The Bearings, Vol 12, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Eddie Bald dominates the Springfield meet, winning every open event for which he was eligible and widening his lead in The Bearings' thermometer, cementing his likely title as Competition Champion of America.
- Returning from suspension just in time for Springfield, Cabanne rides superbly to leap two positions in the thermometer in a single week, a performance described as nothing short of marvelous given his long run of hard luck.
- Murphy's riding at Springfield is described as decidedly ragged, causing him to fall from third to sixth in the thermometer in a single week—a sharp contrast to Cabanne, who made the most of the same return from suspension.
- Walter Sanger wins over $600 in professional events at Springfield, including a brilliant two-mile handicap in which he threads through a field of nineteen to cross the tape in record time.
- The Spalding two-man team of Cabanne and Titus overtakes the Humber's Murphy to lead team percentage standings, while the Monarch team maintains its remarkable proportional record despite having only two riders.
- Only a few hundred people attend what proves a frost at Waltham despite the presence of Bald, Cabanne, and Sanger, though Cabanne steals a half-mile win with an early jump that catches Bald napping.
- Tom Eck's charity tournament for a chilly crowd of 2,000 at Syracuse's Kirk Park sees Harley Davidson and Arthur Gardiner split the Class B events, while C. H. Werrick of Buffalo outclasses the local Class A talent.
- Otto Ziegler, just resuming training after his broken arm from the Fort Wayne accident, is knocked down again at the Louisville track by a reckless local racer riding with his head down.
- A stormy Massachusetts Division board meeting sees Spencer T. Williams accuse Secretary-Treasurer Charles S. Howard of malfeasance over the "Cape Circular," and a proxy-heavy vote narrowly defeats the motion to bid for the 1896 L.A.W. national meet.
- At Herne Hill, C. G. Wridgway sets a new fifty-mile record for the Anerley Club's Roberts' Shield, R. Palmer breaks amateur records at Catford's Blackheath Harriers meeting, and Holbein and Bennett post a 24-hour tandem record of nearly 398 miles.
- Robert P. Searle rides a Crescent scorcher from Chicago to New York in under six days and announces he will attempt Huret's 24-hour record of 529 miles at Louisville's Fountain Ferry track in October.
- Frank Manchester of Plainfield, New Jersey, escapes an attempted robbery on the Westfield road by riding straight into his two assailants and mounting away after the scuffle.
- An editorial warns that the Racing Board's new rule subjecting any race partly run on a track to full track regulations will disrupt the common practice of finishing mixed-class road races at a grandstand.
- An editorial praises the Chicago West Side park commissioners for ordering sprinkling-cart drivers to leave a dry strip along park drives for cyclists, calling it a milestone in wheelmen-pedestrian relations.
- A satirical editorial mocks a tobacco company's scheme to give away 35,000 bicycles as Trump Tobacco tin-tag premiums, joking about the resulting flood of tobacco consumption.
- The Racing Board's official notices list dozens of suspensions and professional declarations nationwide and transfer Philadelphia's W. G. Douglas and others to Class B, alongside a run of reinstated suspensions.
- John S. Johnson and Tom Eck's "White Flyer" team arrive to train for the city's first professional race at Minnehaha track, with Eck predicting Johnson could cut the mile record to 1:40.
- Morton Duxbury reaches Providence after riding coast-to-coast and back from San Francisco in 48 days 18 hours, the first cyclist ever to make the round trip and cross the American desert.
- Frank Cnar sweeps the quarter-mile open and takes the scratch spot in the mile handicap at the Janesville, Wisconsin fair races.
- O. F. Bohman wins the Lake View Cycling Club's championship road race in 11:22, while club events run by the Sons of Rest C.C., the Evanston Boat Club, and the Viking Cycling Club fill out a busy Saturday of Chicago-area road racing.
- The University of Pennsylvania star, recently reclassified from Class A to Class B for winning a prize valued over $50, makes an impressive crackajack debut at Springfield riding a Stearns.
- The western boom party is confirmed at roughly thirty to forty riders, with plans for record attempts at Louisville in October before the full group heads to the Pacific coast for the December circuit and further record campaigns at San Jose.
