The Bearings, Vol 12, No 22
Articles in this issue
- A New York correspondent surveys the city's end-of-year cycling scene, touching on Century Road Club matters, Chief Consul Potter's racing control proposal, and the mild winter weather keeping riders on the boulevards well into Christmas week.
- The National Trotting Association is considering building third-of-a-mile board tracks for bicycle racing and forming its own circuit independent of L.A.W. oversight, a move that The Bearings predicts would quickly lose public support given the horse-racing fraternity's history of crooked dealing.
- Promoters William Madden and Dave Holland announce a women's bicycle race at Madison Square Garden for the week of January 6, modeled on a recent London aquarium event with contestants divided into two groups riding alternating two-hour stints.
- Charlie Murphy is seeking signatures on a petition asking the National Assembly to reopen his suspension case and grant a public trial, publicly blaming Titus for the trouble while expressing sympathy for Cabanne and hoping to be exonerated alongside him.
- The Century Road Club lists recently certified road records including tandem marks for Butler and the Krietenstein-Hamilton pair, solo records for Walleston across multiple distances in Massachusetts, and Kreutz's Denver-Evans century course time.
- Dutch champion Jaap Eden, celebrated as both a cyclist and speed skater, announces he will ride his first professional race in Paris in March, finally yielding to sustained commercial pressure despite having long refused to leave the amateur ranks.
- The London Center of the N.C.U. debates sweeping changes to pacemaking rules, recommending that only licensed riders be eligible to pace and that machine types be limited by race distance, with the proposals heading to a full council vote at Hull.
- A Salt Lake City correspondent reports the Zion Wheel Club adopting a new constitution and naming Mrs. C. P. Stein the state's only lady centurion, while ranking Class B racers George Weiler, Frank Thatcher, and Schefski by their season point totals.
- A stubborn fire in the Giles Building on Wabash Avenue damages the stocks of the American Dunlop Tire Co. and the Domestic Sewing Machine Co., the latter about to enter the bicycle market with a high-grade wheel.
- Northern California L.A.W. Division officers meet at the Bay City Wheelmen's clubhouse, adopt Robert Welch's revised Class A racing rules, and Chairman Welch sends "blue letters" questioning the amateur standing of Macfarland, Downing, and Freeman.
- At a New Orleans meet of the Southern Wheelmen, local man Gonzales sweeps the Class A open events while professional P. J. Berlo breaks the world's paced two-thirds-mile record and sets a new professional flying-mile mark.
- Two days later at the same New Orleans track, Peter J. Berlo, paced by a relay of quint and quad teams, rides a flying mile to break Gardiner's record set at Louisville.
- A satirical editorial mocks Walter Burnham, "assistant to the president" of the National Board of Trade of Cycle Manufacturers, for a circular letter in which nearly every board meeting during cycle-show season is followed by a catered lunch.
- An editorial argues that even if the L.A.W. abolishes the "paid amateur" Class B, manufacturers will resume secretly subsidizing amateurs, and proposes graduated handicap classes to give honest amateurs a chance against Chairman Gideon's suspects.
- An editorial urges American makers to copy the English Renouf-Humber integrated chain-case design, arguing the exposed chain and sprockets are a wheel's worst-protected wear point and calling for a "Made in the United States" gear-case.
- At the Wisconsin Division L.A.W. annual meeting, delegates S. J. Ryan, Rev. John Faville, and J. W. McGiveran win the 1896 state meet for Appleton over Milwaukee's Otto Dormer and H. P. Andrae by guaranteeing $2,150.
- The Waifs' Mission cycle carnival closes with the $950 grand piano awarded to the Lake View Cycling Club, the banner to the Western Wheel Works Bugle Band, and top honors among women's clubs going to the Unique Ladies' Cycling Club.
- The Pennsylvania Division L.A.W. annual meeting at Philadelphia's Bingham House, chaired by Chief Consul Boyle, names its National Assembly delegates and adopts a resolution opposing the Pennsylvania Railroad's new charge for carrying bicycles on its ferries.
- A Wellington correspondent recounts Arthur Zimmerman's Australasian tour, including carnival wins over Parsons and Simpson at Sydney and Brisbane, a bout of malarial fever, and a $500 bonus from the grateful League of New South Wales Wheelmen.
- At the Winter track meet Dumond beats Fournier in the 1,000-meter international final after Denesle is fouled on the final straight, and Italian debutant Eros draws attention as the third Salon du Cycle opens under Minister of Trade Mesureur.
- Oakland passes ordinances fining cyclists for crossing warned railway crossings and for exceeding a ten-mile-an-hour speed limit, while the Alameda Cyclers push to build a cement track at the old Reliance Park.
- A long dispatch tracks the "Crimson Rim" Syracuse and "Yellow Fellows" Stearns pacemaking teams training for record attempts at Santa Monica, San Diego's Coronado track, and El Paso, naming riders Ziegler, Cooper, Hamilton, and Hatton and manager "Dad" Gleezen.
- The Denver Cycle Show, set for February 4-8 at the Coliseum Building, wins Board of Trade backing after a sanction dispute and draws dealer interest from Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Wyoming, and New Mexico.
- The Union Velocipedique de France merges with Paris's Omnium Club to form a ten-member racing board and proposes an international convention recognizing racing licenses and suspensions across national cycling federations.
- The Y.M.C.A.'s Association Wheels club stages a New Year's Day cycle exhibition in Cleveland with twenty-five exhibiting firms, a polo-on-wheels match, a fancy-riding display by "Sid" Black, and a basketball game.
- An unsigned travel feature, whose stylized printed heading did not survive scanning, follows two English cyclists on a roughly 2,000-mile tour from Dieppe toward Rome and back, describing their thirty-five-pound Coventry-built safeties, packing scheme, and daily routine of meals and lodging.
