The Bearings, Vol 12, No 27
Articles in this issue
- At the New York Cycle Show, manufacturers refuse to announce rider signings until the L.A.W. and Board of Trade joint committee resolves the class question, though Cooper and Bliss are confirmed staying with Monarch and Stearns signals it will field a team in whatever class survives.
- It is confirmed that Bald will stay in the United States for 1896 rather than tour abroad, will ride in Class B if it continues, and is reported to have signed with Davidson and Sons of Chicago for a salary rumored to be four to five times his previous year's pay.
- Murphy is preparing to ride a mile-a-minute behind a Southern Pacific locomotive and training on home trainers, Cabanne vows not to race even if reinstated while privately consulting lawyers for a suit, and Titus has opened a bicycle store on the New York boulevard.
- Murphy has nearly completed arrangements with the Southern Pacific Railroad to attempt riding one mile at exactly sixty miles per hour, slipstreaming behind a specially paced locomotive, a feat that will require both flawless track conditions and precise locomotive speed.
- The Syracuse Cycle Co. is building its Crimson Rim team with Ziegler signed and Hamilton of Denver, Wells, and others in discussion, while Hamilton continues to astound observers at Santa Monica with his ability to hold any pace mile after mile.
- The Barnes Co. of Syracuse plans a more active professional presence this season, the Humber Co. signs Starbuck (the world's five-mile champion), Cutter of Boston, Berlo, and Wheeler, and the World people field Kennedy of Chicago in Class B alongside John S. Johnson, O'Connor, and Weinig among the professionals, while the March-Davis Cycle Co. and the Lindsay company (with Coulter) round out the season's other contemplated teams.
- The Stearns team at Santa Monica will expand to the largest record-breaking outfit ever assembled in America, including two sextuplets, two triplets, multiple tandems, and a quad, with circuit team candidates to be selected from the same group of men.
- An editorial argues the Cycle Board of Trade, then controlled by just 52 stockholders representing about 40 of the roughly 500 eligible firms, should broaden its stock to all comers by having holders surrender all but five shares apiece back to the treasury for resale.
- An editorial weighs the L.A.W. presidential race between Sterling Elliott, publisher of Good Roads and The L.A.W. Bulletin who draws nearly $10,000 a year from League contracts he also helps approve, and outgoing president A. C. Willison, and instead backs western executive-committee member A. Cressy Morrison.
- The Bearings prints, without comment, a letter from Kirk Brown, general manager of the American Dunlop Tire Co., accusing the paper Cycling West and its representative of trying to blackmail advertisers with a 'roasting' item after Brown refused to buy space at the cycle show.
- A technical editorial argues that the growing popularity of central-draft front chains on tandems and carrier tricycles will force manufacturers to adopt proper oil-retaining gear-cases, since exposed chains on such machines cannot otherwise be kept free of water, dust, and mud.
- A New York column reports the L.A.W. presidential rivalry between A. C. Willison and Sterling Elliott running hot, Albert Mott predicting Class B racing will continue under another name, and Isaac B. Potter's suit against League president Charles H. Luscomb heading back to Kings County court after a dispute over sworn depositions from manufacturers including Col. A. A. Pope and A. G. Spalding.
- Syracuse wheelmen draft a bill to tax bicycles to fund Onondaga County cycle paths, following Oneida County's lead; in the same dispatch, Syracuse Cycle Co. president J. C. Bowe rebuts a Chicago paper's false report of a show disturbance, and it emerges that Fred J. Titus has signed with the company to ride a Crimson Rim and run its New York store, while E. C. Stearns & Co. signs Philadelphia stars West and Hammer.
- Toronto's mayor-elect uses his inaugural address to urge the city council to pave streets with wheelmen in mind, the American Dunlop Tire Co. fits the police department's ambulances with pneumatic tires, and the Wanderers' Bicycle Club repeats its smoking concert and cake-walk at the Princess Theater.
- A young man named McGregor sues the unincorporated Royal Canadian Bicycle Club for $5,000 after trapeze poles collapsed on him at an August garden party, naming all 200-plus club members individually as defendants.
- A London dispatch reports the Prince of Wales and King of the Belgians watching Belgian racer Jules Fischer beat Fournier and A. E. Walters at Olympia, with a six-day race and $5,000 in prizes under consideration and roughly 10,000 spectators at the track.
- A London sporting paper reports a missionary found a silver watch engraved 'Frank Lenz, 1894' in the hands of an Armenian beggar near Bitlis, who said Kurdish robbers took it from a corpse beside an abandoned bicycle, seemingly confirming the round-the-world cyclist's death.
- An illustrated technical feature analyzes the racing start and pace-catching technique of Earl Kiser, breaking his trainer's push-off into three photographed positions to show proper arm and leg mechanics.
- Minnesota Rep. C. A. Towne introduces a House bill requiring railroads to check bicycles as baggage for owners who sign a liability waiver, with a minimum 10-cent charge otherwise.
- The sporting committee of the French Cycle Union (U.V.F.) writes the L.A.W. seeking a common policy on the suspensions of Titus, Murphy, and Cabanne, with French papers largely favoring upholding the American ban.
- Springfield's Col. C. L. Young introduces a bill making bicycle theft a state-prison offense, arguing current Massachusetts law protects a $20 horse better than a $100 bicycle.
- Baltimore promoters plan two 40-mile macadamized cycle paths to Washington, with the electric railway company offering to grant right-of-way and pay half the cost in exchange for a toll, while Chief Consul Conway W. Sems pushes a road bill and a pneumatic-tire protection bill through the Maryland legislature.
- The Brantford Bicycle Co. sends a touring trio -- Payson Davidson, banjo-playing 'Professor' Carner, and mascot ''Rastus' -- on a 121-city road trip from Toronto to Halifax to demonstrate its new Electric tire without taking any orders.
