The Bearings, Vol 7, No 22
Articles in this issue
- Report on the June 25 Connecticut division L.A.W. officers' meeting at Hartford, where President Charles Burdette's substitute resolutions were defeated 17-5 and the division voted 21-6 in favour of calling a special National Assembly to investigate Good Roads Bureau finances and Burdette's conflicting statements.
- A.A. Zimmerman, just returned from England aboard the steamship Paris, recounts being denied a renewal license by the National Cyclists Union unless he agreed to ride a wheel other than the Raleigh; he and Joseph McDermott plan to lay full documentation before the L.A.W. Racing Board and demand a searching investigation.
- Harry H. Wylie arrives at Chicago City Hall having ridden 1,028 miles from New York in 10 days, 4 hours, and 39 minutes on a 27-pound Sterling fitted with Morgan & Wright racing tires that were never punctured once on the entire trip, breaking the record of 11 days 5 hours.
- J.D.W. King, advertising agent for the L.A.W.'s Good Roads magazine, interviewed in Chicago, reveals he has earned only $900 in 18 months and shows from careful estimates that the magazine costs roughly $1,750 per month to produce while advertising income leaves only $1,500 to cover those costs.
- F. Howard Tuttle and J.S. Johnson are suspended by the L.A.W. Racing Board pending a professionalism investigation; Tuttle writes that his expenses were paid by the Syracuse Athletic Club, not E.C. Stearns & Co., and H.E. Maslin of Stearns denies the charge; a special dispatch reports the suspensions were raised until July 15 after Johnson filed sworn affidavits with Chairman Raymond in New York.
- At the Keystone Bicycle Club's fourth annual meet on a rough horse-track in Pittsburgh, J.S. Johnson won the mile handicap from scratch in 2:17, the five-mile open in 13:57, and an exhibition mile in 2:09 3-5 paced by a quadruplet; the crowd followed him to the dressing room, while G.A. Banker won both state championships.
- W.B. Hurlburt defeats previous record-holder F.H. Herrick by three-fifths of a second to set a new 25-mile road record of 1:11:59 in the Y.M.C.A. Cycle Club race over the Belle Isle course in Detroit, with 45 men starting; the two scratch men alternated pace and were well inside figures made by the professional Graves two weeks earlier.
- The South End Wheelmen's sixth annual meet in Philadelphia drew 2,800 spectators; W.W. Taxis loafed in the mile open while F.B. Marriott won the club mile championship and E.F. Miller took the mile handicap with a last-moment sprint, beating Geyler and Marriott by ten yards.
- Two-day race report from Harrodsburg, Ky., where C.T. Knisley was twice beaten by A.N. French of Cleveland on the first day; on the second day Knisley deliberately sacrificed his chances to pace J.P. Bliss to a southern mile record of 2:23 1-2, riding the last lap alone.
- The Bearings invites readers to call the bluff of a youthful New York cycling paper representative offering $50 bets that his paper outsells The Bearings, promising to forward the money immediately and split the profits.
- Editorial examining the Racing Board's new power to suspend riders on mere suspicion of professionalism, questioning whether a guilty rider would simply perjure himself under oath since an amateur declaration is already signed with every race entry.
- Editorial comparing John Berry, who rode 1,040 miles from Chadron, Neb., on horseback in 328 hours using two horses, with H.H. Wylie, who cycled 1,028 miles from New York in 244 hours on one bicycle found in perfect condition at the finish, as a vivid demonstration of the bicycle's superiority.
- Editorial urging every reader to attend the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, describing the illuminated lagoons, white buildings, fountains, and gondolas at night as rivalling the stars on blue Galilee and declaring a thorough visit a liberal education in itself.
- Editorial sparked by the 100,000-strong American Derby crowd predicts that within ten to twenty years bicycle racing will supplant horse racing as the dominant spectator sport, citing J.S. Johnson as superior to Derby winner Boundless as the locomotive is to the ox cart.
- Editorial on the Good Roads Bureau's finances, concluding the magazine loses money under any careful estimate and criticising L.A.W. officials — whose contracts with the Wheelman Company and the Chicago Base Ball Club represent a brilliant aggregation of business blunders — for being better politicians than businessmen.
- Editorial column commenting on F.W. Gerould's defence of the ball park track despite not knowing how to ride a bicycle, the absurdity of non-riders writing authoritatively on racing, the likelihood of professional cycling at the Chicago ball park after August 13 under the present L.A.W. deal, and a contemptible Dayton Journal editorial calling women cyclists ungraceful.
