The Bearings, Vol 7, No 7
Articles in this issue
- Reports on a Monday night meeting at Chicago's Great Northern Hotel to plan the 1893 L.A.W. meet (August 5–12) at the World's Fair, including formation of a nine-man sub-executive committee, Thomas F. Sheridan's appointment as fund custodian, and track specifications for a three-laps-to-the-mile burnt-clay circuit at 35th and Wentworth. Racing Board chairman Howard E. Raymond reported that riders from England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Belgium had pledged to compete.
- J. Minturn 'Pop' Worden, passing through Chicago for the Remington Arms Co., tells wheelmen that several prominent eastern riders privately told him they will join the National Cyclists' Association after the World's Fair tournament, and vigorously defends racer Peter Berlo against allegations of foul riding and dishonesty stemming from a disputed Hartford race result.
- Brief race report on the 621-mile professional track match at Paris between Terront and Corre, in which Terront rode 419 miles without dismounting over the first twenty-six hours and finished in 41:58:52, leaving Corre more than five and three-quarter miles behind.
- A New York dispatch (March 13) reports that the National Cyclists' Association has strong financial backing, that NCA president Charles Byrne has devoted himself fully to the venture, and that F.W. Gerould of Illinois would overwhelmingly defeat G.A. Perkins of Massachusetts if the two contested the L.A.W. presidency; NCA organizational details include a $25,000 guarantee fund from ten percent of race-meeting receipts and a ban on pool-selling.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung covers the planned pitch-pine batten surface at Heme Hill (to be ready for the Catford C.C. meet on May 6), the cementing of Kensal Rise track, Osmond's likely retirement from racing after a knee re-injury, and the proposal to license racing men at half a crown per year, to be voted on March 24.
- A Baltimore dispatch (March 10) reports that residents near Catonsville repeatedly claim to have been passed at night by a skeleton figure riding an ordinary bicycle along the Frederick road, connected by locals to the unsolved murder of a cyclist at that location some years earlier.
- A Kansas City dispatch (March 10) announces arrangements for a Decoration Day race meeting, with a dozen local men preparing to train and several miles of new city paving expected to improve road conditions by spring.
- A Detroit dispatch (March 4) reports that promoter Hilsendegen has begun planning his annual 310-mile road race, with ten pneumatic-tired prize wheels already donated, after last year's event drew 15,000 spectators despite heavy rain.
- Baltimore's new half-mile cycling track, to be run by the National Cycle and Athletic Association on Pimlico road about three-quarters of a mile beyond the existing track, will be surveyed immediately and will include a club-house with buffet.
- W.A. Skinkle, ex-president of the Chicago Cycling Club now in Cleveland, describes the Cleveland Wheel Club's plans for a new 28-foot-wide quarter-mile track at Newburg built at no cost to the club, and a five-year, $1,650-per-year lease on a three-story building on Huron Street with a wheel room, bowling alley, and large convention hall.
- Editorial supporting the Massachusetts division's resolution (adopted at Boston, March 8) demanding that the L.A.W. Executive Committee publicly account for all money contributed to Good Roads magazine from its first issue to the last National Assembly, while praising editor Potter's advocacy work and warning that someone is using him as a 'cat's-paw' by soliciting charitable contributions without transparent financial reporting.
- Editorial on Honorable Jonathan Stone of Revere, Massachusetts, who at the March 8 state committee hearing attacked the proposed Massachusetts highway improvement bill as 'the bicycle act,' declaring it an unconstitutional burden on rural farmers and ratepayers imposed by wheelmen, engineers seeking commission posts, and their political allies.
- Editorial criticizing the Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago—2,223 members strong—for maintaining a 'committee on political action' that does nothing, illustrated by delegates who refused to organize wheelmen's ballots during a recent non-partisan mayoral movement, preferring to refer the matter to committee instead.
- Editorial attacking J.M. Erwin, Chicago member of the L.A.W. Racing Board, for allegedly using his official position to feed news to the daily paper that employs him, prematurely announcing that Peoria had relinquished its western circuit dates, and for characterizing two press editors as speaking for their business interests rather than as private individuals at a recent caucus.
