The Bearings, Vol 8, No 20
Articles in this issue
- Zimmerman is defeated in a consolation race at the Augusta, Ga. three-day meet by heavyweight John Burke; A.L. and G.A. Banker dominated most other events, and Zimmerman paced a flying half-mile in 1:00 2/5 behind the Banker brothers on a tandem.
- Missouri Division board passes a vote of confidence in H.A. Canfield amid newspaper charges and appoints a committee to investigate election frauds; Massachusetts Division board prepares delegate elections for the National Assembly in Louisville, with fifteen seats contested.
- The International Cyclists' Association meets in London and selects Brussels (Ligue Velocipedique Beige) for the 1894 championships; Frans Netcher is elected ICA president and Henry Sturmey is re-elected honorary secretary.
- Dirnberger reduces the flying mile record to 1:51 and Bliss sets a new standing mile of 1:54 4/5 at Birmingham, Ala., paced by running horses behind wind screens; multiple intermediate records from the eighth-mile to three-quarters were broken across three days of trials at the Birmingham Fair Association track.
- At San Jose, Cal., W. F. Edwards, without a pacemaker, rides 100 yards from a standing start in :08 3-5, cutting a fifth of a second off Bliss's mark set at Nashville and beating Johnson's Independence time as well.
- C.W. Hartung reports from London: the Leicestershire NCU revokes A.W. Harris's amateur license; Battersea Park cycle track proposed by southwest London riders; N.E. Kauffman wins the Stanley show trick-riding championship over Doring and Brunner; Bicycling News seeks a new editor after E.H. Godbold moves to launch The Cycle with R.J. Mecredy.
- An Association of Cycling Clubs of Milwaukee is organized at the Mercury Club with four clubs represented (Milwaukee Wheelmen, Mercury, North Side, Bay View); a committee drafts a constitution and will control the Waukesha-Milwaukee road race and prohibit Sunday racing.
- A Kansas City club run to Waldo Park ends in a chain collision when cyclists following racing trotters on Troost Avenue are caught in a buggy smash; rider Tibbs hits a telegraph pole but none are seriously hurt.
- Fremont, Ohio cycling club, with about 75 members, elects new officers for 1894 including President P.J. Gottron, and reports strong growth in public favor; riders have been granted licensed sidewalk privileges.
- Annual meeting of the Minnesota LAW division at Temple Court, Minneapolis, installs Chief Consul Knowlton, announces committee appointments covering rights and privileges, highway improvement, racing, and transportation, and selects Minneapolis for the next wheelmen's meet.
- Fourteen entries received for the Madison Square Garden six-day race, December 24-30, including Dawson Fornwalt, Albert Schock, Frank Fuller, and others; the track is under construction and open for training December 19; foreign entries are still expected.
- Iowa division officers meet in Cedar Rapids, report the organization in good shape, and select Oskaloosa for the next annual tournament; A.V. Linton of England is determined to turn professional and raid Europe.
- The Bearings editorializes that Denver deserves the 1894 LAW meet over Asbury Park and San Francisco, crediting Denver's energetic boosters since the Washington meet, fine Colorado scenery and roads, and the argument that western members deserve an accessible annual gathering.
- Editorial: despite America's fine preparations for the 1893 international meet, foreign nations failed to compete; the ICA's London meeting was poorly attended with only Belgium bidding for 1894; The Bearings urges Sturmey and colleagues to make the Brussels meet a success and calls for America to send a strong team.
- Editorial praising Dirnberger's 1:51 flying mile and Bliss's 1:54 4/5 standing mile at Birmingham; calls on the LAW Racing Board to reverse its refusal to accept horse-paced records, warning that England will catch up if the slower multi-rider-paced figures are allowed to stand.
- Regular department: an English electrical race timer with inked-point cylinder and bell is described; A.C. Banker's 1891 first twenty-miles-in-an-hour safety record is recalled; mismatched fast and slow tires produce a comic telescoping frame; New York promoters Freedman and Sanger plan twelve days of cash-prize racing at Madison Square Garden; the bicycle's effect on Denver streetcar revenues is quoted from the Denver Times.
