The Bearings, Vol 6, No 19
Articles in this issue
- The editor extols the novel pleasures of cycling on pneumatic tires over glazed and crunching snow, contrasting the whisper-quiet pneumatic experience with the solid-tired high-wheel era.
- Editorial urging the L.A.W. to open its championship races to international competitors, noting that the N.C.U. allowed Zimmerman to compete and that visiting Englishmen deserve the same courtesy in 1893.
- Humor column by 'William Twinkle' (J.M. Erwin) recounting Thanksgiving pranks at Johnson's Corners, including irate letters from Terry Andrae of Milwaukee and Pete Berlo of South Boston denouncing their host's rustic hospitality.
- Reprinted from the Chicago Evening Post, a satirical hotel notice promises wheelmen every possible convenience—velvet carpet for wheel-cleaning, piano at all hours, and a desk clerk who can mend a pneumatic or act as timer.
- Feature comparing the bicycle to the horse for military use, contrasting the noisy cavalry with the nearly silent Toledo Cadets at Chicago's Dedication Day parade; a second item reports the Belgian Society of Military Cyclists' dispute with the national cycling union over War Department recognition.
- Collection of brief items from provincial newspapers—Glenwood, Iowa; Hampton, Iowa; Joliet, Illinois; Laramie, Wyoming; and Wausau, Wisconsin—reporting on new cycling converts and their early mishaps.
- Profile of Rev. Sir George Ralph Fetherstone, baronet, cyclist since 1884 and president of the Tenby C.C., who is preparing for an American tour on a tricycle acquired specifically for the journey.
- Detailed preview of the December 16 Christmas issue, listing special articles on the year in racing, veteran reminiscences ('Then and Now'), military fiction, the North Road (by F.T. Bidlake), and trade topics from contributors including Jo Pennell, Burley B. Ayers, and George Gatehouse Jr.
- Reports strong response to the good-roads petition campaign; notes Colonel Pope's petition in a Western New York post office attracted only five signatures in two weeks, while Mortimer P. Reed persuaded Illinois Governor Fifer to head his list after a half-hour conversation.
- Two-part editorial examining the rowdy behavior of some Chicago cyclists at the Milwaukee meet, concluding that a minority of 'excrescences' disgraced the broader wheeling fraternity, and calling on riders to muzzle those who bring cycledom into disrepute.
- Editor responds to a letter from etcher and L.A.W. foreign consul Joseph Pennell criticizing The Bearings' attacks on the L.A.W., defending the paper's long campaign to compel the official Bulletin to print applicants' complete addresses.
- Trainer T.W. Eck writes to defend J.S. Johnson's recent speed records, stating Johnson had to cover 30 extra yards at the start and predicting he can break any bicycle record in the world with triplet pacemakers in 1893.
- A.L. Atkins of Rouse, Hazard & Co. reports that J.S. Johnson, Rhodes, Ballard, Myers, and local Tennessee riders Anderson, Gardner, and Newsom are training under Tom Eck at Cumberland Park, Nashville, targeting the standing and flying mile records with Rudge triplet pacers.
- Reports a dispatch from Cycliste Belge's American correspondent alleging that Zimmerman has signed an arrangement with Singer & Co. of Coventry to ride exclusively for $20,000, which would end his amateur standing and bar him from international competition.
- Profile of Chicago's Julian P. Bliss, who won 19 races and earned $4,500 in his 1892 breakout season despite a two-month Racing Board suspension, finishing behind Zimmerman at York and Philadelphia and defeating McDuffie and Williamson at Springfield.
- Feature praising Chicago's cycling press corps: Walter Wardrop of the Tribune and Inter Ocean, J.M. Erwin (William Twinkle) of the News-Record, Mike Lane of the Evening Post, and F.E. Spooner, who supplies most cycling journals with Chicago news.
- Announces the National Columbia United Wheelmen's Association's four-story club building near the World's Fair, due March 15, offering bicycle storage, a repair shop, and accommodations from $1 per night with a $5.25 membership card.
- Editorial noting that handle-bar design has swung from bars set unreasonably far forward to those extending so far back that steering is difficult, urging makers to offer experienced buyers a choice of bar patterns on otherwise satisfactory machines.
- C.W. Hartung's London letter reports record attendance at the Stanley Show, the Rudge Co.'s 2,000-machine single-day order, F.T. Bidlake's lecture on the North Road, and a landmark international meeting that resolved to establish World Cycling Championships to be organized by the L.A.W. and held in Chicago in 1893.
- Reports that the Dunlop Cycle Co. of Dublin has secured the sole Irish agency for the Raleigh Cycle Co. for a long term, guaranteeing at least $40,000 in annual purchases; Raleigh is also expanding its New York factory and adding a 21-pound racer and ladies' models for 1893.
- Rouse, Hazard & Co. describe their new Peoria factory—housed in the former Peoria Watch building—now under F.F. Ide and Charles E. Duryea, aiming to produce '93 Sylphs and Rudges in time for the Philadelphia Show.
- Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co. explains its patent infringement suit against the Kenwood Mfg. Co., asserting that Kenwood's 1892 pneumatic tire infringes G. & J. prior patents, and warning it will pursue the same course against all infringers.
- A Davenport, Iowa, correspondent reports the paradox that high-priced pneumatics have retarded local cycling growth: solid-tire riders refused to ride beside better-equipped friends, and many prospective buyers deferred purchase until the new tire was better proven.
- Detailed description of the Marshall Cycle Co.'s sub-30-pound light roadster, praised for its simple head adjustment, lathe-turned bearings, and convertible sprocket placement; superintendent Mr. Weld recounts testing an elliptical sprocket wheel bought years earlier from English makers.