The Bearings, Vol 12, No 19
Articles in this issue
- The L.A.W. Racing Board formally bars the three riders for life for conspiring to fix races at St. Louis, a decision handed down by Chairman Gideon after three months of investigation and widely expected to face legal challenges from Cabanne.
- A Bearings source close to the proceedings outlines the evidence—including affidavits from Kansas City reporters who interviewed Titus and a Cabanne relative, statements from track bystanders, and the riders' own contradictory denials.
- In an interview, Chairman Gideon expresses relief that the case is closed, describes it as the first conspiracy of its kind the board has handled, and predicts the decision will have a salutary effect on future rider conduct.
- Cabanne writes to a Philadelphia club asking them to hold his prize money pending a lawsuit against the League, while reports suggest Spalding intends to bring charges of incompetence against Chairman Gideon before the National Assembly at Baltimore.
- New York cycling opinion holds that the Racing Board found a true bill but that the permanent suspension is excessively harsh; friends of Titus and Murphy, though privately conceding something went wrong in St. Louis, regard the punishment as disproportionate.
- A. G. Spalding tells The Bearings he still believes Cabanne and Titus are innocent, complains the Racing Board has stonewalled him on the evidence, and says he wired League president Willison asking that the charges be made public.
- Racing Board member Fred Gerlach defends the suspension verdict as fully justified by the evidence submitted, says the board felt kindly toward Titus and Cabanne personally, and advises Cabanne to gather proof of innocence for the National Assembly rather than sue.
- Visiting The Bearings' Chicago office, L. D. Cabanne insists he never fixed a race and that the only evidence against him was a remark that "Murphy had stolen the race," and he accuses St. Louis board member D. W. Robert of a personal vendetta.
- The new wood track at Point Breeze, Philadelphia, opened Thanksgiving Day with a poorly managed, poorly refereed meet won on the team-race side by the South End Wheelmen, with times slowed by a strong wind and rough referee work.
- At the Portsmouth C.C.'s meet in Norfolk, Va., Fred Schade swept every event, including a new Virginia state championship record of 2:19 for the mile, breaking the old track mark of 2:26.
- A Minneapolis correspondent reports L.A.W. Chairman Gideon has barred every rider in St. Cloud, Minneapolis, and St. Paul (including Max Littman, Peder Oestlund, and J. A. Wirtensohn) after organizer J. F. Griebler's push for a breakaway professional league across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas.
- The new Nashville Coliseum indoor track opened before 1,200-1,500 fans with F. G. Barnett setting a world indoor two-mile standing-start record of 4:49 1-5 and J. S. Johnson riding an exhibition quarter in :32 1-5, headlining a week that included a six-night, twelve-hour championship eventually won by Caperton.
- J. S. Johnson and trainer Tom Eck will sail for Europe around March 1 to train at Carlsbad or Baden-Baden before racing on the Continent through August.
- The Bearings rebuts an American Cyclist "interview" with A. G. Spalding defending the Cycle Board of Trade's cycle-show pricing, arguing Spalding himself set the high space rates at the Chicago and New York shows and that the board's growth has come from manufacturers joining out of fear of exclusion.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs' benefit carnival for the Waif's Mission proceeds without Cycle Board of Trade sanction after President Spalding withheld encouragement, with backers including L. Z. Leiter and Judge Tuthill threatening injunctions if any exhibiting firm is targeted.
- General Ordway arranges for General Miles's message to be carried by military cyclists relaying from Washington to Governor's Island via New Brunswick, N.J., while a Thanksgiving Day twenty-mile road race on Washington's Conduit Road was won by unattached rider J. H. Rhodes, Jr., in 54:13.
- Before 2,500 spectators, F. S. Shinn won Lakewood, N.J.'s Thanksgiving Day twenty-mile road race on Ocean Avenue in 53:10 4-5, with a full card of novice and open sprints also decided that morning.
- Louisville racer Arthur Gardiner, who had shrunk from 172 to 140 pounds during a serious illness, walked for the first time in four weeks and left for home in Chicago, though full recovery is still weeks away.
- At Cheyenne, Wyo., John Green rode an unpaced flying-start mile in 1:25 flat (beating Angus McLeod's 1:33 3-4 mark) and Charles Erswell set a standing-start mile record of 1:40, both aided by a twenty-eight-mile tailwind on a straightaway road course.
- A Minneapolis correspondent surveys the Twin Cities' cycling clubs, led by the roughly 150-member Spalding Club, and reports the new Capital City C.C. of St. Paul is drawing many of the northwest's leading riders.
- A committee inspecting the proposed Buffalo-to-Niagara Falls cycle path route found tepid local interest at Tonawanda and the Falls, though subscriptions are still slowly coming in and Niagara Falls plans a benefit theater opening for the fund.