- A cablegram reports that Huret has broken the hour record in Paris, covering twenty-nine and one-third miles in sixty minutes.
- A. H. Wilson wins Toronto's twenty-mile R. Q. T. road race over 269 starters on the Kingston road and Woodbine track, with T. B. McCarthy posting the fastest scratch time and John Robinson blundering the finish line while leading.
- The Century Wheelmen of Philadelphia formally open their new four-story clubhouse at Broad and Oxford streets, featuring a 500-wheel room and a theater seating nearly 1,000.
- English cyclist Walne is fatally shocked against the third rail of the Portrush tramway near Bushmills, Ireland, while his companion Marsden is himself benumbed pulling him free.
- Class A stars W. A. Brown, Z. S. Oliver, and C. H. Collier battle over three days at Durant, Mississippi's Castalian Springs track, with Brown disqualified after a spill that injures Hands and Collier in the two-mile open.
- E. D. McKeon and P. J. Klinger, riding a Dayton tandem, are called the best Class A pair in Ohio after tandem wins at Wabash, Warsaw, and Tiffin.
- Milwaukee's park board considers building a cycle path in Lake Park amid growing local demand, while the report also notes a rising number of cycling clergy, including Rev. Judson Titsworth and Rev. W. A. Hunsberger.
- Reports that Casper and Walter Sanger would relocate to San Francisco are denied by the family, though a rumor persists that Dave Shafer wants Walter to open a billiard hall in Milwaukee.
- At the Mercury Wheelmen's Allentown meet, Ray Dawson edges C. W. Krick in the half-mile open final after the two rode bunched with B. B. Stevens the entire distance, while Krick sweeps the two-mile handicap.
- The Garden City Cyclers' San Jose Admission Day meet ends in controversy when Jones lets the pacing tandem go in the Class B final, drawing jeers and a disqualified re-run in which Russel Cushing crashes into Long.
- Chicago's bicycle-riding letter carriers threaten to lobby the L.A.W. after the post office slashes their carfare allowance from $6.75 to $2.50 a month, leaving them to cover bicycle installment payments from their own salaries.
- Racing Board chairman George D. Gideon transfers Walter G. Douglass, Carroll Jack, and four other Philadelphia-area Class A men to Class B over a disputed diamond-ring prize from the Norristown Wheelmen's meet.
- C. Rush wins the Cadillac Cycle Club's Cleveland road race hands down while club member Louis Gimm can only manage sixteenth place from the half-minute mark.
- The Hunter Arms Co. of Fulton, N.Y., famous for the L. C. Smith shotgun, prepares to launch the Hunter bicycle under Thomas Hunter, targeting 3,000 wheels for 1896 and a debut at the Chicago show.
- R. F. Chase, H. Zerbel, and E. S. Comstock split honors over two days of county-fair racing at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
- Nashville breaks ground on a Coliseum expandable to 20,000 seats with an eight-lap track, with Jack Prince connected to the venture and an eighteen-mile state championship planned for its opening week.
- A. A. McLain lowers the paced-mile track record at the Freeport, Illinois county fair from 2:26 to 2:07 4/5 and sweeps both heats of the half-mile open ahead of W. E. Kenyon.
- Charles Hofer of St. Paul wins the half-mile open, quarter-mile open, and five-mile handicap at the Howard County fair in Cresco, Iowa, with Arthur Coyle taking the two-mile handicap.
- The Lakeside Cycling Club of Cleveland assigns its assets just after moving into new quarters, unable to meet an $800 debt against $1,000 in assets.
- P. F. Dickey wins the American Athletic Union's two-mile bicycle championship at Manhattan Field after W. L. Danner falls at the third lap and remounts to finish fourth.
- Annie Londonderry returns to Chicago after fifteen months and 28,000 miles attempting to circle the globe, nursing a broken arm from a fall at Gladbrook, Iowa.
- A. T. Fuller sets a new one-mile track record of 2:15 1/4 at Amesbury, Massachusetts, while William Barbeau and Erastus H. Nelson also post fast paced times.
