The Bearings, Vol 6, No 18
Articles in this issue
- The editor opens with satirical commentary on the London International Union congress, mocking President Raymond's ceremonial entry and raising concern over whether France's professional riders will be barred from World's Fair championship events.
- The editor regrets reports of Chicago cyclists behaving badly at Milwaukee tournament hotels, describing the after-dark "gambolling of asses" in leading hotel corridors as conduct unbecoming even sedate wheelmen.
- Warning to southern riders reportedly planning to claim records made without the full corps of L.A.W. officials required by rules; the editor promises any such figures will be met with "a cold wave."
- A rival cycling paper (Bicycling World) excuses publishing erroneous news by claiming its 5,000 readers would never see The Bearings anyway; the editor notes the other 27,000 subscribers drop their copies into the waste-paper basket.
- Writer Ouida's vivid description of horses screaming in agony and covered in wounds after the Berlin-Vienna ride is cited as an inadvertent testimonial to the comparative merit of the bicycle.
- Humorous fictional monologue by grocer Bill Twinkle, who closes his Johnson's Corners store in protest against free-trade tariff reductions expected on prunes, kerosene, hen's eggs, mackerel, and chestnuts, lamenting the ruin of American manufacturers.
- Weekly digest covering Germany's ban on red side-lights for cyclists after train engineers mistook them for stop signals; Chicago's Captain Schuettler's bicycle detectives recovering 48 stolen wheels in two months; Rochester's Lake View Wheelmen planning an $8,000 club house; Thanksgiving dinners for Chicago wheelmen; the National Columbian United Wheelmen's Association breaking ground for a World's Fair hotel; and wealthy Australian globe-trotter George Burston's planned cycling tour of Japan.
- Editorial on Albert Roux's French article about U.S. cycling in Veloce-Sport, and unresolved concern from the London conference about whether France's customarily professional riders will be barred from World's Fair championship events.
- Editorial analysis of cycling club members who fail to pay dues, ranging from the genuinely impoverished to braggarts and card-sharpers of "de push" who won't pay when they can avoid it; notes one large American club publicly posts expelled deadbeats' names to every member.
- Update on The Bearings' national road-petition campaign, with blank forms requested from Long Island to Arizona and 30,000 signatures expected; H.A. Lozier & Co. of Cleveland requested 150 forms at their own initiative.
- Analysis of whether the Pullman road race can use its Chicago park course in 1893 given that World's Fair crowds will likely prompt park commissioners to refuse a permit; a North Side alternative from Fort Sheridan to Lincoln Park is proposed, though its 25-mile distance may shrink the entry list.
- Report on the London conference of six nations forming an association to hold world championship races at 1 mile, 10 kilometres, and 100 kilometres, with the first meeting at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago; Raymond of the L.A.W. was elected president.
- Willis B. Troy, Zimmerman's manager, rejects the Milwaukee $500 deposit for a Zimmerman-Sanger match race as laughably inadequate and demands $10,000, noting Zimmerman drew larger crowds at Asbury Park than boxing champion Corbett did simultaneously.
- Denver Ramblers' Thanksgiving ten-mile road race was hampered by heavy wind but Gerwing won in 40:37, riding the first five-mile leg in a remarkable 11:37; full results for 15 finishers are listed.
- Cycling magazine's readers voted the twelve best path racers of 1892, with Zimmerman topping the poll at 3,780 votes versus Osmond's 2,151, while Shorland ranked next to last with only 847.
- Melbourne's Austral handicap season is opening with large entries across all events, including 77 in the mile-and-a-half safety event; cycle racing is planned nightly at the International Exposition building with eight events and $50 first prizes each.
- The Baltimore Club's annual ten-mile handicap road race was won by Howard A. French (8-minute handicap) despite a bitter north-western gale that nearly stopped riders at the Pikesville turning point; William Holland made the fastest actual time.
- The Evansville, Ind., Cycle Club rules that neither Lumsden nor Munger is entitled to diamond prizes for records set at their meet, because riders did not announce before the race that they were attempting a record against time.
- Frank Egan, blocked by the L.A.W. Racing Board from running a southern racing tour with professionals, writes to Board members Raymond, Watts, and Candy comparing his thwarted enterprise with a rival cycle house's unwarned southern record-breaking trip.
- A.L. Banker of the racing Banker brothers won 15 firsts and 2 seconds on the Dauntless this season, holding the one- and two-mile championships of the Pittsburgh Athletic Club and excelling at hill-climbing.
- Full report on the Milwaukee Wheelmen's three-day Thanksgiving tournament, Nov. 25-27; Chicago's Githens defeated Sanger in the ten-mile open on day two in 29:39 1-5 and set a mile in 2:34 2-5, while Sanger claimed a world indoor mile record of 2:31 1-5 in the final-day handicap.
- Thanksgiving Day race results at Asbury Park; Zimmerman's brother-in-law McDermott placed second in the mile handicap from 140 yards, while a collision in the one-mile open between Vontengerke and Blauvelt wrecked Zimmerman's wheel and split Martin's nose.
