The Bearings, Vol 4, No 25
Articles in this issue
- Frank A. Egan writes to the editor announcing he will retire his "Don Salambo" pen name and sign his cycling columns with his real name, arguing that a borrowed pseudonym adds no value to the writing and that readers do not care whether a column is signed by a high-flown alias or by its actual author.
- Humorous mock-biography by William Twinkle of Robert Anheuser Holm, chief consul of the Missouri Division, tracing his origins in the Mingo Swamp, his legendary early cycling disasters on a hickory iron-tired machine in St. Louis, and his eventual prominence as the man who drove the Missouri LAW membership to 500 with the watchword "400-Missouri-400."
- Ohio Laddie reports on the formation of the Columbus Bicycle Protective Association, which will levy one-dollar annual dues to fund a prosecution fund and alert all members—each constituted a detective—whenever a bicycle is stolen, naming officers J. C. Sherwood (president), L. O. Glover (secretary), and Wm. Grab Jr. (treasurer).
- Detroit correspondent reports that the Michigan Division election was "shamefully mismanaged" by an election committee that held votes until the last moment; although Detroiters feel aggrieved, few expect the dispute to reach court, and an editor's note adds the matter has been referred to the National Assembly.
- New York correspondent Kerlumbia argues that Zimmerman's large, well-trained frame gives him the edge over the determined but compact Windle for sustained hard path work, and that Murphy's 1891 staleness stemmed from training too early for the Irvington-Milburn road race and peaking before the national championships at St. Louis.
- Describes the Sercombe-Bolte Mfg. Co.'s "Chainless Telegram," the first American front-driving safety designed by F. H. Bolte with a thirty-inch front wheel geared to sixty and a twenty-six-inch rear wheel, available with cushion tires at $135 or pneumatics at $150, and easily ridden hands-off.
- Editor L. J. Berger denounces a rival Chicago cycling editor who has revived a scandal-monger's assumed name, calling him insincere, a domestic brute, and a beggar who clothes begging letters as Christmas greetings, pledging The Bearings will comment on him only in flat-footed, above-board terms.
- L. J. Berger details Sam Miles's systematic personal attacks—his persecution of L. W. Conkling since a West Side race meet, his misquotation of David J. Post of Hartford, his political innuendo against W. M. Brewster, and his expulsion from the Illinois Division's national delegate role for misusing his office with palpably malicious critiques.
- Buffalo correspondent Bison reports that now President Dunn has formally resigned, LAW presidential candidates are multiplying—Luscomb of New York and Burdett of Connecticut are prominent—but urges a western candidate, specifically W. Sheldon Bull of Buffalo, while an editor's note names Chicago's Frank W. Gerould as a future prospect.
- Editorial urging cyclists not to avoid city officials when fighting anti-cycling ordinances, citing St. Louis wheelmen who discovered that their street commissioner George Burnett, president of the Board of Public Improvement, was already actively promoting road improvement and credits cyclists with spreading the gospel of good roads.
- Editorial siding with a Scottish enthusiast over an Irish writer who recanted his praise of winter cycling, arguing that steady cold-weather riding toughens riders, as demonstrated by a persistent Chicago commuter who battled to and from work on pneumatics through temperatures as low as fifteen below zero all winter.
- Rebuttal of an English writer's recommendation that people with heart or spinal trouble should avoid cycling, arguing that since respiration is easier and less shocking to the nervous system while cycling than walking, and moderate exercise strengthens the heart as it strengthens every other muscle, the advice is quack-driven nonsense.
- Reports that President Dunn's letter requiring LAW Divisions to contribute to the Good Roads journal was a postal formality, not an endorsed levy; criticizes the Executive Committee for remaining far too close-mouthed, causing needless member dissatisfaction that has reportedly hindered advertising contracts for the journal.
- Condemns T. W. Eck and Morgan for enlisting ex-mayor Carter Harrison to start their Battery D professional six-day race, exploiting a decade of genuine cycling loyalty to Harrison—who struck through anti-cyclist ordinances and attended Illinois Division meetings—for commercial gain rather than letting the event stand on its own merits.
- Reports on the Illinois Division executive committee meeting in Springfield on January 15: a $20 travel allowance per delegate to the National Assembly, a $50 donation to the Road Improvement Bureau, T. H. Paddock of Kankakee named division attorney, and incentive prizes ranging from a League pin for twenty-five LAW applications up to a $135 bicycle for one hundred.
- Illustrated item on Charles E. Duryea of the Rouse-Duryea Cycle Co., who built a hubless and spokeless cycle years before the Belanger unicycle craze attracted attention; Duryea rode it himself in St. Louis and a lady in Washington used it with satisfaction, proving it practical on smooth roads though it never caught on.
