The Bearings, Vol 7, No 18
Articles in this issue
- Detailed report on the 1893 Pullman road race over a 17½-mile Chicago course, with 278 starters and 215 finishers; Marinus Nelson of the Columbia Wheelmen won the place prize in 55:44 on a March wheel, while Martin Nessel captured first time prize in 55:17, with full order-of-finish tables and historical race statistics from 1887–1893.
- Editorial statement explaining The Bearings as a rider's paper bridging manufacturers, dealers, and cyclists, with circulation claimed superior to all independent cycling journals.
- Outgoing editor L.J. Berger bids farewell after nearly two years, returning the editorial chair to founding editor George K. Barrett with warm words for readers and staff.
- Editorial mocking the repetitive anti-cycling editorials of small-town newspaper editors who denounce 'bicycle fiends' as a social menace, calling for their enlightenment before the twentieth century arrives.
- Editorial responding to a Sacramento paper's complaint about wheelmen riding on sidewalks and injuring pedestrians, acknowledging that abusive cycling behavior damages the sport's standing and urging League officials to act.
- Editorial arguing that the Pullman road race course is dangerously narrow and overcrowded after years of route deviations forced by Chicago's growth, suggesting the series should be permanently discontinued unless a suitable new route is found.
- Mixed Chicago cycling notes covering riders switching their noon rendezvous from the Rag Shop to Winter's restaurant; the League meet hotel deposit controversy; The Bearings' new cub bear from Northern Michigan; dubious race timing at Houston; the stolen bicycle of L.A.W. first secretary Frederick Jenkins; a London proposal for women's co-operative cycling associations; and the Western Passenger Association reversing its policy to carry bicycles free during the World's Fair.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports opposition among English cyclists to Editor Sturmey's subscription fund for sending a racing team to Chicago, covers R.L. Ede's refused racing license, A.J. Watson's record-beating mile at Herne Hill, and the anticipated Zimmerman-Sanger meeting at the London County Club on June 10.
- Anecdotes from Pullman race day including English champion Osmond photographing the start crowd with a Kodak, Lincoln Club's Guinea buying 3,000 safety pins and quelling salesgirl laughter, Roy Keator's machine collision near the Sand Hill, and the complete prize list totaling $3,430 from Hill Cycle, Pope, Morgan & Wright, and many other donors.
- Carl Von Lengerke of Newark won the fifth annual Irvington-Milburn 25-mile handicap road race in New York before 6,000 spectators, while C.M. Murphy of the Kings County Wheelmen made the fastest time and twelve men broke Hoyland Smith's previous course record of 1:17:11.
- Results from the Asbury Park Wheelmen's annual spring meet in New Jersey, with H.A. Allen of Point Pleasant winning the mile and two-mile handicaps and G.B. Waters of the Kings County Wheelmen taking the mile open.
- Baltimore Chief Consul Mott is planning to light the division quarter-mile track with incandescent lamps for night racing at $12.50 per night; the Chesapeake Wheelmen report healthy club finances despite allegations of instability.
- Ninety-two men rode the Martin 25-mile road race near Buffalo before 10,000 spectators; veteran William Van Wagoner of Springfield set a new 25-mile competitive record of 1:14:10, coming within 14 3-5 seconds of McDuffee's time record, while W.R. Blake of Tonawanda took first place prize.
- The Crescent Wheelmen of Cincinnati won the Hanauer team road race from Carthage to Springdale (about 12½ miles) over the Comets, Northsiders, and Covington Kentons, with C.E. Tudor winning individually in 42:19.
- The Southern Wheelman's road race in Louisville was cancelled because publisher Zink's fire-damaged plant left him unable to organize entries; prizes will instead be run for in two two-mile handicap races at the Kentucky division meet in Harrodsburg.
- Hatch of Minneapolis won the 12-mile road race at the Decoration Day meet in Winona, Minn. in 36:03, and Bird of St. Paul lowered J.S. Johnson's state mile record to 2:35 2-5 by winning the mile open and five-mile open events.
- E.C. Johnson of Cleveland dominated the Diamond Wheelmen's Decoration Day track meet in Detroit, winning the half-mile open in 1:10 and riding the quarter mile in :32 2-5 in an attempt on the record; Walter Struber of Detroit captured the club championship over T.M. Cooper.
- Frank Richmond won the 20-mile road race from Grand Rapids to Plainfield and return in 55:10, with Hurlbut of Detroit taking the time prize in 54:30.
- W.W. Windle won the mile open in 2:27 2-5 on the opening day of the Bay State meet in Worcester, defeating Johnson, Tyler, Berlo, McDuffee, Nelson, Banker, and Wheeler; on the second day Windle refused to contest a loafed mile in which Johnson won in a non-qualifying 2:43, and A.H. Davey of Turner's Falls ultimately took the race.
- Zimmerman defeated Vogt (Scottish champion), Du Cros (Irish champion), and Dervil (French amateur champion) in two Paris races at the Buffalo Velodrome on May 28, then rode the French mile in 2:16, one second behind Fournier's professional record, despite a headwind.
- Cottereau won the Bordeaux-Paris race in 26:05:00, beating English champion Mills's 1891 record of 26:35:00 by exactly half an hour; Lumsden was the only English starter but abandoned after 100 miles.
