The Bearings, Vol 7, No 16
Articles in this issue
- Report on the Catford board track meeting where Arthur Zimmerman attended only as spectator — Christie won the half-mile world's handicap, youngster Barden dominated the ten-mile scratch in 25:08 despite a fall — plus Zimmerman's cordial Liverpool reception by the Liverpool Racing C.C., A.W. Harris's view that he was 'a trifle lucky last year,' and Huzelstein's new 100-mile record of 4:49:16 at the Buffalo track in Paris.
- Cable advices state R.A. Vogt of Scotland has lowered all English records from two to ten miles on Herne Hill, clocking ten miles in 24:34 — sixteen seconds faster than Osmond's previous mark — threatening Hoyland Smith's American records; also notes veteran editor R.J. Mecredy sails for America July 13 and is expected in Chicago by August 1.
- About forty Chicago cycling men hosted a dinner at the Wellington Hotel honoring visiting English champion F.J. Osmond, highlighted by Miss Mary Garden's piano performance and after-dinner speeches by L.A.W. vice president T.F. Sheridan, A. Miles on handicapping history, and P.H. Sercombe of Milwaukee; Osmond responded modestly that he would race only if he felt competent.
- 350 entries have been received for the Pullman road race — Columbia Wheelmen lead with 41, Chicago C.C. has 32, Cook County and Illinois C.C. tied for third — with notable out-of-towners including Dr. V.H. Hobson of Louisville and A.B. Edmands of Des Moines; the disputed Boston Linscott 25-mile road race will be re-run after inexperienced timers left before results could be compiled, with W.G. French reportedly winning in 1:15:50.
- The Keystone Bicycle Club opened its new three-story Howe Street clubhouse with a fashionable 500-person reception catered by Kuhn with Tourge orchestra; also covers Washington D.C.'s Second Separate Company military cyclists drilling before the White House, intercollegiate bicycle records broken at Cornell, Yale, and Penn (W.D. Osgood winning the two-mile handicap in 5:28), and Johnson's quarter-mile and half-mile victories over H.C. Wheeler in Savannah.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports Lewis Stroud winning Bristol's ten-mile cup despite theatrical complaints of infirmity, and A.W. Harris riding finely in the lap race and half-mile handicap; notes Home Secretary Asquith's Commons statement that only 337 of 5,637 London road injuries in 1891 were attributed to cyclists; also covers Fred Cooper's hydrocycle crew bettering the Oxford-to-Putney sculling record by over three hours, and Harris receiving his NCU trade license.
- Editorial explaining The Bearings' broad mission as a medium serving rider, manufacturer, and dealer rather than a purely trade journal, citing high combined trade-and-general circulation as proof that this approach has succeeded above any other independent cycling publication.
- Editorial urging American wheelmen to give foreign visitors like F.J. Osmond genuine hospitality rather than routing them over impassable roads — Osmond has reportedly declared he would walk to Pullman before enduring the 'so-called wagon road' again and cannot easily refuse invitations framed as courtesies.
- Editorial warning that married wheelmen who leave their wives behind on frequent cycling excursions risk outgrowing them intellectually and socially; argues cycling is 'not essentially masculine,' urges men to share outdoor pleasures with their wives, and calls a chief consul known to oppose women riding 'a bigot and unfit for his office.'
- Humorous editorial about Chicago policeman John Crawford, who hid his uniform coat and cap in an iron patrol box so he could change into civilian clothes and ride his bicycle during duty hours — a scheme undone when his patrol sergeant caught him dismounting near the box; Crawford now faces the police board for neglect of duty.
- Editorial criticizing Addison C. Thomas, an Associated Press employee and L.A.W. member, for obtaining tentative World's Fair agreement for a 'Wheelmen's Day' on May 31 without authority from the L.A.W. general committee, Illinois Division, or Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago, and then spreading the unauthorized announcement over the AP wire nationally.
- Pointed editorial attacking the pseudonymous 'Kennington' — identified as the current editor of a rival Chicago cycling paper who once wrote malicious gossip as 'Looker-On' for a St. Louis journal — for insinuating that The Bearings' editorial opinions are purchasable; recalls that Tom Roe repeatedly rescued 'Kennington's' paper from the printer with personal checks.
- Editorial miscellany: argues half-mile tracks best suit international sprint championships; profiles W.A. Van Epps, new L.A.W. chief consul for Washington state; sharply criticizes a Southern secession scheme for race meets at Cumberland Island, Ga., designed to form a league barring Black riders; contrasts mild American road-hog behavior with hostile Belgian and French peasants; notes French weighted handicap racing and a California wheelwoman demanding sidewalk rights equal to those of wandering sheep.