- Madison Square Garden Company formally announces a six-day bicycle race March 7 to 12, managed by T. W. Eck, with fixed cash prizes rather than a percentage system and a format promising speedy, exciting competition and graceful riding rather than the jaded endurance suffering of the previous tournament.
- Letter from "Basil" rebutting The Bicycling World's dismissal of Mobile, Alabama cycling: cites L. B. Auner's January 3 ride of forty-six miles to St. Elmo and back in 4:37:00, the existence of forty-three wheelmen and one wheelwoman, and the imminent resolution of the Bay Shell Road access dispute.
- State-by-state cycling club news from Illinois (Lincoln C.C. banquet of sixty gentlemen, Englewood C.C. officer elections, Cook County club house plans), Kentucky (Louisville Cycle Club theater outing, Ed. Herget's wedding to Miss Mary Lucas), Louisiana (Louisiana C.C. smoker and building assessment vote), New York (Century C.C. of Syracuse elections with gold link buttons for Roy Smith's January 1 century, Buffalo Press C.C. growth to 200 members), and Ohio (Columbus C.C. annual election under president J. M. Kiser, Cleveland Wheel Club, Buckeye Ladies' Cycling Club socials).
- Profiles new chief consul Thos. J. Deupree Jr., who holds the Memphis championship at one, ten, twenty-five, and one hundred miles and has captained the Memphis Cycle Club since its reorganization, alongside founding veteran Chas. J. Scherer, the fifth man to join the LAW in Tennessee, father of the Division, and near-annual attendee of national meetings known as "Old Tennessee."
- Notice of the annual Elwell European cycling tours for 1892—a gentlemen's tour and a mixed ladies-and-gentlemen's tour, each limited to twenty participants—with experienced guides Elwell and Higgins and a companion booklet, "Vignettes of a Wheel Abroad" (fifty cents), available from Portland, Maine.
- Poem by H. Crowther lamenting a racing wheel relegated to the lumber shed because it has solid tires, followed by an editorial tribute to Crowther (known as "Ariel" in the L.A.W. Bulletin), now cycling editor of Sporting Life, chairman of the Pennsylvania Division racing board and road-book committee, and delegate to the National Assembly, with eight children who ride.
- Day-by-day report on the six-day professional race at Battery D, opened by ex-mayor Carter Harrison on January 18 before about 150 spectators on a seventeen-lap board track with steep banking; after two days Ashinger and Stage co-lead at 261 miles, Schock has quit after going stale, and Dick Howell defeated Robb in a three-mile contest in 9:10.
- Notes on English cycling: tricycle enthusiasm slumbering but reviving with hopes for asphalt cycling roads, annual general club meetings across the provinces, hotel-keeping cyclists profiting from touring riders, Liverpool's planned illuminated parade with mayoral backing, and Italian cycling's tentative move toward amateurism.
- Article signed ECIRP arguing that slow-pacing in bicycle races stems from absence of financial incentive to ride fast—illustrated by Tuttle's failed quarter-medal bid at Peoria in 1890—and proposing cash prizes awarded in inverse proportion to finishing time so that every competitor gains from riding as fast as possible.
- H. O. P. recounts how Examiner journalist Ambrose Bierce learned to ride a velocipede in San Francisco in 1869 and suffered a wild runaway downhill crash that left him unconscious for hours after his untried brake failed on a steep grade; Bierce later tried a modern safety "just to see if he had forgotten," and of course had.
- Miscellaneous news column: the bicycle step ladder invention, a possible tri-state meet at Springfield in July, eight lady cyclists in St. Augustine Florida, W. M. Brewster's denial of a LAW vice-presidency candidacy, William Martin riding through Detroit weather after winning the New York six-day race, and Isaac Potter's reported $3,500 annual salary as Good Roads editor.
- Series of rhetorical questions about Chicago and American cycling prospects for 1892, asking whether Zimmerman's rival Osmond will visit America, whether George Barrett will add to his nineteen race prizes now that he is married, whether the planned cyclists' World's Fair encampment will materialize, and whether the new lamp and speed laws will put any Chicago cyclists in a lock-up.
- Photographs of clay models by sculptor John Boyle for two allegorical bas-reliefs—"The Genii of Transportation" and "The Genesis of Transportation"—to be cast in staff and placed in the arch over the main door of the Transportation Building at the Columbian Exposition.