- Editorial contrasting the cycling-friendly mayor of Florence, who pushed through an ordinance permitting riders on all city sidewalks, with the anti-cycling mayor of Terni, whose ordinance restricting boulevard riding to morning hours is openly defied by wheelmen who continue riding at their pleasure, leaving the mayor threatening to resign.
- Editorial responding to R.J. Mecredy's Irish Cyclist, which accused the 'Chicago Push' of theft and shady dealings, by explaining that the 'push' is no organised entity but an informal social style found in cycling circles in Ireland, England, America, and elsewhere, and inviting Mecredy to visit Chicago and judge its proportion of gentlemen for himself.
- Signed column by 'Bolav' reminiscing about veteran Chicago cycling executives B.B. Ayers, J.O. Blake, and L.W. Conkling, lamenting that the fraternal love of the sport has given way to commercial calculation and 'the generation of hump-backed dinky riders of the present age,' and wishing that more old-timers would reassert their influence in League affairs.
- Practical note from Cycle Record recommending immediate sponging with soap and water, followed by wet cotton wool covered with a thin sheet of pure rubber and several layers of flannel bandage, renewed every two to three hours, as the best treatment for cinder-track abrasions that can otherwise leave permanent scars.
- Miscellaneous news briefs: Jesse Peck of Chico, California, stands 6 feet 8 inches and is an active cyclist; the Lynn, Massachusetts Cycle Co. suffered a $10,000 fire with only $6,000 in insurance; world-tourists Allen and Sachtleben struck a 'norther' near Eastland, Texas and declared Texas roads bad; Colonel Burdett has formed a law partnership in New York.
- Translation of an article from French periodical La Nature explaining why a moving bicycle is self-stabilising: gyroscopic reaction in the spinning front wheel produces a horizontal correcting torque whenever the machine tilts, proportional to wheel speed—the same principle that keeps a metallic top erect once started—with safety manufacturers exploiting this by displacing the centre of gravity of the front fork.
- The famous leather message case used in the relay ride from Chicago to New York—on exhibition in Boston—has been returned to The Bearings office in Chicago, weather-beaten, water-soaked, and with its gilt lettering entirely worn away.
- Local club notes: E.C. Johnson, Cleveland's quarter-mile flyer, is visiting Chicago; A.O. Cooper was elected president of the Minnette Club on March 6 with R.H. Gillespie as new secretary; the Lake View C.C. will stage three one-act plays at Lincoln Turner Hall on April 6; and a new street-cleaning ordinance has passed the Chicago city council.
- Washington D.C. dispatch (March 12) reports local riders waiting for Easter (April 2) when roads should become rideable; the Arlington Wheelmen plan to travel to Baltimore that day to compete in the Clifton Wheelmen's five-mile road race, and a new long-distance road-riding organisation is forming with strong Washington-area interest.
- Feature on the Providence, Rhode Island Ladies' Cycling Club—the first wheelwoman's organisation to join the L.A.W., now three years old—with president Miss Ethel Warner and a named membership list of fifteen including Mrs. O.B. Briggs, Miss Annie Rittmann, and Miss Clara Hall.
- Two Cheyenne, Wyoming cyclists, Fred Thompson and Peter Bergensen, rode onto the prairies, cautiously approached a herd of deer by bicycle, shot two animals, and had a local ranchman carry the game back to Cheyenne.
- A Tokyo correspondent writes to the Kobe Herald describing cycling in Japan: six boys aged 12–14 rode the 17-odd miles from Shimbashi to Yokohama in 2 hours 3 minutes including a stop at Kawasaki, nearly every Japanese city has at least one resident cyclist, and the writer proposes a national bicycle union to record and circulate route reports.
- Compilation of editors' and writers' prescriptions for healthy exercise: J.H. Worman advocates a gymnasium two or three evenings a week; Tello d'Apery credits the Chappaqua Mountain Institute's regimen of regular hours, pure air, wholesome food, and three hours of daily outdoor activity; Ben L. Barrow prefers a long uphill walk; Kate B. Sherwood agrees.
