-hearth steel types and their suitability for cycle building.
- Paris dispatch previewing the forthcoming Paris-Bordeaux-back race (~740 miles) for self-propelled vehicles, organised by Count de Dion and supported by Panhard & Lavassor; steam, petroleum, and motorised bicycle/tricycle entries are expected; the writer judges petroleum superior for light vehicles, recalls that Dion's steam carriage won the 1894 Paris-Rouen trial, and predicts automatic vehicles will eventually supplant all other road transport once prices fall from the current $1,000-$1,200.
- Description of a cap-mounted electric lamp patented by E.D. Rockwell of Bristol, Conn. and A.M. Rodriguez of Brooklyn: an eight-hour storage battery on the bicycle or in the pocket powers a 1¼-ounce lamp on the cap visor, always aimed where the rider looks; a stock company, the Liberty Light Co., is to be organised in Bristol.
- Julius Andrae of J. Andrae & Sons Co. (bicycle manufacturers, Milwaukee) secretly purchases the four-story building at 162-168 West Water Street from the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Co. bank for $125,000, intending to expand his manufacturing operation as present quarters are entirely too small for current demand; existing tenants Hennecke Statuary Co. and Beals, Torrey & Co. hold leases until 1906.
- London trade correspondent covers: the Bartleet v. Wilson slander case in which H.W. Bartleet of the Pneumatic Tire Co. sued P.C. Wilson of Whitworth Cycle for claiming Bartleet tampered with a racing tandem — jury awarded £2 damages; Pneumatic Tire Co. infringement actions against Kingsland Mfg. Co. and Harry Lester both settled; a Mr. Wilkinson's paper claiming 24 reasons the geared front-driver beats the safety is mocked; analysis of whether American manufacturers should court foreign markets given that domestic demand already outstrips supply by an estimated 200,000 machines and foreign collections are troublesome.
- New York correspondent: after McDermott wires a flat refusal on Zimmerman's behalf, Eck deposits $250 with 'Senator' Morgan of American Wheelman as a one-month open challenge to any rider to race Johnson three one-mile heats for $1,000 and the world championship title; A.L.R.C. President Bridgman is consulting on possible action ranging from assuming control of all racing to forming a professional league; John S. Johnson will make his first professional appearance at the New York State Division meet at Manhattan Beach, attempting mile or half-mile records with pacemakers; the tri-state 150-mile New York-Riverton relay race is set for Saturday.
- Indianapolis trade and racing news: Progress Manufacturing Co. opens a retail store at 63 N. Pennsylvania Street; the July 4 open race meeting (fourteen events, none handicap) is drawing out-of-state interest; the I.L.I. bicycle corps is training for a relay race from the Indianapolis News office to St. Louis; Fred Kissel offers to build a one-third-mile gravel track inside the new ball park.
- The Asbury Park Wheelmen, with A.A. Zimmerman's consent, telegraph a challenge to John S. Johnson to race Zimmerman during the national meet at Asbury Park, N.J., for $5,000 aside at any distance from a quarter-mile to fifty miles of Johnson's choosing.
- The writer discovers a photograph taken by Frank Lenz at a St. Louis race meet in August 1890 — Lenz had ridden from Pittsburgh on an ordinary carrying a 40-pound camera outfit — and mourns his murder by Kurds during his round-the-world tour; a letter Lenz wrote to his chum C.G. Petticord from Rangoon, Burma in September 1893 is quoted, reporting 10,000 miles covered including 2,881 miles in China, and expressing confidence that the hardest part of the globe was now behind him.
- The Cleveland Wheel Club's Decoration Day move to Glenville Driving Park, four miles from the city centre, draws the largest crowd ever at a Cleveland cycle meet and strengthens plans for a new third-mile track to be built at Glenville; Harry L. Stevens, seriously injured when a carriage pole struck him during the road race, is expected to recover as the abdominal wall was not pierced.
- Colorado Springs: 14-year-old George Bell, convicted of stealing a lady's wheel rented from Hext & Williams, is sentenced to nine years in the reform school; Bell hid the bicycle in a vacant barn and rode it at night after knocking off the brake and lantern bracket; a gentleman noticed him, identified the machine's name and number, and the police caught Bell the next night returning for it.
- Biographical profile of Buffalo-born Edward C. Bald ("the Cannon Ball", born January 27, 1874), tracing his career from a 20-mile road race win from scratch in 1890, through nine victories at Troy in 1893 and the world half-mile competition record and national half-mile championship at Denver in 1894, to his world one-mile competition record of 2:04 flat and two-mile record of 4:15 1/5 set at San Jose, Cal. in early 1895; Bald rides for Columbia and weighs 170 pounds in racing trim.
- Brief trade items from across the country: United Cycle Co. incorporated in New York ($10,000 capital); Spencer Hall organising a $50,000 bicycle company in Racine, Wis.; Anglo-American Cycle Fittings Co. moves to 105 Chambers Street with a new celluloid cork handle; Brott Electric Bicycle Co. changes name to Brott Rapid Transit Co. and raises capital to $30,000,000; Hay & Willetts Mfg. Co. (Outing bicycle) moves to larger Indianapolis quarters; Monarch Cycle Co. shipping an average of 200 wheels a day.
- Chairman Gideon's weekly bulletin transfers H.L. Williams (Santa Paula), G.A. Phillips (Denver), C. Gans (Brooklyn), and B.W. Twyman (Chicago) to Class B; declares Jay Eaton (Elizabeth, N.J.), James Zimmerman, J. Kroh, J. Conlon, and James Keefe of Philadelphia professionals under the amateur rule; and suspends Horace Slater (Los Angeles), Win Runyan (Urbana, Ohio), James Willis (Westfield, N.J.), and Kiser (Dayton, Ohio) pending investigation.