The Bearings, Vol 7, No 4
Articles in this issue
- Full correspondent report from Philadelphia on the L.A.W. National Assembly of February 22–23, 1893: the constitutional convention abolishes itself, vesting all legislative power in the Assembly; Chairman Raymond's new amateur rule passes almost unanimously; the negro-exclusion amendment is defeated 108 for to 101 against (138 needed), after ex-President Kirkpatrick's celebrated oration; President Burdett and Vice Presidents Sheridan and Brown are re-elected; and the Assembly grants carte blanche for the 1893 Chicago international races, with receipts projected at $30,000 and a $1,000 Saltonstall Cup offered to the top-scoring nation.
- At Savannah, Georgia's new cement quarter-mile track on February 22, A.A. Zimmerman rode an exhibition quarter conceding Harry Wheeler 20 yards and won in :34 before 3,000 spectators; Baird of Charleston won all open events and lowered the amateur southern quarter-mile record to :35 2-5 from a standing start.
- Chief Consul Hackney of Colorado division, an old Chicago man now based in Denver, travelled to the Philadelphia Assembly to lobby for Denver as the 1894 League meet city, promising delegates scenic excursions to Pike's Peak, the Garden of the Gods, Ute Pass, and the Georgetown Loop with mountain coasting, backed by 5,000 Denver-area wheelmen.
- Former English champion Osmond, having injured himself since being beaten by Zimmerman, follows a severe daily regimen of four-mile runs in heavy clothes, fence vaulting, and hammer work on a log, adding one inch to his chest measurement as he prepares to contest championships in 1893.
- The new half-mile Velodrome de la Seine in Paris will be surfaced with wooden paving blocks laid edgewise, guaranteed for ten years by the contractors, on a track costing $30,000 and varying from 25 to 32.5 feet in width.
- Nelson A. Bradt of Johnstown, N.Y., claims the record from New York to San Francisco, having ridden the 4,420-mile distance in 62 actual riding days between April 9 and July 4, 1891, resting twenty-four days en route.
- The Bearings states its editorial mission as a medium between manufacturer, dealer, and rider alike, contrasting itself with journals devoted exclusively to the cycle trade and crediting this broader policy for its circulation surpassing that of any other independent cycling journal.
- The Bearings editorialises on the Philadelphia L.A.W. proceedings across several sub-sections: defends the need for an independent auditing committee in light of the League's undisclosed $10,000 outlay to Good Roads; analyses the new amateur rule's effect on the shamateur; and rebukes the Assembly for siding with the Wheelman Company against members' demand for full postal addresses in the Bulletin.
- The Bearings rebuts Bicycling World's accusation that The Bearings advocated against racing business as a mercenary tool of cash-prize interests, asserting its editorial independence and defending its sustained campaign against the Wheelman Company's L.A.W. organ contract as principled rather than commercially motivated.
- Indiana Senator J.M. Seller writes to cyclist M.H. Pontious of Crawfordsville that House Bill 215, which proposed to strip cyclists of road rights under heavy fine, died in the Indiana House; Pontious cautions that the bill may still be revived on Monday.
- The Bearings argues that Illinois division's $25 allowance per delegate to the Philadelphia Assembly fell $8 short of rail fare alone, leaving eight attending delegates to pay hotel and meal costs personally, and calls for division legislation mandating full reimbursement of legitimate expenses.
- Racing Board Chairman H.E. Raymond is commended for frankly explaining to the cycling press why the Nashville and Milwaukee racing cases were dropped without expulsions—the accused could have perjured themselves to block punishment under the existing amateur rule—making candour the most effective method of communicating with wheelmen at large.
- The Bearings announces it will occupy the ninth floor of the new Isabella building in Chicago on or about May 1, describing halls of marble, mahogany, and opalescent glass and promising good light and a lofty editorial perspective.
- Melbourne correspondent "Dingo" reports Christmas-season racing: McCoombe lowered the quarter-mile record to :36 3-5 in New Zealand; Scharp set five- and ten-mile marks before a tyre explosion caused a five-rider crash in Adelaide that broke Howard Lewis's collar bone in three places; H.B. James cut the South Australia 100-mile record by 41 minutes to 6:26:00; and T.D. Scott rode the 598-mile Adelaide–Melbourne road record in four days and twenty hours.
- Philadelphia cycling report: a new ordinance requires cyclists to carry a bell by day and a lamp by night; the Century Wheelmen have formed a banjo club and their Barlow & Hart minstrel troupe is touring Pennsylvania; the Quaker City Wheelmen are building a new clubhouse; and the Columbia Cyclers are fitting out elaborate new quarters.
