The Bearings, Vol 12, No 12
Articles in this issue
- The Bearings blames referees' unrealistically low time limits for spoiled class races rather than the riders, reports Bald has passed 900 points in the percentage table (beaten by only 41 of nearly 400 men all season) while Cooper battles catarrh and Murphy, Bliss and Kiser jockey for position, and previews the Denver national one-mile championship and new-track openings at New Orleans for Titus and Cabanne; team and individual percentage tables show Spalding and Humber tied atop the standings with Bald and Cooper leading individually.
- Organizers build remarkable momentum for a national circuit date at Council Bluffs in just eight days, yet a fierce gale on race day keeps attendance low; Bald ties the world half-mile competition record at exactly one minute flat.
- A Los Angeles correspondent reports new tracks rising at Santa Monica, Riverside, Santa Ana and San Diego ahead of the national circuit's November dates there, an L.A.W. chief-consul contest between Charles F. Gates and C. C. Monaghan, and Bay City Wheelmen members Fritz Lacy and Herb McCrea signing to ride crimson rims on next year's circuit.
- Rain postpones New York's century runs, so clubhouses fill with talk instead; the United States Military Wheelmen convene at the Broadway Central Hotel to study using bicycles for scouting and hauling machine guns, and Street Commissioner Waring considers mounting his street inspectors on wheels.
- The California Associated Cycling Clubs elect H. H. White president at their fourth annual meeting and accept an Olympic Club silver cup to be won three times in their road races, while San Francisco's Bicycle Dealers Protective Association discusses an agreement to stop price-cutting for 1896.
- At Dowagiac, Mich., before 5,000 spectators, W. P. Burnham wins the half-mile and two-mile Class A championships and the one-mile open, while L. L. Poak, J. C. Linkham, A. S. Wing and C. S. Webber take the other featured events.
- An editorial praises Lockland, Ohio's wheelmen for electing one of their own to the city council after politicians ignored their complaints about ruinous street conditions, winning cyclists the right to use sidewalks while the roads are rebuilt.
- A tongue-in-cheek dispatch has the (invented) "American Wheelman" organization's declaration for Cuban independence toppling Spanish rule in Havana, with Governor-General Campos supposedly fleeing to Key West to take a job as a cigar-factory drummer.
- A run of unheaded editorial notes predicts 1896 road bicycles will hold at 21-plus pounds rather than get lighter, reports a falling-out between Colonel Pope and Lindsay Coleman over Dave Post's Pope Mfg. Co. stock, decries English pacemakers taking bribes to abandon riders like Wridgway, and notes A. W. Harris has sailed to Australia to race Zimmerman. No single printed heading covers this miscellany.
- Austin Crooks and T. Weinig lower the third-mile tandem record to :32⅗ at Independence, Iowa, on October 10.
- A London correspondent reports Humber riders Leitch and Pellant covering a flying quarter-mile in :20⅗ (nearly 44 mph) testing the new Simpson lever chain, Rudham-Chapple winning Herne Hill's six-hour tandem record race, Barden beating Relph in a Putney match, an English taxation-of-cycles push in Macclesfield, and the death of Polytechnic C.C. clown and pantomimist Harry Payne.
- Toronto's Dunlop trophy road-team race, pitting eight Class A clubs including the Athenaeum, Toronto and Royal Canadian cycling clubs, is postponed a week after rain leaves the Kingston road course nearly impassable.
- At Fountain Ferry track, De Cardy sets Class B paced records from two to five miles (five miles in 10:18⅘) before Gardiner tops him with a world's paced five-mile record of 9:58⅕, while Coulter fails in his own two-mile attempt the next day.
- Trainer Tom Eck takes charge of the Morgan & Wright camp at Louisville's Fountain Ferry track, drilling professionals John S. Johnson, Pat O'Connor and others through 6:30 a.m. reveille while Searle and Twyman prepare bids at the twenty-four-hour record; the same Louisville dispatch notes new city ordinances exempting rubber-tired vehicles from license fees and fining litterers $5 for throwing glass or nails on the streets.
