The Bearings, Vol 12, No 2
Articles in this issue
- At Wauseon, Ohio (population 2,000), an 8,000-strong crowd sees Titus upset Bald, Gardiner, and Bliss in the Class B mile open, while Ray MacDonald and H. H. Maddox spring surprise wins in the half-mile and 2:15-class mile; Toledo's Barney Oldfield sweeps the Class A card over the Klinger brothers.
- A soft, treacherous dirt track mars the Toledo Cycling Club's meet before 5,000 fans; C. M. Murphy beats Kiser and Ziegler in the half-mile open, Tom Cooper wins the mile handicap, and Cooper is later awarded the two-mile handicap after Earl Kiser is disqualified for fouling him, while Barney Oldfield again tops Class A.
- E. C. Bald must win the Class B mile open twice at Fort Wayne after a time-limit dispute voids his first victory over Murphy and Gardiner, while Tom Cooper scores a meritorious half-mile win over MacDonald and Ziegler before a smaller-than-usual crowd of 2,500.
- Before the smallest crowd of the season, scratch man Gardiner quits the mile handicap when he can't catch the field; in the mile open Gardiner and Otto Ziegler both fall after being knocked by Scott's pacing, breaking Ziegler's arm, while Eddie Bald wins in a new state-record time of 2:05.
- San Francisco correspondent reports Racing Board chairman Robert Welch's Class A loyalty probe suspending several local riders pending sworn statements, previews the Pacific Cyclist circuit's August tour through a dozen California towns, and covers Englishman Merton Duxbury's fifty-eight-day ride from New York and the Mcllraths' round-the-world tour passing through the city.
- Editorial faults a paid Chicago Athletic Club employee for sowing dissension and pushing favoritism during the joint race meet with the Associated Cycling Clubs, concluding that further cooperative meets between the two are now doubtful.
- Editorial muses on the circuit chasers' 157 hours and eight nights aboard trains in June and July, likening the passing seasons seen from the cars to a moving panorama and noting the party's coming winter trip to Otto Ziegler's home turf out west.
- Responding to a rural paper's call to abolish the L.A.W., the editorial argues the League instead needs a permanent headquarters city and a salaried president tied to membership growth, citing the New York Division's roughly 8,000 members as proof of what organization can achieve.
- Boston timer J. E. Saville dissects the chronic timing and placement errors at New England road races, using a hypothetical mix-up between riders "Speedy" and "Kickem" to illustrate the problem, and recommends the single-chief-timer-plus-scorer method used successfully at the Mattapan road race, with an editor's postscript on a finisher-counting check tried at the Chicago road race.
- Satirical dialogue has a new office boy recount a Michigan L.A.W. division man's farcical, twice-repeated trip to Detroit chasing $665 in League election expense money, blocked both times by officials Bressler and Noak and a heckler named Koky who threatens to sue over a $2 due.
- At the Coronado mile track, "the Arizona Boy Wonder" Horace Slater sets a new state record of :55 1/5 for a paced half-mile, while Emil Ulbricht defeats H. E. McCrea in the half-mile open.
- High wind mars the Narragansett Wheelmen's meet at Hills' Grove, R.I., where Referee Harden voids the one-mile state championship after two trials miss the time limit amid trickery by champion Hills, and newcomer Joseph Bowden surprises several fast local men.
- The Overman Wheel Co. sues its former Glens Falls, N.Y. agents A. A. Budd & Sons for secretly reselling Victor bicycles at $85 through a Stuyvesant, N.Y. dealer, Thomas Bros., and filing off the machines' factory numbers to hide the cut-price sales.
- 165 riders start the fourth annual Hilsendegen road race over Detroit's Belle Isle course; local scratch man Con Reinke of Milwaukee sprints past the handicap field in the last hundred feet to win, with Columbus's F. R. Eddie leading the scratch men's bunch home moments later.
- A New York society item recounts how Miss Louise Kissam, niece of Mrs. W. H. Vanderbilt, and young broker Louis S. Kerr courted on their bicycles despite her father's disapproval, culminating in a quiet elopement wedding after a chance meeting at the Long Branch railroad depot.
- A large crowd watches the American Wheelman club's races at the Fort Lee-Englewood course on August 3, where the Durant brothers and A. Bell split the half-mile and two-mile opens and L. Vogel wins the three-mile.
- London's fourth Cuca Cup twenty-four-hour race opens with Nottingham's George Hunt setting a scorching pace ahead of F. W. Shorland's prior-year figures, while the rival North Road Club's own twenty-four-hour race is ruined by a seven-hour storm that leaves R. H. Carlisle the sole finisher over 400 miles.