- Charles H. Sterner sues for a receiver over the Sterner Cycle Co. and Thorsen & Cassady Co., alleging the latter doctored the books to oust him as president; Thorsen rebuts the charges point by point in an interview with The Bearings.
- A profile of Ed J. De Ville, general correspondent and superintendent of agencies for the Dueber Watch Case Mfg. Co.'s bicycle department, credits him with much of the success of the Ohio Division L.A.W.'s state meet.
- A traveling correspondent tours Texas cycle dealers from Galveston to Fort Worth, finding Dunlop tires dominant against mesquite-thorn punctures and profiling agents like W. E. Roach and Wagner & Chabot alongside lady riders Anna Taylor and Nora Fowler.
- E. P. Richardson's new high-grade Gordon bicycle, to be built at 127-129 West Washington Street, Chicago, debuts with a patented split-bolt saddle and handlebar clamping device replacing the usual pinch-bolt.
- A technical survey by J. W. Anderson reviews patented elliptical and eccentric sprocket-wheel mechanisms meant to boost pedaling leverage, including a four-sprocket design, and the chain-slack problems that limited their adoption.
- A London correspondent reports on Dennison's new wire-and-rubber band gear and F. J. Osmond's fine-pitch chain shown at the National Show, the Pneumatic Tire Co. v. Casswell suit, Rudge-Whitworth's heavy annual loss, and the founding meeting of the Self-Propelled Traffic Association under Sir David Salomons.
- Inventor W. A. Dryden Sr. of Chicago unveils an 18-inch rubber-faced friction driving wheel he claims will cut the power needed to propel a bicycle by 75 to 80 percent.
- Geo. N. Jordan of the National Cycle Mfg. Co. shows Chicago dealers the 1896 National's narrowed 5-inch tread, aluminum-boxed crank-shaft bearings, and new frame-stiffener at the saddle cluster.
- Salesman Jno. J. McElroy leads Baltimore hardware house William H. Cole & Sons into bicycle manufacturing with three new 1896 models -- the $100 Chieftain, the $60 Marvel, and the juvenile Pearl -- after building up its Tribune agency since 1893.
- Cleveland's cycle trade adds a rumored Columbia branch house, a store backed by dry-goods firm O. D. Myer & Co., and a Lovejoy-Loomis store, while the Lodge & Davis Machine Tool Co. runs 400 men fourteen hours a day.
- A San Francisco correspondent notes the St. Germain Billiard Co. entering the bicycle trade as Humber and Ariel city agent, Leavitt & Bill opening a Cleveland/Crescent store in Oakland, and Cycling West editor G. A. Wahlgren's recovery from pneumonia.
- C. W. Burleigh, a bicycle-department salesman for the Mcintosh-Huntington Co. of Cleveland, is killed instantly when a descending freight elevator crushes his head against a safety gate.
- The Tuttle Mercantile Co. plans a local Los Angeles racing team to promote the Syracuse "Crimson Rim," while the Stearns factory reports a '96 Yellow Fellow order from as far away as Cape Town, South Africa.
- A factory feature traces Mesinger Bros.' saddle-making process through its wood, rattan, and leather-and-felt departments, from steamed hickory cantles and cane braiding to the final assembly room.
- A Kansas City report surveys dealers stocking for 1896, including the John Deere Plow Co.'s new bicycle department, the Kansas City Avery Planter Co.'s Avery and Freeman cycles, and the Welch-Hutchinson Cycle Co.'s six-wheel line.
- Milwaukee wheelmen debate the L.A.W.'s proposed three-class amateur/Class B/professional system amid rumors that racers Harry Crocker and Ed Roth may be declared professionals, while the North Side C.C. plans a January bicycle show.
- Washington dealers report brisk holiday trade, led by Harry Jones of the Western Wheel Works' enlarged salesroom and the Enterprise Cycle Co.'s move into two new stores on 14th Street.
- The Brooklyn Cycle Co. announces that owners of Columbia and Hartford bicycles can now have warranty repairs done at any of its three Brooklyn branches instead of returning wheels to the factory.
- Minneapolis dealers stock 1896 models amid brisk demand, with the New England Furniture & Carpet Co. offering an installment plan for the Victor, Victoria, Puritan, Belvidere, and Eldredge lines, and F. A. Chadbourn recruiting racers James Hansen and Charles Palm for a Thistle team.
- A factory tour of the Telegram Cycle Co.'s Milwaukee plant details its four-story operation turning out wheels for 1896, from the machine shop and framing floor to the Sanger & Rosenbauer nickel-plating department.
- A Toledo correspondent reports a new, still-unnamed cycle fittings firm forming at West Toledo, and tours the booming local trade, with the Yost, Colton, Kirk-Young, Gendron, Maumee, and Brewer Seamless Tube factories all running day and night.
- Davidson & Sons of Chicago confirm plans for a large Philadelphia branch store, the Waltham Mfg. Co. will open an Orient-wheel branch there too, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad offers cut-rate fares to the New York Cycle Show.
- Miscellaneous trade items include the Kalamazoo Cycle Co.'s patent-infringement suit against Detroit's George Hilsendegen over the Kozy child seat, E. C. Stearns denying that F. Ed Spooner will assist its Santa Monica record trials, and Iver Johnson's Arms & Cycle Works reporting fresh export orders to Australia, Russia, and Hawaii.
- Charles Davis, Thos. P. Egan, Robert Laidlaw, and attorney Thomas McDougall buy out the Lodge family's $240,000 stake in the Lodge & Davis Machine Tool Co., ending a long legal dispute and installing Davis as president.