The Bearings, Vol 12, No 21
Articles in this issue
- A Santa Monica dispatch on the Syracuse and Stearns teams' winter training: W.W. Hamilton impresses by matching tandem pace lap after lap, McCrea and Terrill cut a mile in 1:55 on their first tandem outing, the experimental Denver quad posts 1:57-1/5, and the Syracuse team plans to move on to San Diego's abandoned horse track for even faster records.
- Eddie Bald, Tom Cooper, Asa Windle and Jim Temple reach San Francisco declaring themselves glad the 1895 season is over, though they'll return in spring to train; the same dispatch describes a sunny day in Golden Gate Park when the Rambler quad of Bald, Allan Jones, Dick Aylward and Bob Long drew a following of admiring wheelmen along the cycle path.
- California racing official Robert M. Welch recommends Class A men Hardy Downing, Floyd Macfarland and H.B. Freeman be transferred to Class B for violating amateur rules.
- A Fort Worth correspondent argues north Texas, with its smooth dust-free roads and mild climate, is one of the finest emerging bicycle markets in the country, drawing pleasure riders of all ages and growing dealer competition ahead of 1896.
- Milwaukee's Associated Cycling Clubs, at a North Side Cycling Club meeting, resolve to bid for the 1896 Wisconsin L.A.W. state meet and weigh track proposals from Athletic Park's H.D. Quin and baseball club president Killilea; Fred Schroeder is named the division's new racing-board chairman.
- Kansas City's nearly 1,000-member Federation of Wheelmen, under president Albert Young, reports two months of successful lobbying for road and street improvements and wins a concession letting streetcars carry disabled bicycles.
- Washington, D.C. cyclist George F. King sues the Washington & Georgetown Street Railroad for $20,000 after a cable car allegedly started suddenly and ran him down as he crossed 7th Street.
- Champion racer Harry "Gentleman Harry" Tyler, formerly of the Springfield Bicycle Club team and the Union Cycle Mfg. Co. agency, announces his permanent retirement from the track to enter a business college in Albany, N.Y.
- A New York roundup covers a proposed state highway-improvement bill backed by Gen. Roy Stone and Chief Consul I.B. Potter, the city's four-man cycling police corps (including Officer Gleason's arrest of a wrong-way driver), the annual midnight New Year's ride from 110th Street to Tarrytown, and "Indoor King" Teddy Goodman's handicap win at the Eighth Battalion games.
- Philadelphia wheelmen win a city solicitor's ruling forcing the People's Passenger Railway to stop illegally charging bicycle tolls on its Jenkintown turnpike extension; the same dispatch notes the Tioga Cricket Club's eleven 1895 race meets drew over 27,000 spectators.
- Chicago's Second Regiment Armory cycle entertainment for the Waifs' Mission, featuring trick rider Lee Richardson, a bucking-broncho stunt by "White," and a military drill by the Western Wheel Works club, extends its run after breaking even on expenses.
- Editorial weighing who should succeed A.G. Spalding as president of the National Board of Trade of Cycle Manufacturers, naming R. Phillip Gormully, R. Lindsay Coleman and E.C. Stearns as capable candidates.
- Editorial comparing slow trade acceptance of chain-cases to the early resistance against pneumatic tires, urging sundries makers to perfect a gear-case for American riders as continental and English makers already have.
- Responding to a jab from the Irish Cyclist, the editor defends American makers' standardized lines as giving riders just enough latitude in tires and saddles without indulging freakish custom-built machines.
- A Santa Monica dispatch describes the Syracuse and Stearns teams' seaside winter training routine and the season-ending Redlands banquet, where Bald, Cooper, Windle, Kiser and toastmaster Maj. F.C. Prescott made speeches for over 100 guests.
- In Paris, the Farman brothers defeat Hautvast and Borrizowski in a tandem match at the Velodrome d'Hiver, while Bouhours upsets an exhausted Jacquelin by half a wheel in the paced scratch race.
- At Cheyenne, Wyo. on December 3, John Green rides a Syracuse wheel to an unpaced flying-start mile of 1:25, and Charles Erswell rides an unpaced standing-start mile of 1:40 the same day; both used Palmer tires.
- At New Orleans, paced by the quint and quad teams, Berlo lowers the three-, four- and five-mile records to 5:50-1/5, 7:50 and 9:51-2/5 while Johnson is away training in Atlanta.