- W. W. Hamilton lowers the unpaced mile record to 2:00⅖ at Denver on a Syracuse fitted with Morgan & Wright tires, after an earlier private trial of 2:05¾, and rides a further two-thirds mile in 1:18¼ three days later.
- Despite poor weather at Keokuk, Iowa, George Mitchell wins the five-mile handicap and one-mile open, Stevens takes the quarter-mile open and two-mile handicap, and Deems and Ulrich win the two-mile tandem race.
- Frenchman Lesna wins the 100-kilometer championship of France at the Velodrome de la Seine in 2:25:44⅖, with young Lartigue second, as Bouhours breaks his saddle and Pingault's electric-safety pacer debuts on the track; the same dispatch covers Banker's Grand Prix de Roubaix win over the French and Belgian cracks and a French road racer named The winning the Bale-Strasbourg race in 8:31:00.
- In the Ramblers' annual nine-mile road race over Halifax, N.S.'s hilly Bedford road, F. D. Hillis lowers the course record to 26:58 for his third straight win, while L. R. Kaye takes first place in 29:36.
- Washington correspondence describes Chinese, Japanese and British legation diplomats taking up cycling, a swindler who posed as racer Eddie McDuffie to borrow wheels from the Columbia and Victor stores before skipping town, and the death of amateur racer Edward C. Yeatman, who accidentally shot himself while hunting near Charleston, W. Va.
- Philadelphia correspondence protests Pennsylvania turnpike companies' growing tollage on cyclists — the Berks & Dauphin County Turnpike Co. will charge a half-cent a mile from November 1 — and urges wheelmen to fight it in the legislature; the same dispatch notes composer David Perkenpine's cycling-song success, the Time Wheelmen's new officers, and plans for a giant Associated Cycling Clubs lantern parade and five new city tracks.
- The Southern Pacific Railroad opens a new third-mile track at Santa Monica, Cal., on October 16, with engineer E. L. Swaine's specifications for its banked curves and 2,000-seat grandstand, and plans excursion trains from across southern California for the opening meet.
- Skater-cyclist John S. Johnson buys a $10,000 Minneapolis residence for his family within a day of returning from Cedar Rapids, telling a reporter it disproves rumors he plans to move to Sweden and that he next aims to add ice-skating records to his bicycle marks.
- In the Chicago Cycling Club's ten-mile road race, P. B. Wilson wins the time prize in 23:06⅖ on a Napoleon, the fastest ten miles ever ridden on the road though not eligible as a record; the same roundup covers a mud-shortened North End race at Evanston, the Northwest Side clubs' Juul Cup contest won by the Irving Parks, and the Lake Shore Wheelmen's road race won by H. C. Kingsley.
- Veteran trick rider Nick Kaufmann, fresh from performances abroad and currently appearing at Chicago's Auditorium, tours with his young son, who is already learning his father's tricks while wearing his medals and championship belt.
- A musing editorial argues that wet, wave-packed sand along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts would make excellent riding for pneumatic-tired safeties, sparing riders the hill-climbing that mountainous, poorly-roaded tropical countries force on cyclists.
- Fred Loughead, the twenty-year-old Canadian Class A champion who holds Canada's quarter-, half-, one-mile and five-mile records, lies near death at his home in Sarnia, Ont.
- An unsigned short story — its printed title lost to a garbled, out-of-sequence OCR scan spanning pages 20–21 — follows two vacationing wheelmen who, after discovering a mining camp's secret gold strike, smuggle bullion out on their bicycles by night and outrun armed horsemen down a mountain grade to the express office.
- At the Mount Holly, N.J., fair meet, dark horse Oscar Hedstrom upsets favorites Joe Harrison and Linford Lefferson to win the mile open, then sweeps the half-mile open and places in the three-mile handicap the following day.
- On St. Louis's undersized amphitheater track, J. C. Weidner and Geo. Tivy win the featured two-mile tandem race by a scant yard, Tivy also takes the two-mile handicap, and Frank Costello wins the novice race wire to wire.
- S. T. Durant slashes Utah's 100-mile road record from 8:06:00 to 7:32:00 over the Sandy-Layton course without pacemakers, also lowering the state's twenty-five and fifty-mile marks to 1:26:00 and 3:25:00.
