The Bearings, Vol 11, No 5
Articles in this issue
- Massachusetts delegates report losing the L.A.W. national meet to Asbury Park through a packed caucus and broken pledges, including Texas's two votes switching at the last moment; chief consul Sterling Elliott gives a detailed interview on the defeat and announces plans to fill a special excursion train to the Asbury Park meet.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports record cold gripping England, with cyclists A.E. Tebbitt and H.A. Palmer deadheating in the amateur skating championship on the River Cam; results from the Putney early long-distance race are given, won by tandem pair Jones and Ridout (120 miles) despite icy winds.
- Minneapolis reports that the Minnesota legislature has transferred $25,000 for road improvement; long-distance rider A.A. Hansen announces plans to attempt the world 24-hour record at Riverside Park, aiming to ride more miles on dirt than any man has yet ridden on cement track.
- Milwaukee: Wisconsin Division racing board chairman Irwin Strauss plans expanded state circuit racing, a six-section board structure, and a directory of racing men to aid promoters; the League for Good Roads presses the Youman road-building bill in the legislature, with A. Cressy Morrison's surprise election as L.A.W. second vice-president celebrated.
- Springfield, Mass. shares Boston's disappointment that the L.A.W. national meet went to Asbury Park despite broken pledges; local dealers report improving trade and growing demand from working people and families as the practical value of the wheel becomes widely understood.
- Editor Barrett endorses the withdrawal of the Jaquish 'white' amendment and the effective exclusion of Black cyclists from L.A.W. membership, arguing that southern Black men are unfit associates for white members and that the League is right to close its gates to them.
- Editorial questioning whether manufacturer racing teams justify their enormous cost, citing Gormully & Jeffery's decision to disband the Rambler team in 1895 because an intelligent public knows riders are paid to race, not riding from genuine preference for the wheel.
- Editorial on the tandem bicycle boom of 1895, tracing surging demand to price reductions to $150 and their success pacing record-breakers; advocates allowing tandems in the Chicago road race on Decoration Day, noting a tandem team won the Chicago Cycling Club road race in 24:02 over ten miles.
- H. Crowther's letter corrects The Bearings' report that he stated Van Sicklen had raced for cash prizes, explaining he had left the National Assembly for Philadelphia before the reconsidered vote took place and therefore made no such statement.
- Five-night indoor bicycle tournament at Mechanics' Pavilion, San Francisco; the narrow nine-lap track causes dozens of serious falls including Frank Fuller's head injury requiring fourteen stitches; Falcon and Rambler teams refuse to ride after the first night; Oscar Osen sets an indoor competition record of 2:19⅖ on the final night, and Frank Byrne of the Imperial Club wins the ten-mile club race in 27:33½.
- Sterling All-America team (Maddox, Brown, Callahan) competes before 2,000 spectators at Don Salvador Malo's Rancho Auzures track near Mexico City; Maddox takes the half-mile open by six inches over Brown, Callahan wins the mile open from Brown, and local rider Lecea beats Callahan at the tape in the two-mile handicap.
- James 'Convict Stripe' Levy of Chicago and Louis Callahan of Buffalo win the majority of prizes at Pueblo, Mexico races before 15,000 spectators over two days; Levy captures the main prize, a pair of city-government statuettes worth $125, while Callahan's sprint in the six-kilometer handicap earns him the president's personal congratulation.
- National Cycle Board of Trade meeting at the Hardware Club, New York, resolves to hold two annual bicycle shows east and west each January, favoring Chicago and New York; permanent offices are to be opened in New York and Earnest Franks elected assistant secretary.
- C.E. Jenkins, former manager for E.B. Preston & Co., launches the Jenkins Mfg. Co. at 18-20 Custom House Place, Chicago, to manufacture a new light-weight narrow-tread wheel called the Napoleon; Irish racing man 'Paddy' McDonald sails for America to compete this season.
- George Banker departs tearfully for Paris and the Humber contract; plans for a Manhattan Beach cycle track advance under Austin Corbin; Harry C. Wheeler begins a southern sales tour before sailing for Europe March 20 to race on the Zimmy; Asbury Park Wheelmen plan a seven-day L.A.W. meet in the second week of July with a track widened to twenty-six feet and banked to Arthur Zimmerman's specifications.
- Philadelphia clubs propose linking city-by-city century runs converging on Asbury Park ahead of the 1895 L.A.W. meet, with riders from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York meeting at Trenton; racer George F. Taylor will retire from the path after graduating from Philadelphia Dental College.
- Five letters: E.C. Stearns & Co. defends American 16-21 lb. bicycles by explaining that American makers lighten wheels and chains while keeping frames heavy (unlike English practice); George Rex Hearts humorously campaigns for a park-police cycling-posture code; W.C. Webster denies Col. Pope backs the Cycle Club of Brooklyn; and Associated Cycling Clubs of St. Louis corrects an erroneous report that Canfield & Sachtleben exhibited at the St. Louis cycle show.
