The Bearings, Vol 5, No 11
Articles in this issue
- The front-page column of comic squibs and verse signed Frank A. Egare, joking about pneumatic punctures ('What Tires Us'), temperance, the racing crack 'Scadsy,' Congressman Jerry Simpson awheel, and the cycling balleteers.
- William Twinkle's humor column: 'The Handicap Limit' satirizes handicap road races (Zimmerman, trainer Corcoran's 150-yard limit, the Windles and Murphys) while 'About Dogs' rails comically against farm curs attacking lowly safety riders and calls for a League Dog Improvement Bureau.
- Reprinted from the London Cycling, a touring article praising Alsace and Lorraine and the blue Vosges mountains as cheap, scenic and little-known cycling ground reachable via the Great Eastern steamers to Antwerp, Metz and Strasburg.
- A short anecdote from Cycling about a rider who, unable to pass three noisy pedestrians near an Indian bazaar, charged the centre man, only to have a policeman and crowd join him in abusing the unfortunate fellow.
- THE BEARINGS' planned May relay carrying a government message from Major-general Nelson A. Miles in Chicago to Major-general O. O. Howard at Governor's Island, New York; details the route, the eleven Albany-to-New York relays (149.5 miles), a five-maker pneumatic-tire test, and named riders including Van Sicklen and Tom Roe who reconnoitred the first 126 miles in better than schedule time.
- On the paper's misspelled-word advertising contest: framed Merrick pen-and-ink sketches worth $15 as prizes, last week's winner Charles W. Davis of Jamestown, N.Y. (the Moffat Cycle Company ad), and this week's hidden misspelling of 'they.'
- Editorial on the Lincoln Cycling Club of Chicago resolving to stop soliciting dealers for advertising in club road books, souvenirs and programs, warning clubs against leaning too heavily on the trade.
- Editorial prompted by Buffalo's Press Cycling Club debating the abuse of membership black-balling, arguing each club must handle its own cases and suggesting electing power be transferred to executive committees with written objections posted on the bulletin board.
- Editorial defending THE BEARINGS' call for wheelmen to scrutinize political candidates against 'conservative' objectors, citing the old David B. Hill vote episode and the political organizing of Philadelphia, Helena (Montana) and the Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago.
- A canvass of likely entrants in the May 30 Pullman road race, with thumbnail sketches of dozens of Chicago scorchers—W. C. Thorne, George K. Barrett, Bliss, Lumsden, Winship (riding a Century Columbia), 'Birdie' Munger, 'Billie' Herrick, Captain Gray, Pollock and many more—and a note that Van Sicklen leaves for the eastern Irvington-Milburn race instead.
- Illustrated profile of Gustav Marschner of Saxony, a machinist who won the 1890 German trick-riding championship on an ordinary at Leipzig and, now professional, was competing against the American Kauffman at Munich; illustrated from Radfahr-Humor.
- The personals column: trick rider Dan Canary at Sandusky, the Du Cros boys at Featherstone's New York tire factory, John A. Myer of Brooklyn voted New York's most popular wheelman with 16,417 out of 63,352 votes, and A. W. White and F. E. Studer riding railroad ties from Columbus City to Fort Wayne on Warwick pneumatics.
- The week's main news roundup across two pages: the Kentucky Division meet at Lexington (July 12–13), the L.A.W. booming in Colorado with the Ramblers adopting the League uniform, Buffalo preparing the Driving Park track for the state meet, a Philadelphia bicycle speed-ordinance controversy, Martin's $1,000-plus twenty-five-mile Buffalo road race prize list, the Pike County Missouri steamer tour, praise for the Crypto geared ordinary, the 250-member Toledo Cycling Club's 84 miles of paved streets, the Chicago Associated Cycling Clubs unanimously voting to enter municipal politics, and the Tioga track fund in Philadelphia raising $2,400 in one week.
- Profile of London auctioneer and valuer Sydney Lee, who holds weekly cycle sales, edits the Cycle Trade Journal, and once held the fifty-mile road record, defeating tricyclists such as Dr. Turner, Crump and Bidlake.
- An illustrated group portrait of the Utica Cycling Club, whose members are not counted wheelmen until they can ride a century; names eleven riders shown including L. R. Divine, P. C. Hammes, D. N. Lohman, P. W. Birdseye and E. H. Crosby.
- The club-news column: four club houses rising in Chicago at nearly $50,000 combined, the Washington Club clearing $600 on its road book, the Columbia Wheelmen turning out 75 strong, officer elections at the Keystone C.C. Chicago, Toledo, Quincy and Omaha Wheel Club, and the Cook County Wheelmen's minstrel show planned for April 29 at Princess Opera House.
