The Bearings, Vol 5, No 9
Articles in this issue
- April 1 cover page of cycling humor squibs including 'The Creed of the Amateur,' 'Celestial Competition' (rival recruiters for the Century Club and Chicago Cycling Club arguing at the pearly gates), 'Punishing Himself,' and 'A Pig-Pen Sketch'; signed Frank A. Egan.
- Humorous sketch on the new club fad for Sunday 'walks,' built around a punishing forty-five-mile tramp lugging a fifty-five-pound bicycle from St. Louis to De Soto, Missouri, past Bulltown; signed William Swinkle.
- Profile of Omaha racing man W. A. Pixley, who won twenty-nine firsts out of forty-one races in 1891 with class records including a 2:30 4-5 mile safety; a 145-pound, five-foot-seven rider born at Angola, Indiana, in 1873.
- A comic April-Fool sketch of a slender wheelman near Lake Michigan who, deliberately run at by a 'road hog' in a buggy, dismounts and thrashes him, the outcome left to the reader.
- A civic feature instructing Chicago cyclists how to vote in next Tuesday's aldermanic election, enumerating six famous ordinances (the 'No seat, no fare,' Northern Pacific, Economic Gas and Compressed Air measures), how each incumbent alderman voted, and the records of new ward nominees; urges the Associated Cycling Clubs to take up political action.
- P. S. Hunt of Grand Rapids seeks the help of Michigan wheelmen for a 175½-mile relay ride from Grand Rapids to Detroit in early May, in relays of eight to ten miles each.
- Editorial on George P. Wetmore, president of San Francisco's Bay City Wheelmen, who both praises California's L. A. W. loyalty and moved to exclude Chinese ('Mongolians') from the League; the paper defends the social barrier ahead of a Washington vote.
- Editorial holding up Chicago's new Municipal Order League, 120 women of the World's Fair Ladies' Auxiliary, as a model for the L. A. W., quoting Carter Harrison and Rev. Jenkins Lloyd Jones on cleaning up the city through the ballot.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs of Philadelphia secured the Tioga track for $1,000 cash at the Century Wheelmen's clubhouse, with $7,000 of improvements planned including a new grand stand and a widened, higher-banked track.
- Nineteen New York and Brooklyn clubs, including the Harlem Wheelmen, Kings County Wheelmen and Riverside Wheelmen, formed an association March 25 under president C. H. Luscomb, appointing committees on Political Action and Roads and Streets, and stirring talk of discourtesy toward Irvington-Milburn manager A. B. Barkman.
- Plans and a full ten-division time-table for THE BEARINGS' relay ride from Chicago to New York, starting May 18, 1892; names division managers Tom Roe, James Josephi and L. C. Boardman, and crack road riders such as Charlie Dorntge, Charlie Klipfel, F. E. Spooner and L. D. Munger.
- Report of Secretary Howard's address to the Permanent State Road Association at Springfield, Ill., ranking Kane county first for good roads and iron bridges and urging state aid, a state board of engineers and convict labor for road material.
- Folded column of short news notes: a snowy March in England, the Massachusetts Division's gray uniform, the Paddington and Herne Hill tracks, the Denver Ramblers' camera runs, Chicago's lamp ordinance, and a phonetic 'hard-times smoker' invitation from the Cortland (N.Y.) Wheel Club.
- A comic illustrated strip by Sandy Look in which schoolboy inventor Antoine markets 'pneumatic pants' to defeat the dominie's cane, only to come apart in sections when he warms himself before a red-hot stove.
- The paper's main news department, 'The Latest News and Comments' (continuing onto p.8): the Associated Cycling Clubs' Pullman road-race rules, Zimmerman's first English rides under Hillier and Sinclair, Holbein's clear field as G. P. Mills battles rheumatism, Philadelphia street-improvement politics, Mobile's planned cycle track, and the quarrel over a duplicate 'American Wheelman' title.
- Profile of the versatile Englishman 'Tommy' Edge, cycling editor of British Sport at Birmingham, holder of the York-to-London record and an acknowledged authority on tires and trade matters.
- Illustrated club profile of New York's Riverside Wheelmen at No. 232 West 104th street, about 200 members, its brown-stone clubhouse near Riverside Drive, racing men George C. Smith and A. E. Stilger, and president Robert F. Macoy; written by M. Betine Macfarlane.
- Folded personals column ('Juicy Paragraphs Picked Up by Bearings Men') on well-known riders: Van Sicklen entering the Irvington-Milburn race, Birdie Munger's reinstatement, tire inventor Dunlop now in Dublin, George Thorne's red 'little red wagon' Rover, and Nashville's injured Jeff Herndon.