- Official statement from L.A.W. press committee chairman S.A. Miles clarifying that the $5 requested from visiting wheelmen for Chicago international tournament hotel accommodations is a deposit applied to their room bill and fully refundable if they cannot attend — not a booking fee — and that all committee services are gratuitous with any surplus going to the L.A.W. treasury.
- Letter from Abbot Bassett, L.A.W. secretary in Boston, correcting The Bearings' report of a 'tart debate' at the board of officers' meeting: the incident was a minor membership-verification dispute between Mr. Adams and Mr. Schervee that Bassett resolved with evidence and that 'passed off as a very good joke'; Bassett predicts 'the biggest cycling meet in Massachusetts' on May 30.
- The ten-mile relay race between the three oldest Peoria clubs was won by the Peoria Bicycle Club after Bert Myers overcame the High School Club's near-quarter-mile lead close to the finish; last year's Pullman road race champion Woollas is now training with the club and has applied for membership.
- The Massachusetts Division's Waltham races on May 30 are expected to draw 15,000–20,000 spectators, with a 3,000-rider parade over the finest Boston roads and the biggest building in the city hired as headquarters; Massachusetts set a national membership record last week with 215 new applications in a single week.
- The Harlem Wheelmen are arranging a fifteen-mile, five-man team road race to challenge the Riverside Wheelmen — self-styled city champions since defeating the New York Bicycle Club — while I.B. Potter will advocate road reform at the Brooklyn Roads Association; Tom Roe has postponed his transcontinental start from Boston to June 1 owing to heavy rains.
- Baltimore cyclist George R. Willis, a Centaur Cycle Club member, has been appointed by Mayor Latrobe to the city Park Board for life, giving wheelmen a powerful voice over park cycling rules that L.A.W. chief consul Mott had sought for years; the Maryland B.C. quietly lobbied for Willis over rival candidate John T. Brooks of the Centaur and Maryland Century Clubs.
- Illustrated travel feature with three half-tone photographs taken from the rear platform of the B. & O. Railway's vestibuled limited, describing the scenic mountain route from Philadelphia through Baltimore, Washington, Harper's Ferry, and the Cumberland hills to Chicago; recommends cyclists board at Philadelphia at 8 a.m. to pass the finest scenery in daylight when traveling to the World's Fair.
- Reports on bicycle use in the Pacific Northwest and West: Spokane Falls Wheel Club elects J.M. Cornthwaite president and plans a Decoration Day ten-mile road race open to all amateurs; Eugene, Oregon's Advance Cycling Club is newly organized; Victoria B.C. Wanderers plan a butterfly parade for Queen's Birthday; humorous 'Stick to the Wheel, Al' anecdote about Charlevoix, Mich., rider Al Washburne's horse demolishing a cart, iron fence, and vineyard after he sold his bicycle.
- Analytical article by S.W. Merrithew assessing the 1893 American cycling invasion: predicts Zimmerman will win every English championship once in shape, rates Sanger as genuinely improving but still presumptuous — capable of beating the best Englishmen but not yet Zimmerman — and dismisses English hopefuls Schofield (who falters and wobbles at the tape) and Harris (too young and light); urges readers to watch Harry Wheeler as a dark horse.
- Physical calculations made at Machinery Hall, Paris, by M. Baudry de Saunier using Marcy's apparatus: Terront's 625-mile Champs de Mars race required 6 lbs. 2 oz. rolling resistance — equivalent to seven times the work of a 155-pound man ascending Mont Blanc — while the 760-mile Paris-Brest race demanded 8–10 lbs. 3 oz., and Olivier's 1864 velocipede ride from Grenoble to Avignon paced by a railway train required 12–14 lbs.
- Two health experts advise brain workers: Perry S. Heath argues that mental distraction — not mere exertion — is key to physical benefit, and cured his own insomnia by riding with a conversational companion; Henry A. Ford, healthy at 57 from a sedentary life, endorses brief morning gymnastics and daily mile walks, calling walking 'the most available and the best exercise for the average man or woman.'
- Brief portrait of Miss Lulu Shipley, formerly of Quincy, Illinois, now connected with El Paso bicycle firm W.G. Walz & Co., described by an admiring Chicago rider as comely and an enthusiastic, strong cyclist.
- Brief items department: Thomas Relph of the Springfield B.C. visits England to race for prizes; a ten-mile handicap road race is set for Memphis June 14 followed by the Tennessee division meet; New York cycling writer Roland Hennessy has composed the popular song 'Sleep, Baby, Sleep' performed by boy singer Cyril Tyler; H.J. Gute of Detroit challenges any Michigan tandem team to race W.C. Rands and F.H. Wherry for the state amateur championship.