- A miscellany column of short notes: Holland's chief records (mile in 2:36), the Ohio Division's fifty per cent growth, a new cycle paper (the Athlete) starting at Wilmington, G. Lacy Hillier minding Zimmerman after previously leading Osmond 'around by the nose,' an English lady's recommended loose cycling costume, and a Chicago dealer offering $250 to the Pullman winner on a certain wheel.
- The dated calendar of coming events from April through September: THE BEARINGS relay ride (May 18), the Pullman and Martin's Buffalo road races (May 30), numerous division meets including the L.A.W. national meet in Washington July 18–20, and local Chicago club fixtures.
- Trade supplement opens with THE BEARINGS' March 1892 circulation statement: 25,632 copies mailed plus 5,280 via Western News Co. and foreign subscriptions, totalling 30,910 for the month (average 7,727 per issue), with an offer to show post-office receipts to any advertiser who visits the office.
- Reprinted from the New York Commercial-Advertiser, an account of Colonel A. A. Pope's early Boston street exhibitions of the 'silent steed' and his arrest on the Common for scattering handbills, which won his bicycles a large free advertisement and launched his prosperity.
- A write-up of the Psycho safety made by Starley Brothers at the St. John's Works, Coventry, with a portrait of William Starley, noting the firm's twenty-seven-year history, the quality of its material and finish, and the Taylor Cycle Co. of Chicago holding the agency for all territory west of Pennsylvania.
- Describes the improved seven-ounce Hilliard cyclometer at $8.50, affixed to the left front fork and registering 1,000 miles, exhibited at the Philadelphia Show and backed by testimonials from A. G. Powell and W. D. Banker of Buffalo.
- The Kenwood Manufacturing Co.'s newly opened 100-foot retail store at 284-286 Wabash Avenue, with parquet show stand, ladies' and gentlemen's dressing rooms with lockers, incandescent lighting and a costly basement riding school under construction.
- On the Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co. of Torrington, Conn., which despite a fall factory move placed an up-to-date wheel with new features on the market and is shipping many pneumatic high wheels as well as a large solid-section gum tire that has jumped into popular favor.
- How the Sercombe-Bolte Mfg. Co. of Milwaukee built the Telegram, Ladies' Telegram and Chainless Telegram wheels after F. H. Bolte's English trips and 1,500-frame contract, crediting extensive but judicious advertising for a business now large enough to send Bolte back to England for more material.
- Denver trade notes: Fred Patee of Rouse, Hazard & Co. showing the Sylph, G. E. Hannan opening a riding school on Lawrence Street, the Temple Scorcher at H. G. Kennedy's, and the new Model F Victor ('the Kite') drawing crowds to the Overman store.
- New York trade notes: the new Columbus Cycle Company on West 104th Street backed by Riverside Wheelmen J. C. Miller, H. E. Voorhees and E. A. Powers as uptown agents for the King of Scorchers, and crack George C. Smith joining Elliott Mason and the Pope Mfg. Co. to run the Warren Street riding school.
- Milwaukee trade notes: Terry Andrae selling Humbers and Andraes fast at his West Water Street store, and P. H. Sercombe pressing a damage claim against Bidwell over disputed wheels held at Sercombe's subject to Bidwell's order.
- Chicago trade notes: Keating safeties (32–35 lbs.) to be handled in the West by T. D. Ganse on State Street, Morgan & Wright's output target of 10,000–15,000 tires, the new Bennett Morris Cycle Co. on West Madison, Roy Keator the unicyclist joining T. D. Ganse, and Canadian racer Sam T. White joining Chas. F. Stokes.
- New trade catalogues received: T. D. Ganse's Reform 'King and Queen of Scorchers,' the Rouse-Duryea Sylph spring-frame pamphlet, Ames & Frost's artistic Imperial Scorcher book, and the Luburg Manufacturing Co.'s large Traveller catalogue in big red letters.
- Reprinted from Wheeling, an admiring trial of the new semi-racing Rover with moderately extended wheelbase ridden by J. R. Hamilton at Ripley, praising its running and steering as far ahead of anything previously produced by the Meteor firm.
- On the American Ormonde Cycle Co.'s success in Harlem, New York, with its busy rental and locker rooms fitted with shower baths, the 34-ounce Ormonde saddle made by J. A. Hunt & Co., and its role supplying lamps and sundries through a London house to dealers who claim to be direct importers.
- Burton F. White of the Derby Cycle Co. and secretary-treasurer of the Illinois Division writes from Marshalltown, Iowa, on roads feet-deep in mud requiring four-horse teams, and a dealer's naive questions about whether pneumatics are filled with gas and whether you must let out the old air before refilling.