- Touring sketch of a summer ride from Kansas City to Liberty, Missouri, over Missouri-river sand bars, through watermelon patches and rutted hills, ending at the Hotel Winner; signed H.
- Light profile of Samuel M. Whiteside, who became Georgia's chief consul in August 1891, a Royal Arch Mason, Odd Fellow, member of Savannah's Chatham Artillery and cashier of a big ice company.
- Folded column of Chicago and national club news: the Speedy Cycle Club's new quarters, admissions to the Windsor, Lake View and Eolus clubs, the Que Wheelmen and Farragut C. C. elections, the Manhattan Bicycle Club's new ticket, and the Peerless Cycle Club managing the Kansas Division meet at Wichita.
- Washington correspondence (signed POPE) defending the July dates for the national L. A. W. meet against complaints of warm weather, and describing the city's new in-town bicycle track; with an editor's note on the Grand Army encampment.
- New York correspondent's defense of Isaac B. Potter, who took on law partners only because his L. A. W. contract to manage the Road Improvement Bureau required him to relinquish active practice.
- A letter signed 'A Club Member' protesting the Associated Cycling Clubs' rule barring riders from clubs less than six months old from the Pullman road race, urging new clubs to petition for a change.
- The April–September race and tour calendar, listing fixtures such as the Pike County tour of Missouri Division, the Bordeaux-to-Paris race, the Pullman and Irvington-Milburn road races on May 30, division meets, and the Chicago C. C. Chicago-to-Cincinnati relay.
- Trade editorial reporting rumors of a movement among big cycling advertisers to boycott an eastern paper said to have raised its advertising rates to 'monopolistic' figures.
- Trade editorial on mutterings that certain Chicago firms are recklessly cutting retail prices, predicting a combination of dealers to 'crush the scalpers.'
- Folded mechanics' tips column signed NIBS: how to straighten a mud guard with a lead mould, why light frames 'hump' at the head, and the case for wiring tangent spokes.
- Praise for the Kenwood Mfg. Co.'s 1892 catalogue and a description of the Kenwood line (road racer, roadster, tricycle and ladies' special) and the firm's new retail store at 284 Wabash avenue, Chicago.
- Illustrated description of the Monarch Cycle Co.'s patent ball holder and dust resister and improved crank/sprocket fastening, used throughout the Monarch's lateral bearings; factory at 42–52 N. Halsted street, Chicago.
- Folded Chicago trade column: nineteen Holbein Swifts distributed, Morgan & Wright's new two-inch flattened-base tires, A. J. Elliott taking the Derby Cycle Co. branch, the new Quadrant and Kenwood stores, and a survey of Chicago's artistic 'Cycle Row.'
- Folded Milwaukee trade notes: Wm. Klug with P. H. Sercombe, Charlie Price now selling the Moffat for Roth-Hedger, Terry Andrae's southern Wisconsin tour, and the city's growth to eight bicycle stores and two factories.
- Folded New York trade notes: the Banker Cycle Co. awaiting more Moffats, the George R. Bidwell Cycle Co.'s Tourist from its new Hartford factory, the Ormonde Cycle Co.'s busy riding school, and a gold-and-silver-plated Rudge Triplet ordered for T. Chas. Appleby.
- Folded Buffalo trade note: warm weather brings the wheels out, strong demand for the Niagara, and Thomas Jefferis of Louisville planning to ride it in the Decoration Day southern-championship race.
- Write-up of the James safety and its maker Harry James of Birmingham, shown in room A at 113 Adams street, Chicago; recalls a thirteen-pound James carrying a 160-pound man at the Stanley Show and George Smith's 191½-mile twelve-hour record on a James road wheel.
- Brief Indianapolis trade note: Mr. Hearsey's business triple last year's, Hay & Willits ahead of their figures, and all factories straining to meet demand.
- A street directory of the seventeen cycle depots making up Chicago's 'Cycle Row' on Wabash avenue, from Thorsen & Cassady at No. 60 to the Pope, Monarch, Quadrant and Moffat houses.
- Notes on G. & J.'s new building at Broadway and Fifty-seventh street, New York, with a 50x100 riding school, and the eight-story annex to their Chicago factory shipping large numbers of pneumatic Ramblers.
- First look at the March-Davis Cycle Company's new thirty-one-pound March safety, of semi-Humber pattern, built of Jessup's tool steel and English tubing at 8–10 North Ann street, Chicago.