- Minneapolis dealer I.R. Snow, visiting Chicago, reports that city women are keen cyclists—his four daughters all ride and Miss Winnifred (aged 22) is the local L.A.W. consul—while the Business Men's Association of nearly 500 members is the leading cycling body, effective when it meets despite rarely doing so.
- Compilation of newspaper editorials from the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, the Newburyport News, and the Ottawa Trader, each arguing that bicycle manufacturers and riders who agitate for better roads should be taxed proportionately for road improvements rather than shifting the cost to rural farmers who maintain the roads that city cyclists and carriage riders wear out.
- Scientific explanation, reprinted from a Chicago paper, of the fact that the top of a rolling wheel moves at twice the speed of the hub while the contact point at the bottom is instantaneously at rest—demonstrated by a thread-and-spool experiment and a geometric argument that every circle is theoretically a polygon whose successive vertices come to a momentary standstill on the ground.
- Commentary noting that England has held no multi-day cycle race meeting since promoter Cathcart's costly failed American-style three-day tournament in 1886–87, leaving English championship meets looking modest beside the two-day Springfield and Hartford tournaments.
- Brief note on the Cyclist Signal Corps of the First Regiment, Illinois National Guard, numbering seventeen men organised about a year ago by Sergeant H.B. Hart, listing all members by name including Corporals N.E. Turgeon and O.R. Barnett and fifteen privates.
- Miscellaneous news briefs: eight pneumatic-tired omnibuses are running in Glasgow; Atlanta estimates its cycling population at 1,000; the Albany and Fort Orange Wheelmen have consolidated; a Danish Cycle Ring touring club of 1,000 members has formed in Copenhagen; sixteen Macon, Georgia cyclists organised the Central City Cycle Club and are already planning a track and spring tournament.
- Harry D. Squires of the Pittsburgh Cycle Co. tells The Bearings that the planned $100,000 purchase of the American Cycle Co.'s assets and the Chicago Bicycle Co.'s plant has been abandoned after investigation, directly contradicting American Cycle Co.'s John L. Atwater, who had told the paper the deal was closed; Squires also denies the firm ever intended to use the name 'American Raleigh.'
- A prominent Chicago cycle dealer says Saturday is his most profitable day of the week and he cannot afford early closing, while the editor argues that stores benefiting from Saturday custom should give employees a mid-week half-holiday instead, noting that early Saturday closing is not customary in most other cities.
- A southern dealer ('Southerner') responds to a previous Bearings article, arguing that exclusive bicycle agencies only pay where seventy-five or more high-grade machines can be sold per season, otherwise the agency should be consolidated with an established hardware or sporting-goods business, with typewriters as a year-round supplementary line covering the off-season revenue gap.
- Listing of recent U.S. patents in the cycle trade: bicycle whistle (Fred J. Hall, Wallingford, Conn.), velocipede (William H. Fauber, Chicago, assigned half to Henry W. Norton), pedal (Charles F. Pease, Chicago, assigned to Ames & Frost Co.), bell (Page and Sparks, New Haven, assigned to Sargent & Co.), and rubber tire (William Golding, Manchester, assigned to Charles Macintosh & Co.).
- J.I. Warman of Warman & Hazlewood—one of only four English firms still making tricycles (alongside Quadrant Cycle Co., Coventry Machinists' Co., and Marriott & Cooper)—tells The Bearings he will import no tricycles this year because the safety has supplanted the three-wheeler even among ladies, and brands geared ordinaries as a fad for novelty-seekers.
- Trade briefs: N.E. Turgeon of Pope Mfg. Co. returned from western Illinois without meeting a single rival salesman and placed several agencies; R.W. Slusser tours southern agents for the Century Cycle Mfg. Co.'s 28-pound roadster Arrow; O.C.H. Rellihen of A.G. Spalding & Bros. sold thirty-seven Victors last month for cash in southwest Chicago and is negotiating to equip a nine-man club with Overmans.