- Denver's O.H. Hackenburger, nicknamed "The Buttermilk Boy" for his former milk-wagon job, breaks the two-, three-, four- and five-mile records on the Denver Wheel Club track, clocking 11:56-1/5 for five miles.
- Charles Erswell and John Green ride a 38-pound tandem to an unpaced flying-start mile of 1:17-1/2 at Cheyenne, Wyo., aided by a thirty-mile tailwind.
- William Harren announces a women-only six-day race opening January 6 at Madison Square Garden, modeled on a recent London women's race in which the winner covered 371 miles in twenty-four hours.
- Profile of Herndon, Va. Class A rider and Columbian University student Fred A. L. Schade, who holds southern half-mile, mile and two-mile records and has repeatedly beaten R.V. Connerat, Claude Leatherbury and George N. Adams.
- "Senator" Morgan tours Springfield, Mass. promoting a syndicate's scheme for a professional racing circuit hoping to sign Zimmerman, Bald, Johnson and Sanger, with A.G. Spalding said to be a chief backer.
- At the Massachusetts L.A.W. division's annual meeting under Chief Consul Sterling Elliott, officers report renewed membership growth and a $1,450.17 balance, and the division votes against the Potter amendment to abolish racing.
- Editorial survey of manufacturers' cooling attitude toward sponsoring racing teams, reporting that racers have united behind Class B over professionalism and predicting broader, more economical circuits for 1896.
- Editorial recounting the dispute between Chicago cycle-show promoters and Board of Trade president A.G. Spalding, who is accused of forcing a 50-percent profit-sharing sanction fee and then publicly blaming the promoters for the resulting high space prices.
- An untitled illustrated fiction piece (copyright William Staite Holding) about Boston heiress Virginia Maryland, whose green-enameled "Mistletoe" bicycle in London leads to a tandem-ride courtship with the disguised Lord Frederick Fitzmaurice.
- The newly formed Union Cycliste de France issues a manifesto to separate competitive racing from touring, aiming to organize regional federations and recognize a special class of covered-track records.
- Louis Geyler traces five years of American cycle shows, from the first 1891 Philadelphia exhibition organized by Century Wheelmen's Thomas Hare through the improvised 1893 market-house show to the 1895 split into separate Chicago and New York exhibitions.
- Report on a new rubber-collecting boom near British Lagos in West Africa, with over $75,000 shipped to Liverpool in a single October steamer load, plus unusual new rubber varieties arriving from Madagascar and New Zealand.
- Description of a newly opened indoor riding academy in a former Paris panorama building, featuring a 3,280-foot spiral track rising through four balconies plus separate instruction and practice floors.
- Byline "Le Veloce" surveys the European debate over the Simpson lever chain, noting Leitch's 1:39 mile record was since beaten with an ordinary chain by Osmond and Chinn, and predicting the chain's $10 price premium will limit its popularity.
- A London correspondent tours the Crystal Palace National Show, covering the Premier, Rover, Bamboo Cycle, Centaur and Triumph stands, Fred Osmond's stiffened frame design, and Terrell's new hydraulic brake.
- Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works of Fitchburg, Mass. signs three major distributing agents—John Wood Jr. of Boston, the Simmons Hardware Co. of St. Louis, and Charles J. Godfrey of New York—and hires former Humber man E.H. Wilcox as superintendent of agencies.
- J.W. Anderson surveys American patents aimed at replacing the hammock saddle, including a hip-bone-shaped sprung-frame design and a dished-plate saddle with a pivoting cantle meant to relieve pressure on the rider.
- "Will o' the Wisp" reports Humber & Co. barred from London's National Show for indirectly exhibiting at the rival Stanley Show (and mounting its own Royal Aquarium display instead), alongside the Gormully & Jeffery-North British Rubber lawsuit and trade skepticism over the Simpson chain.
- The Mossberg Mfg. Co. of Attleboro, Mass. builds an automatic drop press, offered in six sizes with 50-to-500-pound hammers and a roller friction clutch, for drop forging and flattening bicycle parts.
- Roundup of newly issued 1896 manufacturer catalogues, including the A.F. Shapleigh Hardware Co.'s bicycle-care pamphlet, the John R. Lovell Arms Co.'s Diamond and Excel lines, and the Mackie-Lovejoy Mfg. Co.'s brochure on its tubular hub.
