The Bearings, Vol 11, No 23
Articles in this issue
- John S. Johnson defeats Walter Sanger and H. C. Tyler in the three-cornered professional match race at Toronto, setting a competition mile record of 1:59½; Johnson also wins the Grand Rapids rematch in three heats the following day.
- The 13th annual Canadian Wheelmen's Association meet at Waterloo, Ontario draws 2,500 wheelmen; C. R. Coulter wins the one-mile international Class B race after a time-limit dispute, and W. M. McIntosh takes the five-mile championship by an inch over Harley Davidson.
- The L.A.W. asserts jurisdiction over all American track racing, professional or otherwise; Spalding telegraphed Sanger not to ride at Grand Rapids without sanction, and professional events are added to the Asbury Park programme.
- European professionals including Wheeler, Banker, Martin, Verheyen, and Crooks prepare to sail for America now that the L.A.W. has assumed control of professional racing.
- New York Mayor Strong signs an ordinance requiring all vehicles, including bicycles, to show lighted lamps after dark, taking effect immediately.
- The Pennsylvania Bicycle Club's fourteenth annual diamond tournament at Tioga, Philadelphia draws the largest crowd ever at a local race meet; Johnson defeats Tyler in the professional one-mile final (2:32⅘), Otto Ziegler wins two Class B events, and Lee Richardson rides a backward mile in a new world record of 4:04½.
- At Rittersville near Bethlehem, Pa., Johnson sets a new world's competitive professional half-mile record from scratch (1:03½) despite a headwind, and covers the mile in 2:06⅖ behind a tandem pacer.
- Michael F. Dirnberger of the Syracuse team, still weak from typhoid and a cinder-track fall at Wilkesbarre, is too ill to race at Philadelphia and threatens to turn professional if suspended, citing a diamond prize dishonestly valued below its listed sum.
- Milwaukee insiders confirm Sanger sold his prizes through his brother and earned roughly $7,000 last season; the Milwaukee Wheelmen's national circuit meet may be abandoned; Police Chief Janssen launches a stolen-bicycle registry; and a Burlington-to-Lyons road race is won by Herman Lock in 35:32.
- Editorial: a Chicago judge denies Lawyer Breckinridge's injunction against the Fort Dearborn Building for barring his bicycle, ruling that building owners may adopt their own access rules; Breckinridge vows to appeal.
- Editorial urging experienced cyclists to correct new recruits who ride on the wrong side, crowd between wheelmen, or travel six abreast, since the season's flood of novices has greatly worsened road manners.
- Editorial reviewing the professional racing situation: Sanger, Johnson, and Tyler have competed for cash and drawn record crowds at Philadelphia, Toronto, and Grand Rapids; a New York professional circuit backed by trotting-track owners is forming; Huret's Bol d'Or record and Banker's Austrian Derby win are noted; tandem pacing is criticised as spoiling racing.
- L.A.W. Racing Board bulletin: H. C. Tyler and W. C. Sanger are declared professionals, A. E. Weinig loses amateur status, multiple riders from Missouri, Connecticut, Oregon, and elsewhere are suspended for competing at unsanctioned meets, and several Class A men are transferred to Class B.
- The Liberty Cycle Co. will relocate its factory from Rockaway, N.J., to Bridgeport, Conn., on August 1 over the objections of partners Stickel and Perkins, whose employees and investments depend on the Rockaway plant.
- The Indianapolis Light Infantry relay bicycle race from Indianapolis to St. Louis (257 miles) misses its 20-hour target by over six hours due to fourteen inches of mud in western Illinois and a breakdown in one relay leg.
- At Galford, London, C. F. Barden breaks British road records for every distance from two to ten miles inclusive, covering ten miles in 20:45⅘.
- Professional races at the L.A.W. national meet at Asbury Park are confirmed: one-mile on Thursday, two-mile on Friday, and one-mile on Saturday, all paced and run under L.A.W. sanction, with prizes of $100, $35, and $15.
- New York report on the professional cycling agitation: Dave Shafer plans an Eck-Webb-Shafer syndicate with Johnson, Tyler, and Sanger as stars; trotting-track magnates confer with Hamilton Busby about a race circuit; L.A.W. Chief Consul Potter supports League control of professional racing, while the Spaldings are uncertain of their team's future.
- Minneapolis wheelmen meet to oppose a proposed ordinance limiting bicycles to six miles per hour, banning sidewalk trundling, and requiring bells at every crossing; two prominent cyclists sue a hotel that barred them from the dining room in cycling dress; and the Great Northern Railroad begins charging for bicycle transport.
- Marshal Taylor, an 18-year-old Black cyclist from Muncie, is the sole finisher of the 75-mile Indianapolis-to-Mathews road race run in deep mud and rain, completing it in 8:20:00 and riding the final sixteen miles alone after outlasting four pacemakers; Mrs. George M. Bunker also lowers the women's Elgin-Aurora century record to 7:38:00.
- Constant Huret wins the Bol d'Or 24-hour race at Paris for the second consecutive year, covering 514 miles 750 yards (829.498 km) and beating Frank Shorland's record by over 50 miles to claim the trophy permanently; American Banker wins the Austrian Derby at Vienna before Archduchess Marie Therese and Archduke Ferdinand.
- The 14th annual Kings County Wheelmen meet at Manhattan Beach draws 5,000 spectators; E. C. Bald wins the Class B one-mile open in a new track and state competition record of 2:02⅕, C. M. Murphy covers the mile in 2:02 flat behind a tandem, H. P. Mosher takes both Class A events, and Sanger rides a half-mile as a professional in 0:56⅗.
- E. Lindquist, of the Monitor Cycling Club, Chicago, lowers the Lake View five-mile course record to 11:44⅕.