- An editorial backs San Francisco's Cycle Trade Association proposal to rein in bicycle guarantees, arguing dealers currently eat the cost when riders blame factory defects for damage that is really about 75 percent due to careless riding or neglect.
- A how-to feature advises narrow, spring-free saddle designs for pneumatic-tired machines and details softening a new saddle's leather with water, then degras or fish-oil dressing, before fixing its position permanently once broken in.
- Philadelphia trade notes cover John C. Bowe's Syracuse Cycle Co. hosting dealer guests, the debut of the Davis Sewing Machine Co.'s Dayton wheel through the Standard Typewriter Exchange, R. D. Garden's trip to the Victor factory, the Benner brothers signing with Syracuse for next season, and the Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co.'s new Chicago branch models.
- London correspondent Will o' the Wisp reports J. H. Price's resignation as Palmer Tire Co. general manager, the new Humber & Co. (Russia), Ltd. venture, coroners blaming brakeless-machine fatalities, rival oil-tight gear-cases from the Component Parts Co. and Aluminium Cycle Parts Co., and a profitable year for the Jointless Rim Co.
- The Spaulding & Pepper Co. opens a new tire factory at Chicopee, Mass., employing about 100 hands to make six single-tube tires and one double-tube tire, plus the L. C. Smith tire under an exclusive manufacturing right secured by Mr. Pepper.
- A short profile notes Syracuse Cycle Co. president John C. Bowe's rise from vice-president to the top job and his latest venture, the Empire Cycle Co., which will build a medium-grade companion line.
- A patent-office feature illustrates ten different mechanisms — screw-threaded plugs, worm-screws, notched washers, cam-plates and pawl-and-tooth devices — patented for tightening or loosening a bicycle's driving chain.
- Inventor Simpson's patent specification for the new notched-wheel chain praised by London correspondent Will o' the Wisp is explained in detail: a loosely fitted grooved collar lets the chain's cross-pins engage the sprocket teeth with reduced friction.
- Willimantic, Conn. inventor Mr. Barrows builds a three-wheeled electric vehicle with the front wheel doubling as a 100-pound battery-driven motor hub, capable of 100 to 150 miles per charge and detachable for use on a sleigh or carriage.
- The L. C. Smith Tire Co. of Syracuse contracts with the Spaulding & Pepper Co. of Chicopee Falls to make and sell its detachable tire on royalty for 1896, closing its Syracuse headquarters after January 1.
- Napoleon-brand wheels sweep the Chicago Cycling Club's ten-mile road race, with P. B. Wilson's New York-tired Napoleon posting the fastest-ever competition time of 23:06⅖ and Napoleons capturing first, third and fourth time prizes.
- A Worcester, Mass. trade roundup covers J. C. Spears's diamond-frame jobbing wheels, the Decker Cycle Co.'s vertical-pitch bearings and flush tire valves, Willie Windle and P. J. Berlo's new Windle Cycle Co. (with material for 5,000 wheels and a Berlo tandem line), the Worcester Cycle Co. under Birdie Munger and A. J. Cahill, and the locally invented Baldwin adjustable chain.
- Long-distance rider Merton Duxbury, who has now ridden across the continent twice, praises his Morgan & Wright tires' quick-repair outfit for surviving 1,500 miles of grease-wood and cacti with only three punctures.
- A feature describes the Lodge & Davis Machine Tool Co.'s new turret-head screw machine, built with a forged crucible-steel spindle and automatic revolving turret for bicycle-parts manufacturing.
- Hulbert Bros. & Co., makers of the white-star-badged Majestic bicycle, note that their first 1896 tubing shipment arrived aboard the White Star liner Majestic, and that the same mail brought both a compliment and a new saddle order tied to their Mesinger saddle.
- The newly organized Arnold, Schwinn & Co., capitalized at $75,000 under president Adolph Arnold and vice-president Ignatz Schwinn (a veteran of Heinrich Kleyer's Frankfort works), plans 5,000 to 7,000 strictly high-grade machines from its 25,000-square-foot Peoria and Lake streets factory.
- Col. I. D. Smead and R. W. Smith perfect a new cold-rolled steel tube-making process at the Smead foundry in Toledo, expecting to turn out 1,000 feet of tubing a day in four sizes.