- Philadelphia dispatch describing a booming Christmas trade among 132-plus dealers, the Hart Cycle Co.'s decorated Columbia/Hartford showroom, and local agent H.D. Le Cato's 1,500-unit order for the new Warwick.
- Geo. T. Loher of Oakland completes a roughly 4,500-mile transcontinental ride on a Stearns wheel via Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and the Dakotas, arriving in New York on October 30 after leaving home August 11.
- New York trade note on manufacturers' skepticism toward cutting the standard bicycle guarantee to six months, plus items on the new Star Cycle Co. Thistle agency and jobber G.P. Keevenaar's Dutch and Belgian buying trip.
- The Bolte Cycle Co. prepares to build 5,000 wheels for 1896 from its three-floor East Water Street plant, while riding instructors N.S. Donnelly and Dan Terhorst open a Broadway bicycle academy with separate ladies' and gentlemen's floors.
- Column of dozens of new bicycle-company incorporations and factory openings nationwide, including the Griffin Wheel Co.'s capital increase to $1,250,000 and the $150,000 Western Union Bicycle Mfg. Co., plus a list of newly issued cycle patents including Thomas B. Jeffery's wheel-rim patent.
- Toledo dispatch on the Kirk-Young Mfg. Co.'s new officers, the Yost Mfg. Co. running a 125-man night force fed at the Falcon clubhouse, and the Toledo Tube Co.'s locked, secretive brazing department.
- H.J. Young's renamed Kirk-Young Mfg. Co., incorporated at $30,000 with Ezra Kirk as vice-president, has already sold 3,000 of its planned 3,500-wheel run for the season.
- San Francisco dispatch on eastern makers scrambling for scarce agents as C.E. Martling opens a Sutter Street store to push the Syracuse "Crimson Rim" against Hooker & Co.'s rival Barnes/Rambler stores on Market Street.
- The Syme Mfg. Co. of Chicago's Eureka puncture-repair tool for single-tube tires uses a plunger and cutting knife to cleanly seat a cement-coated plug in the tire in one motion.
- Lamplugh & Co. of Paris's hygienic saddle uses a sheet-steel frame with a molded, cellular soft-rubber filling claimed to be more stable than a pneumatic saddle.
- The Taylor & Edwards Cycle Co. of Buffalo is reorganized as the Tonawanda Cycle Co. of North Tonawanda, planning 5,000-6,000 wheels for 1896 under named partners Walter, Edwards, Gillie and Quinlan.
- The Hercules Rim Co. of Detroit's wood rim uses a compressed paper-fiber strip cemented between two wood sections to resist splitting, and the company also makes bird's-eye-maple chain guards.
- Morgan & Wright's traveling exhibition car draws its largest afternoon crowd yet in Louisville, with Captain Lennie reporting a full day of visits to cycle agents and hardware dealers.
- Following the Raleigh Cycle Co.'s U.S. wind-down, its parts and fittings business is sold to the new firm of Nuttall & Loucks at 418-420 W. 27th Street, New York.
- The Manufacturers & Merchants Warehouse Co. of Chicago announces a January 1 "Encyclopedia and Buyers' Guide of Bicycle Material," to be followed by free monthly supplements for the trade.
- Sitting U.S. Congressman Jesse Overstreet and his two brothers back the new Columbus Brass & Iron Co., which will build a high-grade wheel called the Hoosier.
- Indiana Bicycle Co. president Charles F. Smith heads the new $1,000,000 Albany Mfg. Co., which will run a large seamless-tubing mill alongside a separate juvenile- and medium-grade-wheel plant at Albany, Ind.
- The Davis & Stevens Mfg. Co. of Seneca Falls, N.Y., makers of the Cyclone and Tornado pumps, introduce a power-driven air compressor with brass and bronze plungers holding 40-60 pounds of pressure for repair shops and brazing furnaces.
- Column reporting the German ambassador to Paris cabling an order for a Stearns "Yellow Fellow," Lloyd Williams breaking Texas road records up to thirty miles on a Monarch at Dallas, and a new San Francisco ordinance banning coasting and capping cross-street speed at six miles an hour.
- The newly formed Western Union Bicycle Mfg. Co., capitalized at $150,000 under president Frank I. Bennett, will build a single $50-retail 28-inch model at the old Sterling Cycle Works factory.
- Eugene Arnstein of Chicago offers gas- or gasoline-heated enameling ovens in two sizes (five-frame and ten-frame/tandem capacity) along with a line of baking and air-drying enamels in twelve 1896 colors.