- Dr. W.C. Latimer of Brooklyn presents his New York State Homeopathic Medical Society paper on cycling as treatment for women, documenting marked improvement in cases of dysmenorrhoea, anaemia, dyspepsia, and a ten-year knee condition; recommends the diamond-frame wheel, bloomer dress without corset, and morning rides preceded by a glass of milk.
- Baltimore wheelmen celebrate A.C. Willison's election as L.A.W. first vice-president with a banquet at the Baltimore Club; the article recounts his celebrated September 1892 solo unpaced 165-mile ride from Frostburg down the C&O Canal towpath toward Baltimore, ending when he slept in a straw stack after a puncture ten miles from his goal.
- At the Louisville Cycle Livery Co., employee Max Brunn accidentally fires his revolver while emptying cartridges during late-night horseplay, killing Clarence Watts—a Bank of Commerce clerk—with a shot that struck his shoulder blade and pierced his heart.
- The South Side Cycling Club of Chicago negotiates to build a $30,000 clubhouse on Michigan Avenue between Forty-seventh and Fifty-fifth streets; Thomas G. Allen delivers four well-attended lectures on 'Across Asia on a Bicycle' at Central Music Hall.
- Boston bicycle dealers hold a joint open house with crowds filling the Row; Indiana Bicycle Co.'s store is nearly impossible to enter, the Stearns agents dispense sandwiches under yellow decorations, Waltham runs a graphophone and gives away porcelain buttons, and multiple stores report selling wheels on the day itself.
- Short business news from across the country: Monarch Cycle Mfg. Co. incorporated in Chicago with $500,000 capital; Kinglette Bicycle Alarm Co. incorporated in New York; new bicycle factories, agencies, and incorporations reported from Fulton N.Y., Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, and several southern cities.
- General Poorman's Cincinnati cycle show draws large trade and public attendance; Joseph Grimes, the world's heaviest rider at 474 pounds, demonstrates a 37-pound Union bicycle; exhibitors include Union Cycle Mfg. Co., Eagle Bicycle Co., H.A. Lozier & Co., and Diamond Rubber Co., with the Cary Club ladies' cycling organization serving as patronesses.
- London correspondent Will o' the Wisp reports large English makers remaining conservative while smaller firms issue detailed sectional-drawing catalogues; the Robin Hood Cycle Co. collapses with £15,910 liabilities and is bought by Gamble, Upton & Co.; the Beeston Tire Co. is reconstructed after losing nearly all of £296,750 subscribed; Sprang's puncture-proof self-sealing air tube passes a penknife puncture test.
- The Bearings reporter tours Chicago's Cycle Row in late February finding brisk early trade: Rambler headquarters reports tenfold business growth, Pope Co. gave away 1,200 catalogues by noon, Woodrough & Hanchett hold thirty tandem orders, and strong demand for ladies' wheels and bloomer suits is reported across all stores.
- Philadelphia Cycle Bazaar's first annual show at 211-213 North Broad Street closes after a successful week; exhibitors include Monarch, Plymouth, Hulbert Bros., Buffalo Wheel Co., Winton Bicycle Co., Peerless, and Baylis Thomas & Co.; two new Philadelphia agencies—Diana and Triangle—are established during show week.
- The U.S. Circuit Court of Massachusetts declares four Gormully & Jeffery pneumatic tire patents (Thos. B. Jeffery, 1891-1894) valid and orders a perpetual injunction against Philip Pratt and the Eastern Rubber Mfg. Co. for infringement, with damages to be assessed by a court-appointed master.
- London correspondent argues that integrated American manufacture—producing every part in-house versus English multi-supplier chains—gives American cycle makers a decisive cost advantage; notes English cycle exports reached a record of nearly $6,000,000 in 1894 but warns that English makers' complacency risks American inroads into their home market.
- A Wichita reader poses a technical dispute on the Rambler's dished sprocket wheel and whether it equalizes chain pull across both crank-shaft bearings; Thomas B. Jeffery of Gormully & Jeffery and Frank Douglas of the Kenwood company both respond concluding the dished sprocket acts differently from and superiorly to a flat sprocket.
- Louisville trade report: the Chicago Cycle Co. opens a large store at Third and Walnut with H-T Scorchers; Martin & Dressing hold a decorated show for the Munger and Rouse-Hazard lines; riding-school operator Prince Wells renovates his floor; eight other Louisville dealers reviewed including Jefferis Bros. (Victor and Pierce) and Kentucky Cycle Co. (Stearns, Ide, Crawford).
- San Francisco's first-ever cycle show at Mechanics' Pavilion alongside the five-day tournament features 30+ makes; Stearns has the handsomest booth draped in yellow with Johnny Johnson's racer and a tandem-triplet-quad stack; the Falcon stand displays a life-size watercolor of Otto Ziegler; the Indiana Bicycle Co.'s 12-pound wheel is 'the talk of the show.'
- Kalamazoo Railroad Velocipede & Car Co. describes G.W. Miller's new 55-pound lightweight railway velocipede with rubber-tired wheels for quiet, slip-free running on wet or frosty rails; the folding auxiliary guide-wheel arm collapses to bicycle width for easy carriage, and standard bicycle fittings allow repair at any cycle shop.