- A. J. Watson wins the English one-mile cycling championship at Fallowfield, Manchester—the first English-born winner in several years—while Elijah Scott takes the 25-mile championship in 1:00:01⅕; the Anerley Carwardine Cup 24-hour race for unlicensed riders at Putney is under way with Walters leading at 12 hours.
- Full text of Judge Payne's Chicago ruling that landlords may bar bicycles from office buildings, since a bicycle is a mere vehicle not essential to the tenant's business, even though the same right might be implied in a lease for a manufacturing facility.
- Winning $5 paragraph by George H. Rymers of Fremont, Ohio: a knowledgeable cyclist loses bearing balls which his nine-year-old son secretly replaces with BB shot from an air rifle, leaving the father permanently mystified by the disappearing balls.
- Letter by L.A.W. President Bates arguing that pre-investigation suspensions and automatic Class A-to-B transfers violate American principles of due process, with an editorial reply clarifying the difference between a 30-day suspension and a 30-day response period.
- Essay by L. H. Dunklee (South Hadley, Mass.) urging cyclists to abandon city scorching for road touring, which combines health from fresh air, economy by saving hotel and doctor bills, and the pleasures of camping beside a country stream.
- The Bearings announces a $250 writing competition over three months: $50 in weekly $5 paragraph prizes for ten weeks, plus $50 each for the best articles on practical cycling, bicycle touring, bicycle mechanics, and travelling salesmanship.
- Analysis of the 1896 bicycle market: every major manufacturer is planning a greatly expanded output, but Monarch's Manager Kiser and others warn that overproduction may result if firms build ahead of confirmed orders and a new wave of manufacturers floods the market.
- Technical discussion recommending larger-diameter, thinner-gauge tubing for bicycle frames: 1⅛-inch 24-gauge tubing properly reinforced outperforms 1-inch 22-gauge in torsional resistance at lower weight, though different strains in the rear triangle favour moderately sized stays.
- W. W. Stall's Boston Wood Rim Co. incorporates with $125,000 capital, purchases a Bedford, Mass., plant capable of 6,000 rims per day, and opens with a 100,000-rim contract—growing from a $350 start-up turning out 12 rims per day in just 20 months.
- The Bunker Saddle Co. of Chicago introduces a crescent-shaped, reversible, 14-ounce pneumatic saddle at $5 retail; Miss Annis Porter and Miss Eva Christin used these saddles on a tandem century and confirm the inventor's claims.
- A New York dispatch dismisses as 'loud laughter and strong suspicions of insanity' a rumour about a syndicate buying 400,000 bicycles at $16 each; separately, the Durland Riding Academy Co. files plans for a $750,000 five-story cycling palace with a roof cycle garden on Central Park West.
- John C. Bowe of the Syracuse Cycle Co. secures what is believed to be the largest single order in bicycle trade history: $1,000,000 worth of Syracuse Crimson Rim bicycles from the A. F. Shapleigh Hardware Co. of St. Louis for the 1896 season.
- Indianapolis trade notes: a Richmond inventor creates an automatic tire pump that inflates while the wheel is in motion; W. F. Clemens receives a ten-pound Munger racing wheel; and C. E. Johnson of Western Union invents the Big Four combination keyless lock with optional foot-brake and folding-coaster variants.
- Monarch Cycle Co.'s new eight-story Chicago factory on Halsted Street, costing $95,000 without machinery, will give a total Halsted-Street frontage of 227 feet and expand the workforce from 550 to 1,000 when completed by September 1.
- Weekly Chicago trade round-up: Jenkins Cycle is three weeks behind on Napoleon orders, Western Wheel Works turns out 350 wheels a day running 22½ hours, Lee Richardson will perform henceforth on a Monarch with Morgan & Wright tires, and R. P. Gormully returns from a three-month health trip still unwell.
- F. Ed Spooner will sell photographs of over eighty prominent racing men at ten cents each at the Asbury Park national meet, and the Gendron Iron Wheel Co. will distribute a puzzle said to be harder than 'pigs in clover' to pass time between races.
- London correspondent reports Palmer Tire Co. shareholder litigation, the light-weight bicycle craze, F. T. Bidlake's new 100-mile tricycle road record of 5:15:57 on a Humber with Dunlop tires, and the brisk Coventry and Wolverhampton trade that has left Premier's stock rooms completely empty.
- Philadelphia trade correspondent reports the peak bicycle-selling season has passed; the Barnes wheel is gaining fame as John S. Johnson rides one; Supplee Hardware Co. continues strong Syracuse Crimson Rim sales; and the Darrah Cycle Co. has more Barnes orders than it can fill.
- The Bridgeport Gun Implement Co.'s new Star toe-clip is designed to accommodate both pointed and broad-toed shoes, solving a long-standing problem for non-racing cyclists who slip their pedals; it weighs very little and sells for 50 cents a pair.
- Feature on Lee Richardson, the young Chicago trick rider who has made a name this season—including a backward-mile world record of 4:04½ at Philadelphia—and will perform at Asbury Park henceforth on a Monarch fitted with Morgan & Wright tires.
- Miscellaneous trade notes: the Worcester Cycle Mfg. Co. converts the New England Steel Works into a bicycle factory under president Charles S. Boyd; the Toledo Cycle Supply Co. opens a new store handling Morgan & Wright tires and Snell Cycle Fittings; racing-men photographs available for 10 cents each at Asbury Park.
- Extended feature on the kola nut as a performance stimulant for cyclists: F. W. Moulton of Morgan & Wright describes century and double-century runs using the fluid extract without food, and Dr. C. M. Baker reports on a six-rider Elgin-Aurora century experiment confirming that kola sustains strength, suppresses thirst and hunger, and prevents muscle tremors without significant ill after-effects.