- Race results from the Alamo Wheelmen's Thanksgiving meet on San Antonio's eight-lap black-dirt track; Hugo Hofheinz won both the half-mile and the Alamo championship mile in 3:52.
- San Jose Thanksgiving Day race results were slowed by heavy rain; Wilbur Edwards dominated the five-mile scratch, and Pattison and Osen dead-heated in the mile 2:45 class final.
- The Illinois C.C.'s Thanksgiving hare and hound chase ended with hounds failing to catch the hares, earning all participants a grand turkey dinner; the Cook County Wheelmen's hounds were confused by the Illinois trail and arrived half an hour late.
- Plans are under discussion to construct a seven-lap board cycle track in the new Tattersal's building on Chicago's South Side, with one or more fine winter tournaments expected.
- Extended trade-supplement analysis of the elliptical sprocket wheel: scientific authority confirms a theoretical speed and climbing advantage, and Johnson used it for his phenomenal mile, yet Johnson himself believes a round sprocket may be equally fast; Col. Pope's new company selling the American patent requires manufacturers to waive challenges to its validity.
- Willis B. Troy describes the new Bidwell pneumatic tire, whose linen-covered inner tube and outer cover are laced with short laces for rapid puncture repair, and which fits rims up to two inches larger or smaller than its labelled size without dangerous stretch.
- C. Vernon Pugh of the Whitworth company warns English papers that American buyers demand the highest-quality, lightest machines and that reckless English trading through single exclusive agents has caused widespread failures; only premium goods stand a chance.
- Opening report on the annual Stanley bicycle exhibit at the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, with nearly 2,000 machines; highlights include front drivers, new pneumatics (Torrilhon, Sagar, Scott tires), the improved Clincher and new Dunlop, the Centric FD gear, electric cycle lamps, and an air wheel only eighteen inches in diameter.
- Kenwood Mfg. Co. announces that its pneumatic tire is manufactured under its own clear patents, denies that rivals have seen the 1893 design, and previews improvements including a double locking device; the firm pledges to defend customers against any patent interference in court.
- Illustrated guide to eighteen new cycling inventions shown at the Stanley Show, including the Langton Crank and Chain Wheel, Centric Front Driver, Nedderham Tire, Gates Centrifugal Tire, Loco Chainless Safety, and Burton Chain Gear Case.
- Yost Mfg. Co. of Toledo signs a contract with an eastern firm to take all bicycles the factory can produce (capacity 15,000 wheels annually), eliminating the need for the company's own sales force or advertising.
- Samuel Snell of Birmingham, England, partners with Fitch Dewey, Will Dewey, and Joseph L. Yost to form the Snell Cycle Co. in Toledo for manufacturing bicycle accessories and fittings, continuing as agent for Thomas Warwick & Sons and Brooks saddles.
- Studebaker Bros. Mfg. Co. visits the Lozier and Gendron Iron Wheel factories in Toledo to evaluate bicycles for distribution through their many branch houses; no deal closed yet but Lozier wheels found satisfactory.
- Charles Measure of Needham, Mass., rides the Union P.D.Q. repeatedly at speed over railroad ties and crosswise over five-inch-high rails, failing to damage it beyond a slight front-rim dent; he afterward rides eleven miles from Boston to Highlandville in 38 minutes on the same machine.
- Rev. E.G. Selden and George D. Chamberlain of Springfield, Mass., patent a brake that grips the sides of the tire with spring-held clamps lined with wood or leather rather than pressing on the centre; clamps stay open when not in use to prevent mud accumulation.
- B.C. Vincent leaves the Vincent Cycle Co. of Buffalo and forms the new Vincent Cycle Mfg. Co. with the Balcom brothers at a new Gulf Street factory; the firm will produce 1,000 wheels in 1893 at 22 and 28 pounds, with racers distinguished by orange rims.
- Proposal reprinted from Cycle Record for a novel race format in which scratch men pursue a designated "Travelling Winning Post" rider placed half a lap ahead, with a special prize if he holds his lead for three miles; the author argues it would produce genuine racing excitement rather than the tedious processions common in scratch events.
- Dutch-English racer Scheltema-Beduin argues that cement is the fastest track surface yet found and safer than cinders: cinder wounds become infected and can scar for life, while cement wounds heal quickly, as demonstrated by his own comparable falls at Bristol and Arnhem.
- The British cycling press, led by Wheeling, declares that modern cycling amateurism is a greater fraud than ever and that genuine amateurism scarcely exists among first-flight racing men; the N.C.U. is urged to govern genuinely separate amateur and professional classes.
- Illustrated comic poem by C.A. Cox satirising the cycle trade salesman's cheerful money-making, conscience "made of para gum," and skilful weaving of facts to close a sale.
- Department covering the French war office's order for 6,000-7,000 armed cyclist messengers carrying carbine and revolver; the declining spirit of the pioneer 26th Middlesex Cyclist Corps compared to earlier glories; and the formal organisation in Baltimore of the First Independent Infantry Cycle Company with 26 riders seeking national-guard recognition.