- At the Silver Lake, N.Y. School of Physical Training meet, Buffalo's Charlie Callahan arrives unannounced and out-sprints Leonert in the closing yards of the mile open, upsetting Class B favorites Freddie Allen and Charles Earl who had expected an easy walkover.
- A trade anecdote recalls how Yonkers dealer Elliott Mason, an early Columbia bicycle agency holder, was gently rebuked for tardiness by manager Joy during a surprise visit to the Pope Manufacturing Co.'s Boston office back in '77.
- Paris correspondent reports young star Jimmy Michael's no-show for a booked 100-kilometer match against Lesna costs him a 725-franc fine from promoter Baduel, while at Bordeaux George A. Banker wins the international quarter-mile scratch race but loses the big match to the Loste brothers' tandem-paced sprint.
- At the Young Men's Hebrew Charity Association meet in Chicago, "toy racer" Gus Steele sets a new state paced-mile record of 1:57 3/5, while on the North Side the Lincoln Cycling Club's road race over the Edgewater course is won by G. R. Catto off a four-minute handicap.
- A Cleveland correspondent debunks rumors his city is bidding for the 1896 L.A.W. national meet, instead praising rival Toledo's hosting record, and reports the Cleveland Driving Park Co.'s lackluster professional races where Pat O'Connor's paced mile attempt is beaten by a running horse.
- Toledo manufacturers led by Alvin Peter of the Union Mfg. Co. pledge $2,000 toward a $12,000 fund to land the 1896 L.A.W. national meet, forming an association with J. L. Yost as president and touting the city's excursions and hospitality over rival Syracuse.
- The Bearings announces three $50 reader contests — for the best weekly paragraph, the best mechanical article, and the best article on selling bicycles on the road — and details the submission rules, including sealed nom-de-plume envelopes.
- The postponed Texas L.A.W. division meet and races at Fort Worth draw about 3,000 spectators over two days, with hometown favorite Max Morris sweeping the state championships and Waco's W. A. Parker turning in a record-equaling exhibition half-mile despite fearing the rough track.
- At the joint Riverside Wheelmen-Manhattan Beach meet in New York, Harry Tyler wins the professional quarter-mile and one-mile invitation over Sanger and Porter, while J. Gregory sweeps both Class A handicaps from the limit mark.
- Over a thousand riders join St. Louis's first annual cycling parade under the Associated Cycling Clubs, but a thin eight-officer police detail lets a crowd of some 50,000 spectators crowd the route, and the Branch Guards and Kenneth Cycle Club win the attendance prizes.
- At the Toronto Ferry Co.'s new Hanlan's Point board track, G. H. Doherty breaks the Canadian novice record in 2:13 1/5, Fred W. Young and T. B. McCarthy's match series ends level after a dead-heat quarter-mile, and John S. Johnson is reported set to make Toronto his home.
- Milwaukee's Racing Board scrutiny catches Class A men Sanger, Roth, and Crocker over ties to a manufacturing concern, while Chief Consul Morrison announces he will not seek re-election, opening a contest between William A. Brown and Dr. S. McArthur.
- The March-Davis Cycle Co.'s Pacific coast team keeps sweeping races, with G. A. Nissen riding from scratch to a record 25:45 unpaced ten-mile handicap win and teammate J. A. Clymer also finishing among the leaders.
- A new harness-and-elastic-band device invented by Robertson is said to assist riders in lifting their legs past dead center, acting as a shoulder brace that riders testing it report is all the inventor claims.
- The Old Fort Mfg. Co. of Fort Wayne, Ind. is turning out a patented interlocking-joint wood rim from rock elm at its Eaton, Ind. factory, with A. L. Randall to cover Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois for the company.
- Plymouth Cycle Co.'s W. S. Daniels returns from an eastern buying trip having ordered machinery for a planned 5,000-wheel, no-jobber 1896 season including 250 tandems and a $150 hand-made ladies' model, after building 3,800 machines this year under new superintendent George Klingerman.
- Richmond, Ind. emerges as a bicycle center as M. C. Henley's new Henley Bicycle Works (targeting 5,000-6,000 wheels) and J. A. Windsor's Richmond Cycle Co. (7,000-8,000 machines) both build large new factories for the 1896 season.
- Indiana Bicycle Co. agency superintendent Lee Greenleaf patents a new sectional wood rim, the Greenleaf rim, with an interlocking splice, and partners with Indianapolis Rubber Co.'s Frank Wood to supply it to the trade in quantity.