- H.R. Renshaw won the Platteville 24-mile road race in 1:30:40 despite a gale headwind, with Hamilton of Pueblo making best time in 1:21:35; 165 of 170 entered men started before crowds from all over Colorado and adjoining states.
- The Massachusetts division's Decoration Day meet at Waltham drew 3,000 marching wheelmen and 15,000 spectators; Tyler was upset in the mile open by G.L. Gary of Chelsea, while H.W. Robinson of Waltham won both the mile handicap and two-mile handicap, and the Maiden club captured the two-mile team race.
- At the Gulf City C.C. meet in Mobile, Ala., 18-year-old L.S. Dunlap set a new local mile record of 2:42 1-5 with a flying start, and in a special challenge race, John Wilcox equalled it to 2:42 flat to win by a fraction of a second over the tired Dunlap.
- F.H. Werner, with eight minutes' start, won the Detroit Wheelmen's fourth annual 25-mile road race over the Belle Isle five-mile course before 30,000 spectators in 1:26:41; scratch men W.B. Hurlbut and F.H. Herrick rode neck-and-neck for three laps before Herrick pulled away to win time honors in 1:21:54.
- Harry Emise and Arthur Liday, two 17-year-old Salt Lake City cyclists, are riding to Chicago via Wyoming, having already swum six streams in a single day and ridden through a snowstorm in Echo Canyon, expecting to reach Denver by May 29 and Chicago around June 20.
- A Herne Hill correspondent reports that Sanger finds England's sultry climate unsuitable and may struggle to reach fitness in the short time available; Sanger and Culver have joined the London County Cycling and Athletic Club, with Sanger also to race under the colors of the Telegram C.C. of Milwaukee.
- The National Cycling Association of America secured Manhattan Field for July racing at a reported $15,000 for ten days, while the Metropolitan Association of Cycling Clubs lost their opportunity at the venue for their September international meeting and may be forced to hold it at Brooklyn's Eastern Park track.
- Chicago omnibus column covering Charles N. Carr's donation of a $250 silver mileage cup to the Century Wheelmen; road race results from Toledo, Fall River Mass., Cleveland, and Terre Haute; participants in the DeSoto ride from St. Louis; one-legged trick cyclist Kilpatrick at the Grotto; the L.A.W.'s successful prosecution of a water department driver who struck a wheelman; and Robert Bruce's five-week New York-to-Chicago wheel tour for Outing magazine.
- Professional cyclist and showman John Shillington Prince, stung by cycling press criticism at Houston, Texas, sends a twelve-stanza poem to The Bearings counseling humility toward others' faults and attention to one's own.
- Miscellaneous notes including bicycle taxation in Appleton, Wis.; Russian military cycling on Siberian ice; a Toledo bicycle theft insurance company; W.H. Glenny's Yale-Harvard meet win breaking the intercollegiate mile record; the Chinese press describing Allen and Sachtleben's world-girdling bicycles as 'chariots advanced by the feet'; W.A. Rowe's potential reinstatement to amateurism; and postponement of the Illinois relay rides from Springfield due to heavy rain.
- Feature on the Zimer patent 'cycle' boat with adjustable side floats connected via cross-bar to a bicycle-style handlebar to prevent capsizing; the device's greatest utility is proposed as a lifeboat in rough seas, with the cycling element consisting of a pedal-driven screw propeller.
- Roster of Century Road Club officers and state centurions for 1893 across the United States, Canada, England, and France, with W.A. Skinkle of Cleveland as president and outgoing Bearings editor L.J. Berger as second vice president.
- Editorial arguing that the non-deflatable pneumatic tire is the inevitable future of cycling despite foreign press dismissiveness, and reporting that London sources indicate a satisfactory non-puncturable tire may now have been produced, which would supersede mere non-deflatable designs.
- F.C. Evans, manager of the Central Cycle Company's Philadelphia uptown store, has disappeared leaving a reported $1,000 account shortage; John A. Green separately leaves John T. Bailey's cycling department to take over the Philadelphia agency of the Union Cycle Company.
- Profile of J.M. Linscott, leading Chelsea, Mass. bicycle and sporting goods dealer who originated the Linscott road race, secured most of the prizes, and arranged all details — this year resulting in a successful event that lowered the 25-mile road record.
- Feature article on India rubber production in Brazil, describing jungle hunters tapping hevea trees, collecting latex in clay cups, and coagulating it over palm-nut smoke fires into commercial caoutchouc; discusses the Brazilian government's failure to cultivate rubber plantations despite the tree's value, with notes on coagulation methods used in Central America and elsewhere.
- Chicago trade column covering A.J. Marrett of Coventry Machinists' humorous tale of his first cycle ride in rain-shrunk tight clothes; N. Miller's proposal for musicians at the World's Fair cycle exhibit gallery; the March wheel ridden by Pullman winner Nelson; dealer Joseph Racey's denial of press misrepresentation; the marriage of 1891 Pullman winner R.M. Barwise to Miss Helen Blanchard in Milwaukee; and cycling trade boom in Colorado.
- Technical instructions from Pope Manufacturing Co. for roadside repair (injecting rubber solution and wrapping tire tape around the puncture) and permanent shop repair (using a gum syringe through the puncture to the inner tube) of Columbia pneumatic tires, with guidance on inflation pressure and curing time for each method.