The Bearings, Vol 7, No 8
Articles in this issue
- New York dispatches defend Isaac B. Potter and the L.A.W. Good Roads bureau against the Referee's misleading questions about circulation; Potter responds vigorously, producing a receipted bill showing 30,000 copies were printed for January 1892 and calling the Massachusetts resolution ill-timed.
- The Maryland Bicycle Club is accused by Baltimore's Associated Cycling Clubs of obtaining a race-meet sanction underhandedly; Racing Board Chairman Raymond must travel to Baltimore to bring accusers and accused face to face, with Baltimore tradesmen petitioning against the Maryland Club.
- F. W. Gerould angrily refutes a rival paper's sensational claim that an error in the Chicago Base Ball Club track contract would cost cycling investors, explaining that subscribers will be reimbursed in full with six-percent interest and that the Ball Club assumes a $30,000 responsibility under the arrangement.
- The Bearings endorses the National Columbian United Wheelmen's Association club house at 5717–19 Madison Avenue after investigation, detailing its 300-person capacity, wheel storage for 500, membership fee of $5.25, and room rates of $1–$3.50 per day; notes on vice-president Sheridan's sub-executive committee meetings and Tennessee anger over the negro-exclusion defeat at Philadelphia.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago finalize preparations for the Pullman road race: S. A. Miles is elected handicapper at 15 cents per entry, arm-numbering replaces back-numbering, the start moves to 9 a.m., and the Pullman Athletic Club will erect a grandstand at the finish; the Peacock Bros. pitch-pine wood surface at Herne Hill is also described.
- Zimmerman's stay in Brunswick, Georgia sparks a cycling craze with over a hundred new riders in a week; a Savannah correspondent describes the world champion's modest appearance, ten pounds of excess weight, and his prediction that Savannah will attract professionals from around the world.
- Brief illustrated profile of Francisque Sarcey, veteran French journalist who mastered the velocipede before Michaux invented the pedal and long championed cycling through eloquent articles in the French press.
- The Bay City Wheelmen of San Francisco narrowly win the California Division L.A.W. meet after a bitter fight, having enrolled 380 new League members to out-vote rival clubs; other California clubs have protested that many of those recruits do not actually ride wheels.
- Standing editorial statement: The Bearings positions itself as the rider's paper serving manufacturer, dealer, and rider alike, claiming circulation far above any other independent cycling journal as proof that the theory works.
- The Bearings notes that its March 10 issue contained 53.5 pages of advertising, one and a half pages more than any other American cycling paper of that date, alongside varied reading matter friends call unmatched.
- The Century Road Club proposes repeating the famous New York–Chicago relay ride, with the first rider leaving New York at noon on August 3 so the last couriers can reach Michigan Avenue, Chicago before noon on August 6—covering 1,000 miles in under 75 hours, timed to coincide with the League meet opening; General Miles is said to strongly favor the plan.
- The Bearings urges the sub-executive committee to apply for a special Wheelmen's Day at the World's Fair between August 1 and 12, noting that Colonel Culp has already assigned special days to the Catholic Knights, Foresters, and other organizations.
- Character sketch of cycling adventurer Tom Roe, who publicly complained in a Philadelphia paper of friends who deserted him after he went broke in New York and is now training for a cross-continent ride; The Bearings declines to join the resulting sensation but vouches for Roe's personal honesty.
- The Bearings rebukes a "queerly verbose" rival paper for announcing without any basis that Gerould had discovered an error in the Chicago Base Ball Club track contract, calling the story a deliberate sensational lie harmful to the track fund's investors.
- L.A.W. membership chairman Pennell decides to expel George K. Barrett and L. D. Munger for signing professional Harry Leeming's League application as a practical test of the form's laxness; The Bearings sympathizes with the pair—particularly Munger, who had previously lost and painfully regained his membership—while not condemning the committee's action.
- Regular editorial column of short commentary: Wilmington scorchers adopt pneumatics; French hero worship at the Terront-Corre race devolves into brawling and the theft of thirty wheels; Chicago's muddy streets; L.A.W. president Burdett faulted for omitting the 50-cent-per-member proviso when citing a $25,000 Good Roads franchise offer; Senator Morgan credited with burying the shamateurism question at Philadelphia.
- Chief Consul Gerould describes his bimonthly trips to Springfield, accompanied by road committee chairman Connelly and Vice-Consul Billingsley, to lobby Illinois legislators for road improvement; he identifies the state constitution's ban on appropriations and an anti-road farming bloc in Sangamon County as the chief obstacles.