- Reprinted commentary from the British cycling press — Wheeling and Bicycling News — arguing that the N.C.U.'s conditional licensing of Zimmerman, requiring him to change from the Raleigh, is opposed to all fair dealing; if he is an amateur the Union has no right to dictate what machine he rides.
- Regular column (signed Bolav) with wide-ranging observations: the Racing Board's eyes are closed on Zimmerman; riders are flocking to the cash prize league; Chicago trade is flat while the World's Fair takes all the money; bicycle prices will fall sharply next year, which the columnist welcomes as putting the business on a sounder footing.
- Kansas City Cyclists held their first tournament on the new quarter-mile track at Fairmount Park on June 22 as a free exhibition; C. Kindervatter won the mile open with a well-timed sprint past H.R. Warren, and H.T. Ferguson took the mile handicap in a closely bunched four-way finish in 3:09.
- The National Cycling Association is ready for its New York professional racing debut the following Monday, with Catholic Protectory band concerts, Sterling Elliott's seven-foot chronograph clock displaying times to the sixteenth of a second, and licensed riders including L.L. Clark, J.P.A. Vriens, and W.M. Boyst.
- Profile of 16-year-old George Nelson Adams of Jacksonville, Florida, who won the three-mile Florida championship, medals at St. Augustine, Cumberland Island, Ga., and Pablo Beach, and has ridden a quarter-mile in 30 seconds (flying start) and a mile in 2:36 on shell roads with no proper track available.
- Washington, D.C. column (by Kil Posie) reporting that Secretary Stearns is negotiating reduced railroad rates for the D.C. division's August trip to the Chicago international races at roughly half the usual cost; W.T. Robertson won the one-mile and half-mile at the Virginia Wheel Club meet; and the Nomad Club, which admits ladies, voted to tour Maryland for a week.
- The Chicago ball park track for the August international races is being improved daily; Van Sicklen is in negotiations with Springfield, Mass., track expert 'Sandy' Sinclair to take charge, and a fifteen-mile spin by Githens, Barrett, and Davis has already been timed at 40:16.
- Frank S. Beedleson of the Century Cycle Club, Syracuse, is completing a cross-continent ride on one leg as correspondent for the Athlete, averaging 60-80 miles per day on the easy stretches after riding a century of 106 miles in 14 hours between Cheyenne and Sidney, and on pace to finish in under 65 days.
- The Orange Athletic Club's annual bicycle races at the Orange oval drew 8,500 paying spectators, with A.A. Zimmerman serving as starter after returning that morning on the Paris; after two disputed heats in the mile open, Carl Hess won in 2:39 3-5 when Wheeler and C.M. Murphy fell, and Paul Grosch took both the mile handicap and the quarter-mile New Jersey division championship.
- Omaha correspondent reports fourteen local riders — including Holton, Potter, and W.A. Pixley — training for the Nebraska state meet at Lincoln on the Fourth of July, with a complaint about the lack of a league hotel for visiting wheelmen and the Tourist Wheelmen's planned July 15 tournament with a diamond medal.
- The N.C.A. publishes its first list of cash-prize licensed riders, including W.F. Murphy (Brooklyn), C.W. Dorntge (Buffalo), H.C. Wheeler (New York), W.W. Taxis and C.E. Kluge (Philadelphia), T.L. Connoly and P.J. Berlo (Boston), H.C. Crocker (Newton), and Tom Roe (Chicago).
- Paris correspondence from Albert G. Roux covers a quiet week after major events: the U.V.F. Racing Board sends delegate L. Minart to London to negotiate amateur license conditions with the N.C.U.; Pierre Lafitte's Stagers' Race drew 13 male and 10 female Paris theater performers to a Bois-de-Boulogne course; Nicodemi covered 100 km in 3:11:50 against a strong wind; and workers at Gladiator cycle works strike over a threatened wage cut, requiring police protection.
- Full directory of Century Road Club officers and state centurions for the United States, Canada, England, and France, with the appointment of W.C. Harris Jr. (Birmingham, Ala.) and C.A. Emsie (Salt Lake City, Utah) as new state centurions, and new membership applications including Frank S. Beedleson.
- Philadelphia column reports that most 1892 race meets lost money through over-generous prizes, predicting only four meets in 1893; the Park Avenue meet last Saturday cleared over $300 despite rain with only local riders Taxis and Marriott, while a proposed inter-club country house has been postponed to the fall.
- Harry B. Emise and Arthur Liday, 16-year-olds from Salt Lake City, Utah, completed a 1,900-mile ride to Chicago on Union P.D.Q. bicycles; Emise averaged over 80 miles per day but suffered 14 punctures in one day crossing Wyoming desert on cactus-strewn roads, while Liday was delayed at Grand Island, Neb., repairing a tire.
