The Bearings, Vol 12, No 14
Articles in this issue
- The western circuit racing men were entertained royally by the Zion Wheel Club at Salt Lake City but were poorly treated by promoters Simon Bamberger and John Beck, who called off the second day's Becks Hot Springs meet after losing $300; includes circuit notes on record-breaking preparations at San Jose and the weekly percentage, individual and team tables by F. Ed Spooner.
- Report of the national circuit meet at the Becks Hot Springs track, a financial failure that ended the racing after one day; Cooper, Bald, Kiser and Terrill took the open and handicap events.
- At Ogden, Utah, the last national circuit meet east of the Sierras saw Bald win both open races over Kiser and Murphy, while local man A. W. Caine surprised the circuit chasers in the two-mile handicap.
- Milwaukee notes: rural mail carriers may soon deliver on bicycles, the North Side C. C. plans a January cycle show, and M. C. Rotier compiles Wisconsin state records (Sanger, Schrader, Crocker), while Harry Crocker leaves racing for Cleveland.
- Washington, D.C., colored cyclists organize a local branch of the American Union of Cyclers at C. A. Gray's home; B. F. Grimes wins the Dupont Cycle Club road race and W. F. Sims equals Ganse's record, and the chief signal officer praises the military bicycle.
- At Chillicothe, Ohio, W. W. Windle, paced by a quad, rode a half-mile in :48 and lowered Johnson's quarter-mile professional record to :22 4/5.
- An editorial, with letters from Chief Consul L. C. Jaquish and Will A. Connelly, urging Illinois wheelmen to vote for Hon. A. J. Jones for Cook County drainage trustee as a friend of the good-roads movement.
- Editorial hailing the new scientifically built cement track at New Orleans as the fastest in the country and a likely winter Mecca for record breakers, with Coburn and Randall nearly equaling the world's half-mile record at its opening.
- Editorial disputing Cycling Life's claim that vibration does not crystallize steel, citing the writer's bridge-building experience and Charles E. Hadley of the Indiana Bicycle Co.
- Editorial on the Chicago Herald's motocycle race, the first of its kind in the country, with over sixty inventors entered to run the Waukegan course and prizes awarded chiefly for utility.
- Angus McLeod, the Canadian Class B champion, rode a straightaway flying-start mile unpaced in 1:33 2/5 at Sarnia, on the banks of the St. Clair River.
- Philadelphia letter: the National Racing Board's Cabanne-Titus-Murphy case drags on as Chairman Gideon vacations, about 200 cyclers refuse the Pennsylvania Railroad's new 30-cent bicycle charge en route to the Pyle road race, and the Wissahickon Wheelmen talk of a cycle show.
- A bitter L.A.W. Massachusetts Division election fight in which the A.C.C.-dominated nominating committee dropped secretary-treasurer C. S. Howard for 'Lon' Peck, prompting an independent 'club ticket'; both tickets name Sterling Elliott for chief consul.
- St. Louis wheelmen led by L. W. Conkling and the Chicago Cycling Club exchange visits, nineteen Chicago men riding the famous De Soto course where James Levy alone climbed every hill.
- Alexander B. McDonell of Rochester, N.Y., riding a Viking unpaced, claims to have ridden 25 miles in 51:55 and lowered the 100-mile record to 4:40:09 between Rochester and Buffalo.
- London letter on a record-filled week: F. J. Osmond and F. W. Chinn's road rides, the ongoing Simpson lever-chain controversy, and J. W. Stocks beating Bouhours' hour record at Catford before collapsing at 44 miles.
- At Napa, Cal., Walter Foster of San Francisco, riding a Rambler, lowers the paced and unpaced third-mile records and brings the mile down to 1:46 3/5 behind a quad.
- Anxiety in Minneapolis over George S. Smith and Theodore Ehrmentraut, missing for three weeks after setting out by bicycle through the pine country north of Tower, Minn.
- At Vincennes before 20,000 spectators, American crack George Banker, over-anxious, ran a poor third as Morin won the Grand Prix de Paris final; Lartigue, Hatte and Bourrillon also figured in the day's racing.
- A short story in which rival racers Fastleigh and Smaley train for a Plumbettville handicap road race that collides with a military sham battle, and Fastleigh throws away the race to snatch a child from the path of charging cavalry.