- Kansas City correspondent reports that warm February weather has revived cycling, with demand centred on brakeless scorchers under thirty pounds; the Kansas City Cyclists are planning a Decoration Day race meeting, and unattached riders are organising a new Jackson County Wheelmen club.
- Des Moines cycling club has secured the largest suite and the largest dancing hall in Iowa, hosting bi-weekly orchestra dances of eight to twelve pieces for members and their companions despite the quiet winter cycling season.
- The Rochester Wheelmen's League plans to build a 25-mile bicycle path around the city, improving roads and sidepaths as needed and keeping them in ridable condition, with support pledged from property owners, cyclists, and non-cyclists alike.
- The Cleveland Wheel Club has secured a new three-story stone clubhouse opening late May; country road commissioners have adopted the motto "By our works we shall be known" and plan to lay new roads under competent engineering supervision.
- The Canadian Wheelmen's Association executive committee in Toronto discussed the professional question and is likely to recommend at its annual meeting that makers' amateurs be ruled out of purely amateur races and placed in a separate class, which would exclude most crack Canadian riders.
- The Manhattan Athletic Club's clubhouse was closed by Receiver Friedman and the club dissolved; the building will be advertised for sale in a few days.
- A.A. Zimmerman has been elected chairman and director of the First National Bank of Perth Amboy, N.J., and is also largely interested in the Raleigh Cycle Co., holding shares said to be selling at a high premium.
- Race department: Holbein to attempt the 24-hour fair heel-and-toe walking record; Scottish crack James McLaren may visit Chicago; Shorland completes arrangements with Humber & Co.; Stephane and Dubois will attempt the 12-hour tandem record; Raleigh medals presented to Zimmerman (set with diamonds), George M. Nisbett, Harry Wheeler, Giuseppe Nuvolari, and others; Joseph Poorman's 1893 road race opens with Walter Measure of Union Cycle Mfg. Co. as entry number one.
- Miscellaneous items: Mardi Gras races at Mobile, Ala. (Wilcox, Woodcock, Robinson, and Auner contesting six events); J.S. Johnson resting before the Boston May 30 meet; H.C. Kennedy's unchallenged 28-climb record at Sidewalk Hill, Golden, Colo.; W.S. Campbell suspended by L.A.W. for entering D.C. championships without membership; Lincoln C.C. planning a country cottage at Twin Lakes; an Albany $1,000 wager on cyclists drawing a carriage to Chicago; T.M. Reinhart stopping a Dallas runaway horse; the Vienna-Berlin road race committee collecting funds; the Catford Cycling Club's sealed-handicap monthly road competition; press conditions at the Velodrome d'Hiver; and notes on cycling in Germany, England, France, and the United States.
- Minneapolis draughtsman Arthur T. Page's 1893 patented invention proposes an elevated bicycle road on 15-foot pillars with wire-mesh flooring, enclosed sides for winter, electrical conduits for lighting and telephony, and cycle-lamp charging points and pneumatic-pump stations at each stop, designed as a commuter route above city streets.
- Charles Ritch Johnson of Toledo presents personal health and exercise opinions from 21 well-known American newspaper editors and writers, including Judson Grenell of the Detroit Sunday News, John Brisben Walker of the Cosmopolitan, and Edith Sessions Tupper.
- Bicycling News runs a cartoon, 'The Vanished Hope,' mocking the Prince of Wales's denial that he will take up cycling by showing him astride a punctured wheel, spurning the trade papers on the floor while Uncle Sam hands him a copy of The Bearings.
- A Radfahr-Humor joke has a boy ask his father for a bicycle nearly as costly as his schooling, and offer to skip school in exchange for the wheel.
- Argues that two companies of cyclist soldiers could reach an urban disturbance three times faster than infantry, reviewing the history of military cycling in Italy (1875), Switzerland, Belgium, and Great Britain (over 5,000 officers and men in cycle battalions), and quoting Major-General Miles's 1892 endorsement of bicycle couriers following the Chicago–New York demonstration run.
- Reprints British press items from the Cyclist, Bicycling News, British Sport, and Irish Cyclist debating whether Milwaukee racer W.C. Sanger—said to ride a mile in 2:10 without pacemakers—will cross the Atlantic to contest English championships and whether his $500 deposit at Chicago against Zimmerman will satisfy the N.C.U.
- Albert G. Roux, a Chicago cyclist visiting Paris, writes that French cycling suffers from low average salaries (about $35/month for young men), a weak federative spirit, and failure to form large influential clubs, though a petition to reduce the proposed ten-franc bicycle tax to five francs signals an emerging collective consciousness.