- The new Chicago Self-Supporting Pants Co. markets cyclists' trousers using elastic waistband webbing instead of a rear belt for support, from its shop at 127-129 Market Street, Chicago.
- The Anti-Friction Lubricating Compound Co. of Chicago introduces a bearing lubricant guaranteed not to gum after application, offering special terms to agents from its Rialto Building office.
- The old Bidwell-Tinkham Cycle Co. is reorganized as the $100,000-capital Tinkham Cycle Co. under president Julian R. Tinkham, taking on the Stearns wheel agency for the New York metropolitan district alongside its own manufacturing.
- The Lion Knitting Co. introduces footless golf hose to cut cost and heat complaints, alongside its regular line of knit sweaters and stockings aimed at the bicycle trade.
- Chicago's Cutting & Kaestner Mfg. Co., run by racing man Mr. Cutting, puts out a new pneumatic saddle with a Morgan & Wright inner tube and calf-skin cover, already being tested favorably by racing riders.
- Dayton, Ohio's Davis Sewing Machine Co. is turning out 25 Dayton bicycles a day at its block-long plant and is already booking 1896 agency contracts as the season winds down.
- The Columbus Bicycle Co. is moving into a 75,000-square-foot factory under manager Chapman, planning 15,000 men's and 5,000 women's wheels next year and 20,000 by 1896, with G. C. Urlin newly elected president over F. J. Kistler.
- A tongue-in-cheek sketch imagines an 1896 Chicago Herald report of skycyclists Wanger and Skimmerman dead-heating a $100,000 New York-to-Chicago aerial race at 3,000 feet, with pneumatic "lite suits" saving fallen fliers and firemen catching one off the Herald building roof.
- Short trade notes report the Snell Cycle Fittings Co.'s coming cotter-pin-free crank, Morgan & Wright's $1,000 order for a Syracuse Crimson Rim quadruplet to pace Gardiner and Coulter's fall record attempts, and F. S. Odell of the Excelsior Needle Co. selling 40,000,000 spokes and nipples on a four-week western swing.
- London's "Will 'o the Wisp" reports British export trade still lagging (June at $739,780, below last year), a dubious Mutual Cycle Mfg. & Supply Co. profit-sharing share prospectus out of Leicester, thirty Rudge-Whitworth safeties ordered for the Royal Horse Guards, and Humber & Co. shares spiking to $61 on dividend rumors.
- The cycle Board of Trade's executive committee, chaired by A. G. Spalding, meets in New York with a special National Cycle Exhibition Co. committee to work out details of the coming western National Cycle Show at Chicago.
- Veteran racing man and former L. C. Smith Tire Co. manager C. A. Benjamin joins the Barnes Cycle Co.'s sales force, with Harry W. Chapin promoted to fill his old post at L. C. Smith.
- Toledo's Standard Sewing Machine Co. denies rumors it will enter bicycle manufacturing despite a factory expansion, while the White Sewing Machine Co. confirms it will launch a new "White" bicycle by September 1.
- A round-up of trade changes nationwide includes new bicycle factories forming at Bridgeport, Conn. (the Liberty Bicycle Co.) and Worcester, Mass. (the Decker Cycle Co. and Bloomingdale Cycle Mfg. Co.), plus New York's William E. Guard patenting a detachable crank.
- Lists newly issued U.S. bicycle patents including John A. James's safety bicycle (Worthington, Pa.), Jorgen Christensen's bicycle brake (San Francisco), and Rufus Wright and John E. Parker's tire-perforating machine, assigned to Morgan & Wright.
- A survey of Toledo's seven bicycle factories finds the Union Mfg. Co.'s Alvin Peter already building next year's Viking model, H. A. Lozier expanding into a new Toronto factory for the Canadian trade, and the Gendron Iron Wheel Co. planning 10,000 juvenile wheels alongside its regular line.
- An Indianapolis trade survey finds Central Cycle Mfg. Co.'s Wainwright planning 10,000 Ben Hur wheels for 1896 with heavier tires, the Indianapolis Chain & Stamping Co. building a new plant to make a million chains a year, and newcomer William K. Bellis's Bellis Cycle Co. patenting a serpentine frame reinforcement.
- Dealer L. S. Gleaves recounts his running battle with "cost crank" customers who insist a bicycle should cost $20-25 and blame patents for the difference, contrasting them with trusting buyers who simply take the dealer's advice.