- San Francisco letter: Frank Byrne cuts the ten-mile road record to 24:27 despite a fall, the Northern California Division elects Frank H. Kerrigan chief consul, and the Bay City Wheelmen add Cooper, Murphy and Young.
- The Minneapolis Limited Cycling Club is collapsing some $800 in debt with its diamond prizes missing, and racers like Bald, Bliss and Cooper vow never to ride a Minneapolis track again.
- Jason R. Church of the Milwaukee Wheelmen won first prize for the best-decorated wheel in Milwaukee's semi-centennial cycle parade with a scheme contrasting 1845 and 1895 travel.
- Fred Stobbart's paced Elgin-Aurora century in 5:58:20 is challenged by the Englewood Wheelmen, who claim Herman Kohl rode it unpaced in 5:57:30; Mrs. George Bunker also rode the course defending her own women's record against Miss Anderson's reputed time.
- Australasian letter by W. Castle: Zimmerman lands at Albany and is feted by Sydney wheelmen, American makes (Spalding, Keating, Sterling, Columbia, Morgan & Wright) invade Australia despite New Zealand press prejudice, and A. B. Macdonald takes the Sydney Bicycle Club five-mile championship.
- At Kansas City, 23-year-old Herbert Wood, paced by three tandem teams on a 20-pound Avery, broke the hilly Waldo course and Missouri ten-mile road record in 26:34.
- The Springfield Bicycle Club finds its 1895 tournament more profitable than 1894's thanks to advertising receipts, assuring a 1896 meet; includes Springfield bicycle tax statistics and a new anti-tack-throwing ordinance.
- Louisville letter in which Tom Eck proposes ending pacemaking complaints by requiring each rider to take the lead before the three-quarter post, and F. G. Barnett devises a canvas-strap racing harness for unpaced work.
- At Louisville, C. R. Coulter sets a two-thirds-mile paced record and Crooks and Weinig take the tandem mile; the column also covers efforts to bring Louis Gimm in for the 24-hour record, the decline of horse racing, and a wheelmen's municipal campaign.
- The opening two-day meet on New Orleans' new quarter-mile cement track, with Coburn of St. Louis starring in Class B and Terrill, Block and Peter Casse winning Class A, and Frank Wing's flying mile in 2:04 2/5.
- The Century C. C. of Maryland's third annual century run from Baltimore drew 300 starters of whom 246 finished the hilly course; Lieut. H. V. Casey finished first and the Centaur Club won the club flag.
- At Santa Monica, the Southern Pacific Railroad's new three-lap track opens auspiciously with Whitman, McCrea and Lacy winning and Ulbricht and Hatton lowering the coast tandem record to 2:08.
- At Wilmington, Del., the Pyle twenty-mile road race eclipsed its predecessors with over sixty starters; Luther Thompson beat William Weiss for first and Charles Church beat Fred List for the time prize.
- At the first annual meet of the Alliance Bicycle Club at Rockhill Driving Park, Ohio, John F. Steele won three events including the half-mile and one-mile open.
- The Middletown Wheel Club's first annual meet in Connecticut drew nearly 4,000 spectators, with Newton, Ertz and Oscar Hedstrom sharing the open events.
- New York trade letter: a strong fall retail trade and busy riding academies, dissatisfaction over Madison Square Garden show space, and the new Olympic Cycle Mfg. Co. (W. R. Hollingshead) running three factories.
- Philadelphia trade letter on brisk business and 1896 prospects, with notes on the Standard Typewriter Exchange's Pierce sub-agencies, strong tandem demand, Holbrook's Falcon sales, and the Eclipse Bicycle Co. opening a branch under W. J. Walker.
- London trade letter by 'Will o' the Wisp' on the unresolved Simpson-chain leverage question, a renewed debate over standard threads, Humber's Portuguese monopoly, and the Rover safety's tenth-anniversary dinner.
- Toledo's machinists' strike is settled by a compromise giving toolmakers a 25-cent daily raise; trade notes follow on A. U. Betts & Co., the Toledo Metal Wheel Co.'s Rugby junior, and other Toledo firms.
- Minneapolis trade letter surveying the city's dealers, including Janney Semple's Falcon line, the Deere-Webber Co. buying 5,000 wheels, Heath's telescope pump, and the Columbus Buggy Co.'s Spalding club.
- Description of the Julius Andrae & Sons Co.'s 1896 cycles, including a light roadster, the Lady Andrae and a path racer plus diamond and combination tandems with new barrel hubs and dustproof bearings.