- Trade correspondence from El Paso (Cleveland wheel most popular, handled by Krakauer, Zork & Moye, who also report demand in Mexico at $275 Mexican for a Cleveland No. 4), San Antonio (Unions, Ramblers, and Clevelands leading, W.E. Roach & Co. selling thirty high-grade wheels), Galveston, Brenham, Palestine, and Houston, all reporting rising cycling interest and growing demand for ladies' wheels in 1893.
- A New York dispatch (March 13) reports a surge of new cycle firms and the installment sales system being widely adopted for 1893; the Remington Arms Co. at 315 Broadway is showing a ladies' wheel (42 lbs.), a roadster (44 lbs.), and a light roadster (32 lbs.) fittable with Bidwell, Whippet, or Morgan & Wright tires, while Alexander Schwalbach of Wilson, Myers & Co. (the Liberty people) has opened a free-lesson riding academy near the park.
- Detailed factory report from an Indianapolis Journal visit to the Indianapolis Rubber Co., tracing para rubber from 50-pound crude Amazonian chunks through thirty minutes of steaming, corrugated-roller washing, six weeks of drying at 140°F, calender-sheeting into strips, naphtha-seaming into inner tubes, soapstone and muslin wrapping, vulcanisation at 40 lbs. steam pressure, and final hydraulic-press moulding at 1,500 lbs. to produce the finished pneumatic tire.
- Charles E. Duryea replies to J.F. Palmer in an ongoing tire-design debate, arguing that the most flexible fabric best harnesses the air's natural resiliency, that threads encircling the tube in parallel and positively knotted where they touch provide ideal strength and durability without cutting each other, and that high air pressure produces the fastest recoil.
- J.F. Palmer closes the pneumatic tire design exchange by clarifying that 'softness' in his usage means ease of depression under internal pressure rather than fabric flexibility, explaining his 'tangential thread' arrangement geometrically as lines drawn at right angles to radial lines of the tube cross-section, and conceding that he and Duryea are not far apart on the core requirements of the perfect tire.
- Trade and cycling briefs: Clement & Co. of France ordered 15,000 Dunlop tires; Clinton Sawyer of Savannah is building a naphtha-engine bicycle with a six- or seven-pound engine expected to run ten hours on one pint of fuel; E.J. Hueffner, winner of last year's Waukesha road race, is now travelling for the Racine Bicycle Co.; and dealers in Savannah and Atlanta are the first in Georgia to attempt cycle manufacturing.
- The White Star freight steamship Naronic, which sailed from Liverpool on February 11 carrying Premier helical-tube bicycles valued at $12,000, is nearly a month overdue with no word received; the Premier Cycle Co. is insured and its regular weekly arrivals have prevented business inconvenience, but the vessel's fate remains unknown.
- Feature on the Holmes Company of Boston, whose knitted cycling apparel—including new No. 811 bloomers with patent seat and heavy rib—has achieved national fame; company representative T. Gerry tells a Bearings visitor that factory capacity will be doubled this season after a stock company was formed in early 1892, with Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co. among the Chicago distributors.
- Trade feature on Warwick bicycles handled by Thorsen & Cassady Co. of Chicago, describing the 34-pound Model A road scorcher (stripped to 29 lbs., $150), the 31-pound Model B for shorter riders, and the new 34-pound ladies' Warwick geared to 52 or 57 inches at $150, all marketed under Kennedy-Child's slogan 'built on honor.'
- English cycle manufacturers complain that fierce price competition among pedal makers has degraded quality so severely that many prominent builders now make their own pedals rather than buy from the trade, unable to find any commercial product good enough for their high-grade machines.
- F.P. McHatdy of 3223 Indiana Avenue, Chicago, describes his spring-frame safety bicycle, which uses a leaf spring from the steering head to supports above the rear wheel and two U-shaped springs at the sprocket axle box, holding both wheels rigidly parallel while providing smooth vertical spring travel with no rattling joints in the frame.