- Members of the Morgan & Wright racing team presented Fountain Ferry track superintendent L. E. McCorkle of Louisville with a medal purchased by subscription in thanks for his hospitality during their record-breaking visit.
- On the new Point Breeze track in Philadelphia, William A. Wenzel broke the world Class A ten-mile record by forty seconds, riding 25:18 from a standing start despite frost on the track and poor pacing.
- A Riverside, Cal. correspondent describes Charley Murphy's shock at learning of his suspension while training on the coast, his plan to fight it before the National Assembly with backing from Humber's Elliott Burris, and trainer Young's newly devised safety-harness rig for motor-paced record attempts.
- At the national circuit meet's opening day in Santa Ana, Murphy was barred from riding on Gideon's orders, Cooper showed returning form, and "Old Hoss" Taylor set a two-mile handicap world record of 4:24 from scratch.
- Citing new Department of Agriculture figures, the piece argues bad roads cost the country over $946 million a year in haulage, two-thirds of which could be saved by investment, crediting Colonel Pope's road-improvement campaign for the growing public attention to the issue.
- Reprinted from the American Cyclist, this piece praises a proposed German law penalizing fake advertising and urges similar protection for American cycle manufacturers against rivals who imitate reputable trademarks and literature.
- A manufacturer watching Pope Mfg. Co.'s pressure-testing machine at work decided on the spot to start riding a Columbia, while record-breaker Burton D. Blakeslee wrote to the Fairbanks Wood Rim Co. describing a rough railroad-tie ride from Trinidad to San Bernardino, Cal. that left his rims uncracked.
- At Santa Ana's Thanksgiving Day card, Kiser beat Bald for the first time all season in the coast-record mile open (2:01 1-5), while Cooper and McCrea also broke records in the two-mile handicap and the paced mile.
- At the Riverside Wheelmen's meet on their new third-mile track, Hamilton set a new track tandem-paced mile record of 1:59 3-5 and Cooper beat Kiser in the one-mile handicap, with "Old Hoss" Taylor again impressing in the mile open.
- The Times-Herald's Chicago-to-Evanston motocycle contest, run through deep Thanksgiving Day snow, was finished first by Charles and J. F. Duryea's gasoline wagon, though judges withheld the prize decision pending efficiency tests weighing load capacity, fuel use, and durability alongside speed.
- The Washington (D.C.) Military Cyclists' relay carried a message from Nelson A. Miles to Governor's Island in ten two-man relays, arriving over an hour ahead of schedule despite a driving rainstorm on the final forty-two-mile leg ridden by Lieutenant Libby.
- Chicago bicycle man R. Lindsay Coleman threw an elaborate birthday banquet in Atlanta for some 28 guests from Chicago and New York, coinciding with "Wheelman's Day" at the Cotton States Exposition, featuring races won by Berlo, Cox, and Coulter and toasts from L.A.W. President Willison and others.
- A London correspondent reports the Stanley Show's opening drawing better-than-usual attendance under Sir Albert Rollit, the Royal Aquarium's Six-Day Ladies' Race led by Miss Harwood, and a new French railway system for checking cyclists' bicycles as baggage.
- Milwaukee's cycling clubs permanently organized the Associated Cycling Club, with the South Side Club withholding full participation over a bonding dispute, while Walter Sanger returned home from Denver for the winter.
- Chicago's city council passed an ordinance, introduced by Alderman Kahler, requiring anyone dealing in or repairing second-hand bicycles to obtain a $25 annual license and keep detailed transaction records, aimed at curbing bicycle theft.
- Chief Consul I. B. Potter tells The Bearings that L.A.W. control of racing is driving away members put off by constant Class A/B squabbling, while Secretary-Treasurer W. S. Bull of Buffalo argues the League should keep control of both amateur and professional racing.
- Over 500 riders paraded to open the new fourteen-mile Hudson County Boulevard between Union Hill and Bergen Point, with the Clio Wheelmen hosting and the Greenwich Wheelmen taking the following ten-mile road championship.
- A rider was knocked unconscious into a pillar at the Thirteenth Regiment armory games in Brooklyn and another was hospitalized after a Twelfth Regiment race spill, prompting warnings about the danger of board-floor indoor cycle racing.
- With the Trunk Line Association refusing to confer with the joint Cycle Board of Trade/L.A.W. committee on carrying bicycles as free baggage, the piece concludes manufacturers are not invested enough in the fight for it to succeed.
- Secretary Morton's annual report describes General Roy Stone's road inquiry office compiling a national map of macadamized and gravel roads and crediting the bicycle boom for much of the public's new interest in road improvement.
- An Englishman has invented a coin-operated compressed-air machine that inflates bicycle tires for a penny, though it apparently lacks a lock to stop riders reusing spent pressure.
- A cablegram from Brussels reports that Protin, who claims the cycling championship of the world, is looking for an American wheel manufacturer to ride for.