- Henry Tate of Peekskill, N.Y., recalls 1880s high-wheel rides through the Highlands of the Hudson and over Storm King, the envy attached to the old ordinaries, and now welcomes the rise of safety bicycles and women's cycling as improvements that will relegate the fifty-inch wheel to the museum.
- Three cycling squibs: Featherly's place in bicycle circles defined as a round figure ("O"); a wordplay on "Hand me down"; and Wabbles the racing novice leaving in dudgeon after Arabella called him a slow goer—she was looking at the clock.
- W. A. Parker, of Toledo, O., writes to E. C. Stearns & Co. of Syracuse that he learned of their bicycles from their advertisement in 'the only cycling paper on earth—The Bearings.'
- Indiana Bicycle Co. reduces the list price of its Waverly Scorcher from $150 to $100 for 1893—a reduction planned since the machine was first produced—having already sold over 1,000 at the old price; the company also introduces a junior 24×26-inch model at $60 and $80 and projects a 25,000-wheel output for the season.
- A Bearings investigation finds Chicago's dozen-plus bicycle factories are booming despite two plants for sale: James R. Lane, a real estate dealer with 100 machines nearly assembled on Canal Street, cannot divide his time between two businesses; Brown Bros. Mfg. Co., makers of the Greyhound, are selling to settle an estate; other new factories are starting regardless.
- The Garford Mfg. Co. of Elyria, Ohio, files for an injunction against Philadelphia saddle makers Bretz & Curtis, alleging infringement of 1888 and 1890 patents covering the coil spring under the saddle pommel; Curtis intends to fight alone rather than organise a combined saddle-maker defence, and other makers are also being sued.
- Production round-up: Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. has nearly sold its 1893 output with over 175 Fowlers shipped and 350 awaiting dispatch; Monarch Cycle Co. employs 320 and will produce 5,000–6,000 wheels; Derby Cycle Co. runs day and night; March-Davis Cycle Co. recovers from a fire at new Clinton Street premises; Illinois Cycle Works produces a 32-pound Flyer; Western Wheel Works targets 35,000 bicycles in 19 patterns; and Kenwood Mfg. Co. draws quiet confidence from manager Frank Douglas.
- The Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co.'s tire department is swamped with orders, with buyers who once objected to the corrugated tread now insisting on it and the detachable pneumatic's refusal to fall off when deflated keeping it a leader.
- The Ames & Frost Co. contracts with the Charles H. Sieg Mfg. Co. to retail 1,000 Imperial wheels in Chicago for 1893, after Sieg sold 600 Imperials there in 1892.
- A one-pound, laterally adjustable saddle is featured on the Kenwood, sold only with the machine.
- New patents from Washington include an automatic tire-inflating device (R. M. Keating, Springfield, Mass.), a tilting bicycle seat (W. R. Mercer, Terre Haute), a pneumatic tire (Willard A. Warren, Buffalo), a cyclometer (Elwin J. Merry, Magog, Canada), a trouser protector (R. T. Matheson, Brooklyn), a wheel hub (James S. Copeland, Hartford) and a ball bearing (Sterling Elliott).
- The Michigan Wheel Co. of Lansing agrees, for a $5,000 consideration, not to make certain grades of carriage wheels for a year, joining the carriage-wheel trust, and will turn its attention to bicycles and pneumatic-tired sulky wheels, including a $125 diamond-frame cycle with hickory spokes.
- Manager McDonald of the Raleigh Cycle Co. says his company will resent any infringement of the Raleigh name after reports that an 'American Raleigh' wheel is to be built at a Chicago factory recently bought by Pittsburg parties.
- The H. & W. Adjustable Toe Clip Co. of Malden, Mass., offers nickel-plated toe clips with adjustable slots weighing only two and a quarter ounces, at $1, handled in Boston by the A. O. Very Cycle Co.
- Rumor holds that Memphis and Atlanta would like to acquire cycle factories, and that some southern dealers want wheels sold under their own chosen names.
- Mr. Wheatley, of the Chamber of Commerce, Chicago, wins the McIntosh-Huntington Co.'s $200 prize for the best advertising scheme out of 25,000 entries, submitting a border shaped like a bicycle wheel representing the sun.
- The Aeolus Cycle Importing Co., under K. Franklyn Peterson and Charles E. Salter, will handle Bown's Aeolus agency in Chicago from room 527 of the Garden City block.
- R. D. Garden, F. L. Douglas and Charles F. Stokes incorporate the Cycle Board of Trade of Chicago at Springfield.
- Mr. Fowler, of the Hill Cycle Co., reports that night work costs one-half more than day work while producing about a third less.