- April 8 (No. 10) cover page of humor squibs: 'Knew His Business' (a canvasser sells two pages of advertising to a lime manufacturer by pointing out that the L. A. W. Racing Board are 'the largest makers and users of whitewash in the world'), alongside 'Imprinted in the Mud,' 'Repair Shop Politics,' and a Col. Bourbon sketch about a scissors-and-paste editor.
- Reflective installment 'About Horses' likening the cycle club to the League's news bureau and warning against the social 'horsing' habit, illustrated by the Early Rose Wheelers who were all thrashed for one member's 'guying'; signed William Twinkle.
- A mock interview with Howard F. Tuttle, manager of the Moffat Cycle Co.'s store, on the dreaded prospect of Chicago dealers being forced to keep their stores open evenings, with a word in behalf of the employees.
- Report of the new Racing Board's New York session of April 4: board-track and indoor records to be allowed, no more unsanctioned meets, official referees who must be wheelmen, the two-mile safety added to the championships, and arrangements begun for international races at Chicago in 1893.
- Margery's lively letter ('Lovers and Other Things') on the hot July Washington meet, her comic ride on the Mt. Holly-to-Smithville bicycle railway, and notes on the World's Fair Woman's Building.
- Description of the Centric front-driver made by the Centric Cycle Co. of Birmingham, Mr. Parsons' eccentric toothed-wheel gear, quoting Sport and Play on its power and promise as a hill-climber.
- Notice of W. E. Perkins's illustrated account in Sports Afield (Denver) of a bicycle trip to Long's Peak, including a storm met on a three-foot ledge with 400 feet of rock above and 1,500 below.
- Editorial weighing proposed international cycling championships at the 1893 World's Fair, the difficulty of reconciling British, American, French and Australian amateur rules, and the threat to Parkside track from owners voting to sell the land.
- Editorial built around a letter from A. B. Choate, chief consul of Minnesota and a Minneapolis lawyer, endorsing cyclist political organization through the Business Men's Bicycle Association, with a supporting note from Illinois chief consul F. W. Gerould.
- Editorial (continuing to p.21) applauding the new Racing Board for distributing the appointment of handicappers, requiring an official referee at every meet, and accepting indoor and board-track records.
- Editorial answering a correspondent who wonders whether daily cycling papers will exist in twenty-five years: no, once cycling ceases to be a novelty the general dailies will absorb the news.
- Progress notes on the Chicago-to-New York relay ride, listing the ten division managers and the Rochester-east riders secured by C. J. Conolly (Frank Nugent, C. J. Iven, P. J. Dukelow and others), with an enthusiastic word from a Rochester man.
- Grant Newell's legal-advice column: a cyclist whose wheel, left standing in the street, is run down by a coachman may sue the coachman or, preferably, the carriage's owner for damages.
- Folded personals column on well-known cyclists: H. H. Warren resigning from the Buffalo Ramblers, G. P. Mills training again after rheumatism, Edwin Oliver's coming marriage to Miss Daisy Huguenin, the plucky Dane Miss Johanne Jorgensen, and E. G. Welch passing himself off as a Rutherford Wheelman.
- Main news department 'The Season Now in Full Blast' (continuing to p.24): the Washington national meet's guarantee fund, the Englewood Cycling Club's minstrel show at Timmerman's opera house, the Pike County tour of Missouri Division, Peoria's cancelled tournament, Cleveland's Pudney road bill, and a muddy Chicago club run and its lessons.
- Profile of Charles E. Duryea, superintendent of the Rouse-Duryea Cycle Co. and inventor of the Sylph spring-frame safety and the universally used hammock saddle, now said to be evolving a 'power-driving carriage.'
- T. A. Edge's appreciation of Frederick Percy Low, business manager of Wheeling, a caustic, witty writer and old-established solicitor who has built the paper into a financial property.
- Folded club column: the Chicago Colored Cycling Club's thirty-five members entering the Pullman, the Columbia Wheelmen breaking ground on a $15,000 clubhouse, the Lincoln Club's expert trick riders, the Cook County Wheelmen's new clubhouse site, and the Crescent Cycle Club joining the Rochester Athletic Club.
- Verse by William D. Kempton cataloguing cyclists' grievances: borrowers who drain your oil can, lenders who abuse your machine, fanatics who harangue you about their 'only' wheel, the pot-metal wheel that breaks miles from home, and 'a thousand kindred ills.'
- A speculative editorial list of questions about cycling a quarter-century on: sub-two-minute miles, electric cycles, aluminium wheels, 300,000 League members, and Chicago as the world's cycling center.