- The Chester Park Athletic Club takes over Cincinnati's new track under manager J. C. Hoole, planning an electric-lit indoor arena and a May 2 carnival, while two new clubs -- the Jolly Cyclers and the ladies-only Unique Cycle Club -- bring the city to thirteen bicycle clubs.
- At Madison Square Garden the National Cycle Board of Trade installs R. Lindsay Coleman as president in place of A. G. Spalding, with R. Philip Gormully, G. H. Day, Wm. A. Redding, and Joseph McKee filling the other top offices.
- A detailed report on the closing of the New York cycle show puts total attendance near 114,261-120,000 paid admissions with receipts of about $90,000 (a third going to the Board of Trade), and describes the Quill Club Wheelmen's ladies' reception and a banquet honoring A. G. Spalding's agents.
- Charles A. Sheehan of the West Shore Railroad recounts how, seeking discounted convention rates for the 1893 Metropolitan Association cycle show, he convened the manufacturers' meeting that unexpectedly gave birth to the Cycle Board of Trade, with Col. A. A. Pope elected temporary chairman.
- A roundup of show gossip reports William Herrick of Morgan & Wright leaving for Europe to possibly open a French tire factory, Andrew J. Cahill of the Worcester Cycle Mfg. Co. closing a $300,000 western-territory deal, and racing men speculating on whether Zimmerman will return to American tracks.
- The Pope Mfg. Co.'s New York exhibit displays a Columbia tandem and single roadster fitted out for military use with Colt carbines, revolvers, a flagstaff, and army blankets, plus a single wheel mounting a 40-pound Colt automatic gun on a turntable bracket.
- The Chas. S. Caffrey Co. of Camden, N.J., known for pneumatic road wagons and sulkies, enters bicycle manufacturing on January 1 and hires Louis N. Mansuy away from the Pope Mfg. Co. to head the new line.
- Sam Snell incorporates the American Weldless Steel Tube Co. at Columbus, Ohio for $300,000 with backers including J. R. B. Ransom and Warren P. Herron, coyly refusing to disclose the plant's location while English tube-maker Edward Warwick scouts sites and Pittsburgh and Chicago compete to land it.
- Yost Mfg. Co. secretary Will F. Dewey's Tally-Ho Tandem Co. begins assembling its first sample, a radically built two-model tandem manufactured by the Central Chandelier Co. with the rear rider seated up to 2.5 inches higher than the front.
- Buffalo's Driscoll & Fletcher build inventor Legrand Pierce's chainless bicycle for the United States Cycle Improvement Co. of Pittsburgh, using three enclosed gear wheels and push-pull cranked rods to the rear wheel instead of a chain.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs' St. Louis show, set for the Exposition Building on February 20-22, sells out all 46 hall spaces plus 12 additional lobby spaces well in advance, with exhibitors including the Pope Mfg. Co., American Dunlop Tire Co., and Simmons Hardware Co.
- Springfield's Central Labor Union backs a boycott of the Overman Wheel Co. of Chicopee Falls declared by striking polishers, whose union president Daly plans to bring the case before the American Federation of Labor's executive council, while company president A. H. Overman insists none of the strikers will be rehired.
- A technical history traces adjustable saddle-post design from the fixed velocipede saddle through the pivoting L-post to a dozen patented rack-and-segment and interlocking-socket mechanisms, illustrated with numbered figures.
- A Melbourne correspondent reports the Nimrod-Zimmy Cycle Co. (backed by racers Zimmerman, Walford, and Justin) landing a 10,000-pound-sterling Victoria order and a further Sydney agency, American Columbias selling well despite high import duty, and Coolgardie gold-field cyclists earning up to a shilling a mile carrying messages.
- London correspondent 'Will o' the Wisp' reports J. K. Starley & Co.'s expanded Coventry works, a new aluminum-alloy solder for gear-cases, engineer William Cross's finding that chain friction is under 1 percent (undercutting the Simpson Chain Co.'s claims), and the pending North British Rubber Co. vs. Gormully & Jeffery tire patent suit.
- W. M. Brewster takes over management of a new Davidson & Sons branch store at 1622 Chestnut Street, dissolving Garden & Brewster, while the Union Cycle Mfg. Co. opens its own new branch on Arch Street under manager T. G. Melville.
- U.S. Consul George Horton reports about 400 bicycles in Athens, mostly English Raleighs and Quadrants, notes the King of Greece imported the country's first machine (a wooden boneshaker), and says the Crown Prince now rides ahead of the 1896 Olympian Games.
- The North Side Cycle Club's show closes with strong reviews for exhibitors including the Miami Cycle Co.'s gold-plated Racycle ladies' wheel, the Bolte Cycle Mfg. Co.'s League models, and the Telegram Cycle Co.'s Sanger racer.
- The paper discloses that it mailed nearly seven and a half tons of papers the previous week, working out to 9,842-plus copies at second-class postal rates plus roughly 3,500 more through foreign circulation, news companies, and office distribution.
- Spaulding Machine Screw Co. manager William H. Crosby writes to counter a rival's circular implying the Buffalo firm had failed, explaining that its assignee is keeping the factory running at his own risk pending the court filing of bond and schedules, and that creditors have already accepted a plan to re-incorporate the business.
- Holyoke's Keating Wheel Co. has received about fifteen relocation offers, including incentives from Illinois and from Meriden, Conn. (a free factory site and a tax exemption), though president Rood says no decision has been made.
- A notes column reports Venezuelan President Crespo ordering two Monarch bicycles shipped to his family, the J. J. Warren Co. suing H. M. Rosenblatt & Co. over a patented luggage-carrier, and the debut of a new monthly, The Universal, devoted to the cycling trade.