- Survey of Chicago cycling clubs as 1892 opens: the Illinois C.C. curbing social excess and dropping its cafe, Cook Counties eagerly anticipating their May 1 club house, new Chicago C.C. president Fay Tuttle and captain Van Sicklen promising a strong racing team, and the Lincolns still country-famous for their smokers.
- H. P. Walden calculates that by banking streetcar fares saved through bicycle commuting he put away $14.75, $19.20, and $21.85 over three successive cycling seasons, arguing these savings represent a strong practical argument for investing in a high-grade bicycle rather than a cheap one.
- An English rider's account of covering his bicycle spokes with oilcloth to approximate a disc wheel, finding a decided speed advantage in calm conditions but severely impaired steering in gusty side winds, particularly on a short-wheelbase machine where the rider's full weight sat over the driven wheel.
- Citing Henry George's single-tax paper The Standard, computes that the McKinley tariff raises a $60 English bicycle to roughly $106 for the American buyer and urges cycling organizations to campaign for tariff reform alongside good roads, arguing cheaper wheels mean more wheelmen and greater practical strength for the movement.
- Profile of Henry D. Dietz of the Chesapeake Wheelmen, who climbed the narrow gravel-strewn Tower Hill three consecutive times before Baltimore's leading wheelmen, broke the Westminster, Steelton, and Reistertown road records, and set the Maryland long-distance record at 163 miles on November 15, surpassing Brooks's 141-mile mark.
- "W. F. B." draws on sixteen years' experience in Wheeling to argue that well-made light cycles (32-34 lbs. for pneumatic machines) are as durable as heavier ones and superior in performance, citing a St. George's 22½-pound ordinary racer on which he trained, raced, and toured for two years without a single repair.
- Don Salambo (Frank A. Egan) recounts the arrest of bicycle sign-painter Drew at a Fulton Street paint shop: the wealthy proprietor fled at the sight of Drew's black bag and his demand for a quart of vermillion, summoned police who charged Drew with dynamite extortion, until explanations made plain the difference between a quart of vermillion and a quarter of a million.
- Humorous announcement of the Pandemonium Club formed at The Bearings office, with L. W. Conkling as "tin pan," A. T. Merrick as "paint pan," editor L. J. Berger as "think pan," and William Herrick as "in-the-pan"; the club holds $1.20 in treasury and plans to paint the White House red and headquarter there during the Washington cycling meet.
- The Bearings explains its advertising philosophy: the Christmas issue cost more than four times its advertising returns but now generates an average of twelve subscriptions per day with complimentary reader remarks, reaching over 26,000 readers weekly and an estimated 80,000 for the Christmas edition alone.
- From Wheeling: cycling is growing more rapidly in France than in England, with phenomenal statistics showing rapid development, while in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden almost the entire cycle trade consists of English machines, promising continued export dominance if quality is maintained.
- Background on the Velocity Manufacturing Company, backed by two unnamed retired businessmen and managed by A. G. Garfield (formerly of the Garfield Mfg. Co., saddlery and hardware) and Burton F. White, secretary-treasurer of the Illinois Division, currently at 98 West Washington Street until a new four-story factory opposite Union Depot on Canal Street opens after May 1.
- George R. Bidwell Co. privately demonstrated a safety bicycle with neither chains, levers, nor cogs, said to be ridden easily at high speed with greatly reduced effort; details are withheld pending completion of patents, but the operating principle is described as analogous to compressed air in an encased frame, with cuts and specifications promised soon.
- Reports explosive early-season trade activity with a ten-fold increase in bicycle traveling salesmen: Ariel's W. C. Smith secured a 500-wheel order from Kingman & Co. of Peoria plus 300 further east, and Speedy's E. C. Bode sold 727 wheels in a week and a half; warns that over-supply and an influx of English makes may produce jobbing-house gluts later in the season.
- Reports the January 12 organization of the Sercombe-Bolte Mfg. Co. with $100,000 paid-in capital; officers include president L. K. McClymonds of Cleveland, vice president F. H. Bolte of Milwaukee, and secretary Parker H. Sercombe of Milwaukee; the company will manufacture Telegram cycles in four styles and control the Bolte pneumatic and cushion tires through thirty-two depots across the United States.
- Calendar of cycling races and events from January through September 1892, listing the National Assembly in Columbus (February 15), the Philadelphia Cycle Show (February 15-22), the Madison Square Garden six-day race (March 7-12), the Ohio Division meet at Dayton (July 3-5), and Indiana's Indianapolis tournament (July 2-4), plus Chicago indoor social fixtures including the Lincoln C.C. reception and Thomas Stevens's lecture at Central Music Hall.