The Bearings, Vol 6, No 16
Articles in this issue
- Phoenix's lead editorial celebrates the 'Rag Shop,' the underground Chicago restaurant where wheelmen gather at noon, as a realization of cycling camaraderie and bohemianism; calls for every city to have such a convivial gathering place.
- Phoenix defends the Century Road Club against continuous deprecation by a rival New York cycling paper, arguing that delays in its organization have only strengthened demand and that the club's merits will determine its fate.
- Phoenix satirizes the L.A.W.'s official organ for trivially reporting its editor's receipt of a complimentary ball ticket, publishing false post-Springfield claims about Zimmerman's health, and garbled copy about Berlo and Conolly riding front drivers.
- Twinkle's regular column from a fictional rural general store reflects on the end of the 1892 cycling circuit, winter gatherings of old liars around the stove swapping exaggerated stories, and the tradition of sharing season memories with cronies and veterans of road travel.
- Profile of Fred A. Foell of the Press C.C., Buffalo, who completed 32 century rides in the 1892 season including two 200-mile Erie-and-return trips—all on a Century Columbia bicycle without a single puncture or mishap.
- British cycling department covering: the Southern Counties Cyclists' Camp concert and lantern show at London's Champion Hotel under president E. Lane Campbell; a proposed Hospital Saturday Fund charity race in London backed by the Stanley C.C.; English trade debate on the elliptical chain wheel; and H.O. Duncan's article on cement track surfaces at the Velodrome Buffalo in Paris.
- A Chicago cycling club's bicycle raffle led to a two-court legal dispute when committee member J.L. Roadster refused to pay the club $60 for the wheel his ticket 'won,' ultimately losing before Judge Tuthill after the case cost him over $100—with the cigars he distributed also paid for by the club.
- An Illinois C.C. racer who believed a rumor that every finisher of the club's road race would receive a sweater was pranked by clubmates with a box containing only a picture of a sweater pasted on paper and wrapped in cotton.
- Several Chicago cyclists paid off post-election wheelbarrow bets: Murphy, weighing 160 pounds, pushed 210-pound John P. Walters three miles from Wabash Avenue to the Lincoln club house in 1:12:00 without a stop, disappointing a large crowd hoping for treats at each halt.
- The Bearings editorial urges wheelmen to leverage their political strength—citing 3,000 cyclist voters in a single ward—to enact universal light ordinances covering all vehicles, drawing on the example of the Newcastle Centre of England's N.C.U. and Councillor Hogg's pending Northumberland resolution.
- The Bearings calls on readers to collect petition signatures by December 25 for Colonel Albert A. Pope's appeal to Congress requesting a federal road department and a 'roads' building at the Chicago World's Fair, targeting one million total signatories.
- L.A.W. Chairman Raymond will attend the November 23–24 London convention on international racing without explicit instructions, raising concern that his likely deference to English custom would effectively bar France and Australia from the proposed international contests in Chicago.
- The Alamo Wheelmen of San Antonio offer grotesque prizes for their Thanksgiving race meet—including a marriage fee, baby carriage, soothing syrup, and coffin—which The Bearings condemns as reinforcing public idiocy about cycling, invoking Dromio's confession: 'I am an ass!'
- Weekly news department including: Governor-elect Altgeld's convict road-labor platform; William D. Kempton's new poetry book 'Star Dust'; the Chicago & North-Western railroad's new policy of free bicycle transportation; Louis Block promoting the new Western Cyclist paper in Denver; a French bicycle tax of ten francs per cycle; the 'Referee vs. Tribune' dispute over cycling journalism; and Denver's bid for the 1894 national meet.
- The Chicago Cricket Club's seven-acre Parkside grounds and quarter-mile bicycle track near Seventy-first Street and Stony Island Avenue are to be auctioned November 23, owing to an interest-bearing debt of $16,000 and insufficient income; the Chicago Athletic Association may purchase the property.
- Schroeder and Lindsley seek Chicago racing talent for the Milwaukee Wheelmen's three-day indoor tournament opening November 24; Ballard, Davis, and Githens are expected to participate despite lingering tensions from the Sanger affair and Milwaukee press coverage.
- C.H. Daniels won the Malden B.C. handicap road race after E.A. McDuffie scratched due to poor condition; Washington riders set new records, with Yeatman lowering the Cabin John Bridge time to 26:00 and Wood breaking the Baltimore–Washington road record with a 3:30:00 ride.
- Incorporators of a new track on Pimlico Road elected officers for the National Cycle and Athletic Association—Hon. Parry Lee Downs as president, Robert C. Downey as secretary—with $30,000 in capital stock and subscription books opening shortly.
- Miss Caroline Reed Harris of New York details her practical dark-blue divided-skirt cycling costume developed after three years of experience, rejecting bloomers as immodest and specifying every element—jacket, shirt waist, dogskin gauntlets, high canvas cycle shoes—for all-season comfort and decency.
- Excerpts from small-town newspapers across Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa document the spread of cycling to rural communities, from Spring Valley's eight-bicycle town to a 20¾-pound Warwick Ghost racing wheel in Winona, Minn.
- Short news department: the Milwaukee Wheelmen's minstrel show raised nearly $500 for their new clubhouse; Miss Alice Poole, president of the Columbia B.C., wheeled James Graham in a wheelbarrow along Forty-second street after losing an election bet; and Columbia Wheelmen captain George Greenburg eloped with Lucy Florence Waugh, sister of Chicago's first female centurion.
- Trade supplement analysis of how France's high bicycle tariff adopted February 1892 delayed English shipments and produced a $4,000,000 deficit instead of a promised $25,000,000 surplus, leading to revision; discusses implications for American versus English dominance in the international cycle trade.
- Report on the newly organized League Cycle Co. of Hartford, Connecticut, manufacturing a chainless bicycle using beveled gears designed by E.J. O'Connor of Providence, claiming 25% less friction than chain drives, capitalized at $100,000, and tested over 2,500 miles in 1892.
- Trade department items: Sercombe-Bolte racing wheels to use silver rims; Sperry Cycle Co. becomes Denver's Pope Mfg. agent; Union Cycle Mfg. Co. introduces the P.D.Q. ('Pedalling Done Quickly') Humber-pattern roadster at 32 pounds; C.C. Meade moves from Humber to Monarch; Warman & Hazlewood of Coventry reports a net profit of $61,410.
- Extended Cyclist correspondent report from Yokohama and Tokyo on the Japanese bicycle market: crude local factories undercut English imports on price; rough mountain roads make pneumatics impractical; missionaries are key customers; dealers including Macarthur & Co. and Alan Owston advise that only a strong, cheap, extra-sturdy machine could succeed against Japanese-made cycles.