- The Monarch Cycle Mfg. Co. adds a low-priced eight-model 'Defiance' line for 1896, built of seamless tubing with large hubs and high-grade finish even in the boys' and girls' sizes.
- Butler & Ward of Newark, N. J., introduce the short 'Empress' ladies' saddle and a new wire-spring clip that brings the saddle close to the frame.
- The new Standard Cycle Works at 69-75 W. Washington St., Chicago, founded by young men including W. W. Vernon, B. S. Russ and Edward K. Orr, will build six models of the high-grade Standard wheel.
- The Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works of Fitchburg, Mass., will go into the bicycle business under its own name in 1896 with the high-grade Iver Johnson cycle.
- The Faries Mfg. Co. of Decatur, Ill., makes a universal incandescent-lamp holder that can be moved and held anywhere, already selling well in the country and in Germany.
- F. A. Ruff of Detroit makes the light, cheap Eureka market-basket and luggage carrier, which needs no screws or straps and will carry fifty pounds or more.
- At Clyde, Ohio, a 90-foot section of the Elmore Mfg. Co.'s three-story bicycle factory wall, weakened by a water-main trench, fell outward, dropping workmen into the debris.
- The St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co. sells its European Lu-Mi-Num aluminum-bicycle patents for nearly $140,000 to the new $400,000 Manchester Aluminum Bicycle Co., which will build factories at Manchester and Lille.
- 'Halladay night' at the St. Louis exposition saw the E. C. Meacham Arms Co.'s salesmen in cherry-colored suits show a full line of Halladay 1896 models to some 10,000 visitors.
- A roundup of trade items by city, listing new bicycle-company incorporations and factory plans from New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Grand Rapids, Toledo and elsewhere.
- The Newton Rubber Works of Newton Upper Falls, Mass., will distribute $1,000 among the U.S. and Canadian cycling clubs having the most members riding on Straus tires by July 15, 1896.
- Survey of Des Moines, Iowa, dealers clustered on Locust Street, including Kenyon & Cooper, the Des Moines Cycle Co. (Columbia), Lathrop Rhoads & Co. and the Avery Planter Co., with trade expected to eclipse 1895.
- Description of the high-grade $100 'United States' bicycle built by the Chicago Stamping Co. from German tubing, weighing 20 pounds with dust-proof bearings and keyless cranks.
- Manager Arthur R. Peck of the Barnes Cycle Co. of Syracuse warns, via the Syracuse Standard, that Charles O. and Lucian Barnes' threatened rival 'Barnes Improved' company would infringe patents owned by the original firm.
- Springfield, Mass., manufacturers (Columbia, Overman, Warwick, Keating, Lamb, Ames) anticipate strong 1896 demand with slightly heavier 28-inch wheels, larger tubing and wood rims; Pope shifts the local Columbia agency to F. A. Hubbard.
- The newly incorporated Pacific Coast Bicycle Co. of San Francisco, capitalized at $100,000, will job wheels and handle the Henley bicycle on the coast and across the Pacific.
- Write-up of the Fauber one-piece crank axle, which eliminates loose cranks and cotter pins, gives a 3.5-inch tread, and has been patented internationally with 9,000 orders already booked.
- The 1896 prospectus of the Ajax wheels (St. Nicholas Mfg. Co., controlled by Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co.), detailing men's models from the 'Varsity to the Antelope and ladies' models like the Vassar and Gazelle.
- The new Iroquois Cycle Co. of Chicago, capitalized at $25,000 under manager E. N. Reaser, will build a $100 high-grade wheel; the column also notes the Czar Cycle Co.'s single-row crank-shaft bearing and the Kankakee high-art bicycles.
- Account of the Duckworth chains (the No. 3, the M. & M. W. No. 2, and the standard No. 5) made at Springfield, Mass., with the Manufacturers' & Merchants' Warehouse Co. of Chicago as exclusive agent.
- McLish & Co. of Chicago market a barrel-center tubular hub made from a single piece of light tubing with no brazing whatever.
- A trade-news roundup of short items including the Empire line's success, Dow & Gaffney's Seattle wins, a New York cycle fire-engine, the Meyercord transfer-works fire, the Fairbanks wood-rim order, Rouse, Hazard & Co. quitting implements for Sylph and Overland bicycles, and a Prince Henry of Prussia bicycle race.