- The piece argues high-grade bicycle prices will hold near $100 through 1896 because of rising tubing and leather costs, tight machinery supply for new manufacturers, and the annual redesign of models and fittings.
- Manufacturers' habit of holding back improvements for next year's models is blamed for the trade's summer sales slump, with the piece urging makers to introduce upgrades year-round instead.
- The Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. has sold its entire Vim tire output and is leasing an additional five-story factory to keep filling incoming orders.
- A detailed profile of the '96 Sterling line (five models including a 21-pound roadster and two tandems) and the Sterling Cycle Works' new one-floor Kenosha, Wis. factory, covering its sprocket-seating redesign and built-up fork-crown construction.
- Sterling Cycle Works vice-president Howard E. Raymond, the L.A.W. Racing Board's ex-chairman, sailed on the "Umbria" with a sample of the '96 line to tour England, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Italy before the New York Cycle Show.
- The Fowler Cycle Mfg. Co. has staffed its expanded eastern branches with Charles H. Larsen managing the new Boston office and James H. Robley, formerly of Maltby & Robley, managing the New York branch.
- The Eastern Cycle Mfg. Co. organized in Amesbury, Mass. with $20,000 paid-in capital and a board including E. Ripley Sibley as president, planning to build only high-grade, fully guaranteed bicycles.
- Morgan & Wright's traveling exhibition car "Wanderer," touring under Captain Lennie to promote the quick-repair tire, drew several hundred visitors in Springfield, Mass. as part of a fifty-city, forty-day tour ending back in Chicago by Christmas.
- Cyclists Alexander Laing and Bert Harding tandem-toured from St. Louis toward Atlanta over unusually rough roads without once needing their repair kit, crediting the condition of their Vim tires.
- The Pittsburg Commercial Gazette reports a wild-looking man, possibly fugitive murderer Brookmire, was sighted fleeing into the Allegheny Mountains near Bolivar, Pa. after a search party led by James Shirley failed to catch him.
- A detailed London report on the nineteenth annual Stanley Show at Agricultural Hall, Islington, covering 300 exhibitors and 1,300 cycles, novelties like the Simpson road skate and Dion et Bouton motor tricycle, and the Rudge-Whitworth and Elswick stands.
- The Bearings denies rumors that the Singer sewing-machine company is entering bicycle manufacturing, clarifying the unrelated Singer Mfg. Co. of Boston (maker of the English-built Singer wheel) is instead introducing a Crypto-geared parcel-carrier tricycle for delivery boys.
- The Geo. Burnham Co. of Worcester, Mass. has built a three-spindle drill with an independent countershaft and steady belt-driven motion, capable of drilling to the center of a 22-inch circle.
- The Cycle Supply Co. of Hartford, Conn. is pushing its Hartford-brand bicycle bells hard through jobbers nationwide and is opening a new Chicago branch alongside its existing Cleveland house.
- Inventor Charles Knees of Oshawa, Ont. has placed an "East India" leather bicycle tire on the market, claiming it is lighter, weatherproof, and non-slipping compared with rubber.
- St. Louis's Associated Cycling Clubs and Cycle Board of Trade settled their dispute over a February 20-22 cycle show at Exposition Music Hall, while the city also angles to host the L.A.W. National Assembly.
- The Diamond Pedal Co. of Chicago describes its newly introduced pedal, built from a one-piece stamped steel frame with a non-detachable dustproof cap and hardened tool-steel cone bearings.
- A Toledo correspondent rounds up local cycle-trade news, including the new Toledo Drop Forge Co. ($30,000 capital), the Maumee Cycle Co.'s new building, and the Toledo Tube Co.'s 1,200-feet-a-week output.
- Rumors circulate that the Monarch and Pope stores may relocate off Wabash Avenue's Cycle Row, while newcomer Waltham Mfg. Co. (maker of the Orient) is fitting out an oriental-themed showroom at No. 268.
- Growing demand for the America bicycle has forced the International Mfg. Co. to move into three floors of a Fulton Street building with over $80,000 in new machinery, aiming for 400 wheels a week.
- J. H. Sager of the Sager Mfg. Co., Rochester, has developed a multi-chambered pneumatic saddle designed to stop air from rolling under the rider and relieve pressure, in both men's and shorter ladies' versions.
- The Gendron Wheel Co. of Toledo will build a high-grade Gendron roadster line plus a medium-grade Reliance and a juvenile line for '96, detailing tubing gauges, tire fittings, and finishes for each.
- In a letter with comparative test tables from Case School and the Watertown Arsenal, H. Crowther argues nickel steel tubing is roughly 30 percent stronger than ordinary steel and announces the Peerless Mfg. Co. will use it in its 1896 lightweight racing models.