- The Bearings announces a free 30-day Tourist Accident Policy from the Metropolitan Accident Association of Chicago for subscribers, offering a $1,000 death benefit and $50 monthly disability indemnity; directors include J. C. Tucker of the C.C.C. & St. L. Ry. and J. S. Gadsen of Aetna Fire.
- The Chicago Racing Wheelmen have secured an eight-room house on Humboldt Boulevard fitted with a gymnasium, bath rooms, café, and sleeping quarters on the West Side road course, and adopted strict qualifying times—quarter in :45 up to ten miles in 45:00—for active membership.
- A Chicago scheme to charge cyclists $20 to store wheels or buggies near the World's Fair grounds, backed by unnamed prominent Chicagoans, quietly collapsed after circulars were distributed and nothing further was heard.
- Invitations have been issued for a proposed downtown Chicago club room for cyclists only, offering reduced-rate meals, billiard tables, and a general lounging place; applications to E. H. Wilcox, 287 Wabash Avenue.
- Short department: Tom Roe goes south to train for his transcontinental ride; Bay City Wheelmen and Acme Club plan a 100-mile relay around San Francisco Bay on April 30; Beconnais claims a world record of 116 miles in six hours on a geared ordinary in France; Mecredy will spend two months in America.
- London correspondent C. W. Hartung reports that the Cyclists' Touring Club annual meeting at the Covent Garden Hotel drew only 60 of 17,000 members and fell below pettiness, membership having fallen nearly 2,000 last year; English track news covers Paddington's permanent rescue, the Herne Hill wood surface expected by month's end, and the planned Catford cement track opening Easter 1894.
- New York column: Luscomb's presidential ambitions are said to be practically dead; President Byrne of the National Cyclists' Association surveys Eastern Park for a three-lap Brooklyn track; the Manhattan Bicycle Club elects C. A. Sheehan president; Luscomb's quick appointment of T. Raisbeck as N.Y. Division secretary-treasurer following De Graaf's death is defended; the surviving dozen members of the old New York Bicycle Club hold a theatre party at Tony Pastor's.
- Melbourne correspondent "Dingo" praises The Bearings' Christmas number, reports a remarkable double tie (39 points each, twice) in the South District–Fitzroy road premiership race-off, ridicules a plan for two Englishmen to ride bicycles across Australia through cannibal territory, and discusses Singer's new Melbourne riding school and the poor performance of the elliptical sprocket wheel.
- Boston cyclists plan a relay ride starting April 30, carrying a message from Governor Russell to Governor Altgeld in ten-mile relays over the same route as last year's famous ride; Capt. A. D. Peck coordinates the Boston–New York leg, drawing riders from clubs including the Springfield Bicycle Club, Hartford Wheel Club, and Rover Club of New Haven.
- Trade analyst W. A. Shockley surveys 1893 bicycle market conditions: new makers flood the field with extreme discounting that favors retail dealers over jobbers; hardware and agricultural merchants undercut regular cycle agents; an $85 wheel is openly retailed at $62.50 in one western city, and the outlook for profits is uncertain despite record sales volumes.
- Providence's Mr. Tillinghast of the Tillinghast Pneumatic Tire Co. secures new patents he believes give exclusive control over all single-tube hose pipe pneumatic tires, explicitly covering the Columbia/Pope Company's design; he plans to expand facilities and predicts 1894 will be a single-tube year.
- At an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in Dublin, chairman Ducros of the Pneumatic Tyre and Booth's Cycle Agency (Dunlop tire makers) offers the remaining 5,000 unsold shares of a £50,000 expanded capital stock pro rata at a £1 and £11 premium, emphatically denying that the company's American rights were sold or that a sale to an English syndicate is contemplated.
- The Garford Mfg. Co.'s motion for a preliminary injunction against Bretz & Curtis Mfg. Co. for infringing Garford's saddle patents was argued before Judge Dallas in Philadelphia on March 15, with no decision yet reached.
- J. A. Hunt & Co. of Westborough, Mass. and the Garford Mfg. Co. settle their patent suits amicably: Hunt takes a license under Garford's patents while Garford receives a license under some of Hunt's, ending costly litigation and protecting both firms' customers.