- New York column covers garbled L.A.W. Good Roads stories in the daily press, the N.C.A.'s professional debut with Wheeler, Taxis, Murphy, Roe, Dorntge, and others holding licenses, and W.F. Murphy's ambiguous position — holding a cash prize license while publicly claiming he will race only if expelled from the L.A.W., with handicapper S.W. Merrihew reportedly rating his abilities poorly.
- First annual race meet of the Waltham Cycle Club at the improved Waltham track drew only 3,000 due to the Harvard-Yale game; Guy Gary of the Press Cycling Club beat W. Windle, H.C. Tyler, and George Taylor in the third-mile open final, and Windle won the mile open in 2:25 3-5 while Nelson and McDuffee left without prizes.
- At Louisville's Prince Wells 10-mile road race over the boulevard to Jacob Park, Charles Pfeffer (9-minute limit man) won the handicap in 30:40 while C.T. Knisley refused a one-minute start, rode scratch, and took the diamond-studded time prize in 26:20 — only about 90 seconds outside the world track record — with H.A. Githens falling on a curbstone while challenging him near the finish.
- A St. Louis thief at Leonori & Co.'s Saturday bicycle auction posed as a buyer, waited until the clerk turned to fetch another machine, then rode a $100 wheel out the front door and up Locust Street, leaving behind only a poor description for the police.
- L.W. Conkling, prominent Chicago wheelman and starter of the Pullman road race, will leave Coventry Machinists' Co. on July 10 to head the bicycle department of the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co., which plans to manufacture aluminum bicycles designed around his own ideas, with the first model expected to weigh about 28 pounds.
- Boston bicycle dealers are greatly troubled by weekly auction sales of 50-75 bicycles including Columbia, Singer, New Mail, Lovell Diamond, Ormondes, and Victor machines — some not second-hand — undercutting retail prices, while new bicycle manufacturers continue to enter the market at the same time.
- Morgan & Wright introduce an experimental racing tire weighing only 2 pounds 8 ounces per pair — half the weight of their standard racing tire — constructed of a special evenly-resistant fabric with no strain; Mr. Morgan expects to place it on the market within a week at no price increase.
- Department list of U.S. bicycle patents issued March 11, 1893, covering saddles by Warren L. Fish (Newark) and Joel H. Hendrick (Springfield), pneumatic tires by Charles H. Pagett (Oxford, Ind.) and Walter Sherbondy (Akron), a bicycle lantern by Frank Rhind assigned to Bridgeport Brass Co., and a carrier cycle by John Warwick of Reading, England.
- Trade column covering Buckeye Cycle Co.'s Cincinnati line (March, McCune, Telegram, Lyndhurst, Clipper, Dauntless), Gormully & Jeffery's planned eight-story factory addition, the Ariel Cycle Mfg. Co.'s unique hub-making machine invented by superintendent W.C. Smith, and trade visitors to The Bearings office including H.E. Maslin of E.C. Stearns & Co. and J.L. Yost of Yost Mfg. Co.
- A Providence city yard laborer accidentally fished two recently stolen bicycles out of the Woonasquatucket River opposite Brown & Sharpe Mfg. Co. using a hook and line; police suggest thieves routinely cache stolen wheels in shallow river sections and recover them once public attention has faded.
- Race calendar listing upcoming events for July through September 1893, including dozens of divisional meets and road races, the Illinois division and National L.A.W. meet with International Races at Chicago (August 7-12), the Cuca Cup 24-hour race at Herne Hill (July 21-22), and the Milwaukee Wheelmen's international circuit meet (August 14-15).
- World's Fair cycle exhibitors met and resolved to press Fair management for signage directing visitors to the bicycle gallery in the Transportation Building's balcony; exhibitors were assessed $1 each for current expenses, C.G. Field was elected treasurer, and a committee appointed to secure better ventilation.
- Century Cycle Mfg. Co. will vacate their Chicago downtown store at 296 Wabash Avenue due to a poor retail season failing to cover expenses, and relocate with the Parry Mfg. Co. at 377-379 Wabash Avenue as soon as the current space can be rented.
- Philadelphia bicycle sundries firm Wall & Boyer reorganises: T.C. Boyer retires, the entire 725 Arch Street building is taken by the new R.C. Wall Mfg. Co. for manufacturing sundries and selling the Singer wheel, and popular cyclist Edward P. Roe joins R.C. Wall as partner managing the uptown store.