- Short items report Fred Smith's five-mile win at Crown Point, Homer Fairmon beating a horse over fifteen miles at Holstein, Iowa, and the Century Road Club of America crediting the Lincoln Cycling Club with over 420 centuries for the year.
- At the Velodrome Buffalo in Paris, "little" Michael loses a fifty-kilometer match race to Lesna but shatters the hour record at 46.002 kilometers, while Zimmerman departs Paris to race in Australia.
- Louisville's three-day racing tournament during the G. A. R. reunion draws crowds as small as 175 despite 300,000 visitors in the city, with Owen Kimble and E. J. Daubert dominating the sparsely attended events.
- Minneapolis's "Bicyclers' Day" at the state fair draws over 15,000 spectators and a 2,000-strong evening parade led by the St. Cloud Bicycle Band and the 175-strong Spalding Club.
- At the Reliance Club's Oakland meet, Class B star Walter Foster loses twice—to teammate Allan Jones and rival Wilbur Edwards—while newcomer Downing sweeps four Class A firsts.
- Local riders E. B. Mockett and W. C. Yule make their Class B debut at the Lincoln, Nebraska fair-grounds meet, with McBride winning an exhibition half-mile and the half-mile open.
- Chicago police seek Herbert W. Northrup, a former Derby Cycle Co. employee accused of pawning wheels borrowed from dealer Allan Whipple and rented from the Sterner Cycle Co.
- Short trade items cover the Grand Rapids Cycle Co.'s employee dinner, the Sterling Cycle Works' move into its new Wabash Avenue offices, and S. F. Heath's new combination pump-and-tool-kit invention.
- Bald sweeps all four Class B open events before 12,000 spectators on Springfield's closing day, Titus breaks the American hour record at 27 miles 185 yards, and Sanger and Loughead also set world records.
- At Racine's first annual road race, Herbert W. Crane wins outright while scratch riders J. Dollister and H. E. Zerbel take the top two time prizes over the thirteen-mile course.
- A Port Elizabeth correspondent, Geo. E. Mirfin, writes seeking a South African agency for the Baxter Register Co. after spotting its advertisement in The Bearings.
- The Scottish Cyclist reports English tube makers alarmed that American buyers are cornering the available bicycle-tubing supply, risking a shortage for British manufacturers.
- A tour of the Sterling Cycle Works' newly finished Chicago offices at Wabash and Van Buren describes its ornate retail showroom, where ten bicycles hang on chains from a brass ceiling railway.
- The Fowler Cycle Mfg. Co. built fifty tandems this year and plans 1,000 for 1896, upgrading next year's model to 1 1/8-inch tubing.
- The Champion Mfg. Co. of New York shows a new catalogue of leather bicycle goods, including a seamless frame tool-bag closed with a turning olive rather than a lock.
- The Minnesota state fair's bicycle exhibit features Farwell, Ozmun, Kirk & Co.'s Syracuse and Crawford lines alongside displays from half a dozen other Twin Cities dealers.
- The Garvin Machine Co. of New York introduces a double-spindle indexing milling machine that cuts sprocket-wheel teeth in gangs with automatic stop and feed.
- A. G. Spalding & Bros. introduces a sheepskin-on-a-stick bicycle cleaner invented by J. G. Humphrey, reporting good early demand for the article.
- A visit to Cortland, New York finds the Cortland Wagon Works and the Wesson-Nirison Mfg. Co., maker of the new Loyal wheel, both planning an immense 1896 business of 3,000 machines.
- A survey of Greeley, Colorado's bicycle trade profiles dealers Gale & House, W. H. Daniels, and the Colonial Wheel Club amid the town's strong agricultural economy.
- The Black Mfg. Co.'s Erie, Pennsylvania factory, maker of the Tribune bicycle, expands as Mr. Gaylor plans to double 1896 output after a prosperous season.
- Frank H. Bolte leaves day-to-day charge of the Bolte Cycle Mfg. Co. in Milwaukee to run the new Peoria Rubber & Mfg. Co. plant, which plans 15,000 wheels next year using Bolte's patents.
- Stearns, Keating, R. H. Wolff, and the Pope Mfg. Co. compete with tent displays, cane giveaways, and a runaway balloon proclaiming "Bald did it on a Columbia" at the Springfield meet.