- The Newton Rubber Works introduces a double-flanged single-tube repair plug that seats under tension and patches a puncture both inside and outside the tire.
- A trade digest reports new bicycle-company incorporations in Newark (Folding Bicycle Co.), Des Moines (Mann Bicycle Co.), St. Louis (Knight Cycle Co.) and Portland, Me. (Brockton Power Co. and Mayflower Park Mfg. Co.), plus fires at Troxel Bros. & Clark in Denver and Geo. S. Peck in Winchester, Mass., and the Eclipse Bicycle Co.'s new branch-house system in Boston, Philadelphia and Indianapolis.
- A metallurgical feature explains distinguishing steel from iron using dilute nitric or chlorohydric acid corrosion tests, citing Professor Kich of Prague's classification of how forged iron, Bessemer steel and cast iron each react.
- The Toledo Cadets, the first military company to adopt bicycles three years ago, are pictured in camp at Chattanooga, riding Gold Crank Falcons fitted with Morgan & Wright tires under Captain Wm. V. McMaken and having won prize drills worth $6,500.
- A humor sketch has a cycle-repair shop owner rail to a visiting reporter about customers who blame mysteriously repeat-punctured tires and bent parts on anything but their own hard riding.
- A roundup credits Humber-ridden bicycles with 1895's top marks, including Huret's 529¾-mile Bordeaux twenty-four-hour record and 29⅓-mile hour record, Murphy's two-mile competition record of 4:14, and McDuffie and Butler's tandem records.
- The Julius Andrae & Sons Co. of Milwaukee opens a new 200-by-80-foot factory with a 100-horsepower engine and full nickel-plating plant, already turning out 1896 machines under works manager F. T. Andrae.
- The Warman-Schub Cycle House of Chicago, working on contracts for 20,000 wheels for 1896, unveils a Quadrant-steered parcel-delivery tricycle carrier with independently working front wheels and a diamond-frame option.
- The Tourist bicycle, originally slated for New York's Tinkham Cycle Co., will instead be built in Syracuse by a new Tourist Cycle Co. tied to E. C. Stearns & Co. and sold through Stearns agents at $75.
- This week's Bearings runs to 100 pages — seventy-eight of advertising and twenty-two of reading matter — with twenty-one brand-new advertisers including Arnold, Schwinn & Co. and forty-five changed ads.
- Arnold, Schwinn & Co.'s Peoria and Lake streets plant, equipped with the latest automatic machinery, will turn out between 8,000 and 10,000 high-grade machines.
- Traveling salesman E. C. Bode, a former racer who sold in turn for Fowler, Sterling and Peerless, becomes second vice-president and traveling representative of the new Arnold, Schwinn & Co.
- Chicago jewelers B. F. Norris, McAllister & Co. organize the El Dorado Cycle Co. under superintendent Fraher to build the $100 El Dorado Special and $75 Paragon at a Dearborn Street factory.
- G. M. Shirk, who built an ordinary bicycle at age ten and later switched from refrigerators to bicycles, describes his new factory at 203-207 S. Canal Street building the 1896 Shirk, sold on the coast chiefly by the Howe Scale Co. of San Francisco.
- Humber-frame inventor P. L. Renouf of England and George Valdelievre of France, passing through Chicago after inspecting the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co.'s Lu-mi-num wheel, each secure rights to manufacture it in their home countries.
- A feature on saddle leather visits George Oberne & Co. of Chicago, which produces belting, harness leather and saddle tops side by side and argues this range lets it select consistently top-grade leather for saddle tops.
- M. J. Dobler, representing the Warwick & Stockton Co. of Newark, N.J., shows Chicago cycle makers the company's popular Gem hub, a new barrel hub, and Humber-pattern and lightweight block chains.
- Trade notes report the America wheel winning four of six firsts at the Des Moines circuit meet, Tom Cooper racing through a bout of la grippe against his trainer's advice, Waltham Mfg. Co. electing C. H. Metz president, and F. W. Chinn breaking the English unlicensed professional mile record in 1:54⅘ on Dunlop tires.