- England will have two rival cycle exhibitions this winter after the Stanley Club refused to grant the Manufacturers' Association veto rights over its show and the Association denied the Stanley's right to exhibit at all; both shows will proceed within one week of each other, with 'lively times in trade circles' expected.
- An anonymous cycle manufacturer argues the elliptic sprocket yields a 2–5% real efficiency gain over the round by slowing crank travel on the powerful down-stroke and reducing dead-center loss; also covers English riders fraudulently using agent cards for dealer discounts ('discoundrels'), a humorous letter from an Illinois agent who has 'more invested in children than anything else,' recent U.S. velocipede patents, and the Sparkbrook Mfg. Co. of London seeking an American importer.
- A well-known cycle trade traveler complains that the World's Fair cycle exhibit has been placed in an inaccessible gallery of the Transportation Building rather than the ground floor; describes partially completed exhibits by A. Featherstone & Co., H.A. Lozier & Co. (a ladies' Cleveland in white enamel with gold-plated parts), Gormully & Jeffery, Western Wheel Works (nineteen wheel patterns), and Raleigh, where Zimmerman's prize trophies will be displayed.
- Joseph D. Racey, former captain of the Orange Wheelmen and bicycle dealer of Orange, N.J., has absconded leaving debts to manufacturers exceeding the $1,500 stock attached by Shoverling & Gales of New York; he previously entered a Pennsylvania novice race under an assumed name and won handily, and is rumored to have eloped with a woman seen in Newark.
- Reprint from the English cycling paper Cycling welcoming Zimmerman and the American cyclists: recalls how Zimmerman 'won the hearts of Englishmen by his modesty and ability' in 1892, notes he will ride under New York A.C. and Savannah Wheelmen colors, and acknowledges that while Americans hope he conquers all, the English 'naturally hope exactly the reverse.'
- John L. Atwater has filed an answer to the Chicago injunction suit by H.D. Squires and David O. Hutchinson of the Pittsburg Cycle Co. over 3,000 shares of American Cycle Co. stock and $100,000 in promissory notes: Atwater claims Squires' own letters prove he knew the real estate was under a purchase contract, and accuses Squires of filing the Chicago suit only to prevent Atwater from suing for damages in Pittsburg.
- London trade correspondent 'Will o' The Wisp' reviews the booming gear-case market: Carter's patent metal case dominates but is noisy and hard to enamel; J. Grose of Northampton makes the finest — japanned leather, 14 oz., self-lubricating via cotton wick through 300-mile intervals; also rates the Lucas Alumophote and Miller Lito Bell Rock (with spring-release cleaning and exterior oil-cup) as the top two cycle lamps on the English market.
- Survey of Louisville bicycle dealers: pioneer firm G.M. Allison & Co. (Columbia, Hartford, Hickory), established as Huber & Allison in 1882, now occupies three floors; Jefferis Bros. sold more Victors in spring 1893 than in all of 1892; Prince Wells handles Rambler, Cleveland, Monarch, and Crypto geared ordinaries; Peoria trade notes report Rouse, Hazard & Co. shipped 1,500 bicycles in the last week of April and first week of May despite daily rain.
- Feature article paralleling the Paderewski-Steinway piano endorsement scandal with cycle manufacturers secretly compensating amateur racing men to ride their machines — so widespread that the L.A.W. considered a special paid-amateur class in February — arguing that the bicycle testimonial has more intrinsic merit than other endorsements because the rider must actually win races to be useful as advertising.
- Practical workshop column: alcohol removes transfers from enameled frames without damage; shellac dissolved in alcohol bonds rubber to metal; notes on seven-tooth rear sprocket wear and a classification of manufacturers as full makers, assemblers, or 'stenciled pianos'; includes items on Pittsburg trade, a 20-pound Warwick racer for E.A. Nelson, and a pneumatic-tired stick-box buggy with Telegram tires built for Milwaukee cycle builders Sercombe and Bolte.
- Miscellaneous cycling news: Austin (Minn.) C.C. organized with twenty members; Cornell's Hinds wins a six-mile road race from scratch in 18:25; Van Wagoner lowers the Holyoke-to-Springfield 7.5-mile record to 19:40 on a Warwick; New Zealand's L.S. Meintjes — 19 firsts in two years — heads to the Chicago international championships; one-legged cyclist Frank S. Beedleson departs San Francisco for a planned 100-day transcontinental journey; Central Cycle Mfg. Co. of Indianapolis copyrights 'Ben-Hur' and plans a 500-man factory.