- John L. Atwater disputes H. D. Squires' announcement that the deal between a Pittsburgh syndicate and the American Cycle Co. of Chicago has fallen through, insisting the definite sale stands until twelve promissory notes totaling $100,000 are paid.
- Detailed report on cycle manufacturers' space allotments in the World's Fair Transportation Building: Pope Mfg. Co. plans a $5,000–$8,000 grilled glass pavilion; Ames & Frost and Overman will also have costly exhibits; smaller makers including the Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. and Stover Bicycle refused inadequate allotments; a numbered floor plan lists 58 American exhibitor spaces, from Mcintosh-Huntington Co. to Bradshaw Mfg. Co.
- Chicago's retail bicycle trade is brisk in late March 1893, with Cycle Row dealers reporting multiple cash sales daily; St. Patrick's Day proved especially strong for Sieg, Marble, and Gormully & Jeffery, the latter's downtown branch selling 1,500 lamps wholesale in one day.
- Obituary for George E. Lloyd, president of George E. Lloyd & Co. of Chicago, who died at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin on March 16 after five months of nervous illness; a mechanical genius who built his business from poverty and was among the first Chicago dealers to offer very light Centaur bicycles for general use.
- George T. Robie of the Excelsior Supply Co. joins the James Cycle Importing Co. and moves it into roomier quarters at 250–252 Wabash Avenue; Harry James is working overtime in England to fill 1893 Chicago orders.
- Profile of Adolph Schoeninger, president of the Western Wheel Works, praised by Chicago dealers as a model financier who built one of the largest bicycle-producing concerns in the country and also serves as a director of Thorsen & Cassady Co.
- E. D. Kenyon of the Kenyon Cycle Co., Des Moines, visits Chicago to show photographs of his Pacemaker bicycle—a 35-pound road wheel that strips to 32, plus a 27-pound model under construction—and to recruit factory workers for the company's planned 350-machine run.
- Short trade notes from Chicago: Stokes Mfg. Co. receives new bloomer suits; Henry Sears Co. handling Phantoms; Quadrant parts stolen by petty thieves; S. H. Gorham of Royal Cycle Works has completed a 17-pound Royal Limited; Harry Hanford of Mcintosh-Huntington praises Denver's roads and cycling trade; 73 different makes of wheels are represented in Chicago.
- Trade correspondent from Rochester and Buffalo: Rochester builders producing 18-pound racers and Bettys & Smith claim a 16-pound road machine stood up to months of use; at Buffalo, the Queen City Cycle Co. is building a new wheel called the Erie, while J. S. Bretz, Harry Lozier, and Neff are all in town.
- Translated from La Nature, a detailed description of French bicycle manufacturing in a Paris factory: felloe-curving machines with three rollers, American-designed electric welding machines that fuse rim joints without a trace, felloe boring machines that drill all spoke holes simultaneously, and the sequence of enameling and spoke-truing that finishes each wheel.
- Short trade notes: Boston medal maker John Harriott working on new club pin designs; the Metropolitan Cycle Co.'s Neversink uses triangular tube arrangement for rigidity; Gendron Iron Wheel Co.'s Little Scorcher offers pneumatic tires at $35; J. P. Lovell Arms Co. reports strong demand for the Lovell Diamond; W. E. Sanborn of Boston, a former diamond setter, is turning out a few wheels.
- Charles E. Duryea has devised a pneumatic tire fastening using a flat metal strip that locks the tire's thickened flanges against the rim when inflated and allows quick removal when deflated; a late note observes that an essentially identical English patent was granted to E. J. Pippet in March 1892.
- The Detachable Cleat Co. of Allston, Mass. introduces a racing shoe weighing 5.5 ounces made of soft Dongola calf leather without toe caps, with tapered cleats that allow quick, sure pedal engagement without sharp corners.
- The Vincent Cycle Mfg. Co. of Buffalo plans to produce 1,000 machines in 1893, working day and night to meet orders; the Model A features 28-inch wheels, 43-inch wheelbase, music wire spokes, dust-proof bearings, and orange rims, priced at $150.
- Feature compiling health and exercise routines from prominent journalists: William J. Bok (Bok Syndicate Press) favors cold baths and alcohol rubs; Emma Trapper of the Brooklyn Standard Union recommends moderation in eating above all; P. V. De Graw of the United Press takes daily sponge baths and brisk morning walks; Edward W. Bok (Ladies' Home Journal) says sleep surpasses all other exercise for him.