- City-by-city trade report: Dallas dealers Ott & Treiller selling three high-grade machines per week with Rambler, Victor, Credenda, and Ariel lines booked; Parker Bros. of Waco taking the Texas state agency for the Fowler; A. & H. Harrison of Brenham booking strong Rambler orders; Galveston trade reviving with the 1893 Gormully & Jeffery light-wheel range; and H.D. Spore & Co. of Houston selling rigid and spring Ramblers while Stratton & White relocate from Fort Worth to enter the cycle trade.
- Taylor & Challen, of Birmingham, England, devise a new method of making weldless cold-drawn steel tubes for bicycles and machine work by pressing steel discs into cups and drawing them through successively smaller dies, now carried out by the Metallic Tube & Flask Co.
- A Bearings man spots two pneumatic tricycles, a Quadrant and a Kenwood, on Chicago's South Side; the Kenwood Co. has sold about half a dozen and the Quadrant people about three, some to non-residents.
- Anticipating that World's Fair traffic will overburden railway baggage cars, it is suggested wheelmen ship their bicycles to Chicago ahead of themselves, opening an opportunity for enterprising tradesmen to offer storage rooms.
- An Englishman named Blandy exhibits at the London National Show a pneumatic tire made of a secret fabric called Blandyte, said to be light, resilient and weather-resistant and retailing cheaply at $3.75 a pair.
- A.L. Garford, then a bank cashier in Elyria, Ohio, designed his coil-spring saddle in 1886 when manufacturers ridiculed the idea; he interested local investors, produced a U spring in 1889, and the business—taken up by Parkhurst & Wilkinson of Chicago—grew into the largest saddle firm of its kind in the world, with 200 men required to fill 1893 contracts.
- A new lacing system for the tire made for the Western Wheel Works, Chicago, laces the air tube in two places with the valve at the center so half can be removed at a time, with canvas vulcanized at the ends to ease replacement and prevent creeping.
- A Swiss inventor's Stanley Show exhibit turns the back fork ends into hooks with a united extremity instead of a plain slot, allowing the wheel to be lifted out easily and the chain removed by dividing one stay longitudinally.
- The Quadrant Cycle Co. will sell tricycles this year, Manager Pound having ordered twenty-five pneumatic-tired three-wheelers now en route from England to Chicago.
- The Geo. R. Bidwell Cycle Co. of New York argues in a pamphlet that a true pneumatic tire requires a separate inner air tube in a specially woven fabric jacket, and that canvas-and-rubber outer-only constructions inflated to 40 pounds become as hard as cushion tires, sacrificing the resiliency that is the pneumatic's sole advantage.
- The Cyclist argues that cycle shows such as the National or Stanley tie manufacturers' hands over winter, since agents hold off placing orders until after the show, compressing the year's trade into a still shorter period.
- J.B. McCune of the McCune Cycle Co., Everett, Mass., recounts placing Charles F. Stokes and H.A. Lozier (who made over $300,000 in the trade) in the cycle business, advocates for 30-pound safety bicycles using large-diameter tubing to distribute vibration at frame connections, and reveals he and inventor Hall built a working typewriter in 1866 that outsped penmanship five-to-one.
- Anecdotes on the tact needed by commercial travelers, including George Moore winning over a hard-to-please silk mercer with a snuff-box gift, and a witty drummer who talks his way to an order from an exasperated hosier.
- F. T. Bidlake, quoted via British Sport, insists the tricycle will never be killed off by the safety bicycle, remaining well suited to nervous or middle-aged riders and to slippery or night-time roads.
- Reprinted from The Carriage Monthly: the bicycle sulky introduced in 1892 has united bicycle and carriage maker interests; 1893 models feature improved 28-inch pneumatic-tired ball-bearing wheels on new-pattern frames, with some builders testing 45- and 52-inch wheels, while pneumatic-tire steel-wire-spoke wheels are also being adapted to buggies and pleasure carriages.
- Rochester, N.Y.: swindler Frank Mindnick obtained valuable bicycles from dealers C.J. Conolly and Robert Thomson using thirty-day notes and false claims of owning fifty acres in Penfield; a bank teller alerted the dealers, the two wheels were recovered, and Mindnick faces prosecution for obtaining goods on false representations.
- Trade department: George H. Day of Pope Mfg. Co. visits Chicago; N.E. Turgeon disposes of large numbers of Columbias in Illinois; McKee & Harrington issue the 1893 Lyndhurst catalogue; Ramblers fitted out for the First Regiment N.G.P. are displayed at Chas. S. Smith & Co. in Philadelphia; and Rouse, Hazard & Co. of Peoria, Ill., fill a nine-bicycle order for a customer on the island of Java.