- Three Indiana Bicycle Co. staffers—Harley Craft, Lee Greenleaf, and John J. Landis—announce upcoming weddings, while stockholder Wm. R. Evans has died and Indianapolis Rubber Co. manager Frank Wood has resigned to start a new company.
- A roundup of new cycle-trade incorporations across the country, including Rochester's Bettys & Mablett Co., Camden's Brownie Bicycle Mfg. Co. ($125,000 capital), and dozens of other new companies, plus lists of recently granted bicycle patents and trademarks.
- Thiem & Co. of St. Paul is preparing a large run of its patented adjustable toe-clip, which doubles as a hill-climbing aid, for the 1896 season at 50 cents a pair.
- A Louisville correspondent surveys the season's dealers, led by Jefferis Bros.' Victor/Pierce agency, and reports several firms failed for lack of stock while new agencies like W. A. Thomas's plan to open for 1896.
- Buffalo trade notes cover the new Iroquois Cycle Mfg. Co.'s Cayuga and Oneida models, W. G. Schack's move to Bicycle Row, Lutz & Son dropping the Stearns agency for Davidson, and expected Remington Arms and Orient store openings.
- A visit to the newly remodeled Royal Cycle Works in Marshall, Mich. finds it capable of 1,000 wheels before year's end toward an 8,000-bicycle output under manager Harry Chapman, with C. W. A. Lewis joining as its newest traveling salesman.
- A Salt Lake City correspondent reports early demand for 1896 models focused on tubing gauge and tire weight rather than overall wheel weight, plus rumored trade changes including the Columbia agency's likely move to the Salt Lake Hardware Co.
- Philadelphia trade notes include the Orient's plan to open its own branch, W. J. Walker & Co.'s move to become an Eclipse Bicycle Co. branch house, and Mr. Barsuglia's departure from E. K. Tryon & Co. to join the Wilhelm Bicycle Co.
- The Royal Cycle Works has designed a detachable sprocket wheel with right- and left-hand threaded lock-nut construction that can be reversed when its teeth wear on one side.
- The Olympic Cycle Mfg. Co. of New York has already placed much of its 10,000-wheel 1896 output, adding a patented crank axle and new juvenile models named the Olympia, Olympus, and Niantic.
- The Liberty Cycle Co.'s 1896 line will include ten models—five men's, three ladies', and two tandems—listing at $100 for singles and $150 for tandems, retaining the Liberty hollow fork-crown and detachable sprocket.
- Chas. Truman & Co. of Toledo's advance catalogue promises "good wheels, but no 16-pound freaks," detailing a weldless steel-tube frame line with a one-year guarantee across four men's and ladies' heights.
- The Hunter Arms Co. of Fulton, N.Y.'s 1896 Hunter line uses Smith-gun-hardened tool-steel bearings and imported Crown steel tubing, with models listing from $100 to $125.
- Six workmen were overcome by escaping gas from a burner at the Sterling Cycle Works in Kenosha, Wis., with one victim, John Bock, left in a precarious, possibly fatal condition.
- E. C. Stearns & Co. has arranged to manufacture Palmer Pneumatic tires under license, making Palmer the principal tire on 1896 Stearns wheels with factory-direct repairs.
- L. Randall of the Randall Cycle Co., Fort Wayne, Ind. will spend the winter covering Indiana, southern Michigan, and eastern Ohio for the E. C. Meacham Arms Co.'s 31-model bicycle line.
- Chicago firm Cutting & Kaesiner is building a new maroon-and-gold "Cutting Special" diamond-frame wheel plus a ladies' drop frame, weighing 16 to 26 pounds depending on model.
- Class A racer Floyd A. Macfarland, riding a March wheel, won the third-mile and mile open at San Jose (setting a 2:05 mark), the two-mile lap at Los Angeles, and a world quarter-mile-track mile record of 2:10 4-5.
- Kansas City dealers permanently organized the Kansas City Cycle Dealers' Association, electing C. J. Schmelzer president, with twenty-one of the city's twenty-five dealers attending.
- B. F. Norris, Allister & Co. describe the El Dorado Cycle Co.'s new high-grade El Dorado ($100) and medium-grade Paragon ($70) lines, detailing frame gauges, tread width, and a quick gear-change sprocket-and-crank design.
- For 1896 the Winton Bicycle Co. will drop its distinctive frame brace in favor of a standard diamond frame with a one-piece drop-forged head and rounded, cotterless cranks.
- H. A. Lozier & Co. will introduce an all-wood handle-bar (patent pending) on its 1896 Cleveland line, alongside a Swell Special, ladies' model, racer, and two tandems built with Burwell bearings.
- Short trade items include the Sherman Cycle Co.'s move to South Clinton Street, the Peoria Rubber & Mfg. Co. selling its output to the Patee Bicycle Co., and the Hay & Willits Mfg. Co. raising its capital stock to $60,000.