- A survey of Manhattan's boulevard cycle row finds brisk business at the Metropolitan Cycle Rink, the Tinkham Cycle Co., and Gormully & Jeffery's soon-to-move branch.
- London correspondent "Will o' the Wisp" reports English makers debating motor carriages, an approaching shift to three-sixteenths-inch chains, and Humber & Co.'s new Russian company.
- The United States Express Co. tests English-style parcel-delivery tricycles in Chicago, already displacing a horse and wagon from the West Madison Street route.
- The D. D. Warner Co. of Madison, Wisconsin previews its Warner Special line, including gentleman's and lady's models and diamond- and drop-frame tandems.
- Philadelphia cigar firms and a Market Street grocery rig delivery baskets and cargo boxes onto bicycles and a three-wheeled cargo cycle for faster, cheaper deliveries than horse wagons.
- A. Bruner of the Munger Cycle Co. says demand is so strong that no traveling salesmen will be needed this winter, with 5,000 to 8,000 wheels planned for next year.
- A Berlin cyclist skirts the city's ban on bicycles in its main streets by rigging a small extra wheel to his machine, satisfying police that it now qualifies as a tricycle.
- Humber & Co. reports half of its estimated 8,000-to-10,000-machine 1896 run already under contract, prompting Elliott Burris to bring in Mr. Bowdish as an aide.
- Philadelphia's Century Wheelmen touring party of more than twenty riders returns from a European tour, reporting good riding but scant hospitality from foreign clubs.
- Indiana Bicycle Co. branch managers from Boston to Denver gather in Indianapolis to review the new Waverley model and next year's trade prospects.
- The Shelby Steel Tube Co. starts two new engines, named Mary Dick and Eunice Cockley for company wives, expanding its tube-drawing capacity toward two million feet a month.
- A Chicago manufacturer recounts being outmaneuvered by a race-meet promoter who resold a prize bicycle at a cut price, forcing the maker to buy back its own wheel.
- Frank W. Knowland of the Syracuse Y. M. C. A. cycling division takes second in the twenty-three-mile Herald road race riding a Rambler fitted with a Brown-Lipe two-speed gear.
- The Boston Woven Hose & Rubber Co. says its new testing machine proves the Vim tire fastest on the market, with professional Walter Sanger endorsing it after six weeks of racing use.
- Chicago's West Side park commissioners cap cyclist speed at ten miles an hour on park drives while also ordering sprinkling carts to leave dry margins for riders.
- E. M. Graham, formerly of the Fowler Cycle Mfg. Co. and inventor of the truss frame and Graham pedal, joins the International Mfg. Co. as a partner backing the America bicycle.
- Ex-Trenton mayor Frank A. Magowan wins creditor support to regain control of the Trenton Rubber Co. and Eastern Rubber Co. after financial and domestic troubles.
- David J. Post resigns as secretary-treasurer of the Hartford Cycle Co. to take the same post at the Peerless Mfg. Co. of Cleveland.
- The Indiana Bicycle Co. plans to make Philadelphia a Waverley stronghold, William Trafford preps his own-brand wheel for expanded manufacture, and the Hart Cycle Co. opens a large new North Broad Street store.
- The Yost Mfg. Co. of Toledo quadruples its Minnesota order with Jenny, Semple & Co. and opens a new Boston branch to serve the northeastern trade in Falcon bicycles.
- Western Wheel Works president R. L. Coleman plans a November 30 Atlanta banquet for wheelmen and their lady friends, with acceptances directed through manager Harry Palmer.
- A cautionary trade essay on credit fraud recounts a bogus Bluford, Illinois "banker" reference scheme and a western dealer who vanished after running up unpaid bicycle orders from multiple manufacturers.
- Ralph Temple plans three new Chicago stores plus branch houses in Minneapolis, Omaha, Salt Lake City, and Denver.
- A roundup of incorporations and closures nationwide includes the Gemini Cycle Co. of Cleveland, the Southern Cycle Co. of New Orleans, and expansions at the Relay Mfg. Co. and Dueber Bicycle Works.