- Half-tone pictures, by courtesy of Cycling of Toronto, of the Wanderers Bicycle Club's hard-times smoker, whose members marched through the streets and hotels of Toronto, offered as an argument for such 'tough'-costumed affairs.
- Folded news-brief column: L. A. W. renewals due, clincher tires on London hansom cabs, Zimmerman drawing crowds to country inns near London, J. E. L. Bates attacking Holbein's twenty-four-hour record at Herne Hill, and the Kentucky Division's 'Do You Want Good Roads?' placards.
- A breezy letter from 'Spoonbrake' at Monterey, Mexico, on natives astonished by his pneumatic safety, San Antonio boys Otto Praeger and James B. Breeding touring Mexico awheel, and an urchin mistaking his Century Road Club badge for a 'policia Americano.'
- Letter (signed P.N.Y.) disputing Percy Harris of Chicago's claim to the world's home-trainer record and defending Mr. Fitler's twin-saddle Philadelphia mark.
- Letter (signed Beelah) protesting that Harding, Milford and Rule of the St. Louis C. C. were refused entry to the 100-mile southern-championship road race at Memphis, arguing that Missouri is a southern state.
- Note (signed W.G.N.) on Milwaukee wheelmen backing a business men's ticket in the coming city election to clean the streets, aided editorially by the Evening Wisconsin.
- The May–September race and tour calendar, including the Pike County tour, the Bordeaux-to-Paris and Memphis 100-mile races, the Pullman and Irvington-Milburn road races on May 30, and division meets at Bay City, Wichita and Washington.
- Editorial reporting that the word-finding contest launched March 11 drew correct replies from about two hundred cities including Maine, Colorado and Montana, with readers now scrutinizing every advertisement — an argument that The Bearings delivers unmatched attention for cycle advertisers.
- Editorial on the newly incorporated United States Rubber Company (capital $50,000,000, taking in nearly every rubber firm but one Boston house), warning of a likely rise in tire prices.
- The Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co. wins, on appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court, the five long-running patent and contract suits brought by the Pope Mfg. Co. over ball bearings, saddles, handle bars and pedals: 'decrees affirmed with costs.'
- Folded Milwaukee trade notes: the Columbia Carriage Co. engaging W. M. Breckinridge, a crowd fighting for a Holbein Swift, the Andrae Cycle Works' electrically operated window display, and the Bidwell Co. suing P. H. Sercombe on a promissory note.
- Folded Chicago trade notes: Elgin's booming interest, Harry Gordon joining A. Featherstone, T. F. Rockwell to manage Horton, Gilmore, McWilliams & Co.'s bicycle department, and Ralph Temple's opening at his new Twenty-second street store.
- Folded Cleveland trade notes: the Winton Bicycle Company building a thirty-two-pound road racer, a run-over Rambler displayed undamaged in the Fenn Hardware Co. window, and Clevelands with Palmer pneumatics drawing crowds.
- Folded Denver trade notes: C. B. Whitney & Co. expanding, new riding schools and agencies opening, and a test ride on a Victor pneumatic that resisted a piece of heavy wire penetrating over an eighth of an inch.
- Anecdote of actress Emma Pollock ('Little Maggie Murphy') coaxing a pneumatic Liberty out of Mr. Troy of Wilson, Myers & Co. as a donation for the Actors' Fund Fair at Madison Square Garden.
- The Shelby Steel Tube Co. increases its capital another $100,000, adding buildings and benches toward a capacity of over 7,000,000 feet of tubing a year, the only such factory in the country.
- N. S. Beebe is building a nearly twenty-foot, 300-pound galvanized-iron model of the Warwick wheel to crown the new Warwick factory, visible from the Boston & Albany trains.
- Description of J. L. Atwater's assembling rack at the Chicago Bicycle Co., holding the parts of three complete machines at once, and notice of the Worth spring-frame bicycle, Lady Worth and Worth tandem now shown on Cycle Row.
- Trade feature on the radically improved 1892 Monarch safety: hubs turned from lump forgings, Humber-pattern nickeled chain, a front fork with milled slot for the wheel, the new ball holder, and a broad one-year guarantee in every tool bag.
- The Taylor Cycle Co. (Arthur A. Taylor, manager; $50,000 capital) buys the George R. Bidwell Cycle Co.'s Chicago stock and good will, keeping the Warwick agency and the Student and Tourist cycles for the West and importing Psychos from Starley Bros.
- The radical trade columnist 'Erema' on the sameness of cycle advertising, a prophecy favoring strong spring-frame bicycles of the Paragon, Rambler or Sylph type over the pneumatic, and sarcasm at the short-lived 'long wheel base' fad.