- A.G. Roux reports from Paris: the press denounces the Cody-Meyer 12-hour race (Cody won by eight miles on ten relay horses) and the Cody-Fournier/Gaby tandem match as staged; Terront's new 400-foot banked Paris riding school holds a comic parody of the Cody matches; the new winter board track at the Champ de Mars Liberal Arts Palace hosts its first races with Dubois-Kuhling winning the one-hour tandem event.
- The Cleveland Lakeside Club's annual ball draws 300 couples to a rink decorated in orange and black with birdcages suspended from the roof; the Cleveland Wheel Club reorganizes as the Cleveland Wheel Club Co., with Pop Skinkle retiring after three years; the C.W.C. football team defeats a scrub eleven in the clubhouse ballroom.
- Cincinnati wheelmen successfully stage the pantomime 'Bicyclysto' at Music Hall to aid the unemployed; the fairy-tale plot features Cycleteen queen of the fairies, gnomes forging bicycles, the arch-demon Punctiremon, and a real bicycle race on stage, with Miss Winifrede Hunt riding a silver-plated wheel to sustained cheering.
- Harry C. Wheeler has arrived in England via Liverpool, met Bowden in Nottingham, and plans to race in Paris in February; Bavarian champion Fred Forester, who won 179 first prizes in 1893, trains in New York for the six-day race; Kings County Wheelmen's special clubhouse meeting collapses for lack of general member interest.
- Signed 'Belmont': a humorous dream narrative in which Denver defeats Asbury Park in a football game to secure the 1894 LAW meet; actual news includes the Denver Cyclists' Union completing three-lap cinder track contracts at Broadway Athletic Park and the Colorado division organizing to fight a proposed $5 annual bicycle license tax affecting 7,000 riders.
- Chicago Century Wheelman Amos G. Moore fits his Fowler safety with a bridge-and-axle attachment that converts it to a tricycle in five minutes using two 26-inch wheels; he has ridden fifteen centuries including the De Soto hills and intends to ride a century on the machine.
- W.W. Watts, ex-chief consul of Kentucky, will likely decline the LAW first vice-presidency despite being practically assured of election, citing inability to neglect his business duties.
- John Griffiths Cycle Corporation Ltd. forms in England with £200,000 capital, acquiring cycle agencies from Humber, Raleigh, Singer, Premier, Coventry Machinists, Dunlop, and many others; no American manufacturers have joined the trust, which faces an uphill struggle establishing a foothold in the American market.
- Manhattan Rubber Mfg. Co. incorporated in Passaic, N.J. by Frank Cazenove Jones and Elliott Burris introduces the 'Simplicity No. 47' detachable tire held in the rim by an elastic rubber circle—no cement, lacing, or mechanical fastening—with covers interchangeable between 1½, 1¾, and 2-inch widths.
- W. C. Rankin & Co., of Providence, R. I., improve their 1894 toe clip by elongating the bolt hole into a slot so the clip can be raised or lowered on the pedal as needed.
- Four Chicago cycle trade men take new positions: Robert Slusser (ex-Century Cycle Mfg.) joins Shapleigh Hardware (St. Louis) to manage 2,000 Syracuse Cycle wheels; W.C. Anderson moves to Hartford Cycle; A.L. Collins to C.F. Guyon Co. (New York); H.F. Howard joins Pope Mfg. Co. at Hartford.
- The Garford Mfg. Co. names a new 1894 saddle after champion Zimmerman; Vice-President Follansbee reports trade is brisk with large numbers of orders already received for '94 goods, and the Garford saddle is now known coast to coast as a top-quality article.
- Philadelphia National Cycle Show attracts strong trade support with several new firms taking space; Sid Black and Charles G. Kilpatrick engaged for daily trick riding; Union Cycle Mfg. Co. secures additional space for its largest-ever exhibit.
- Signed 'Will o' the Wisp' from London: the Crystal Palace National Cycle Show opens with 256 exhibitors—about two-thirds of the Stanley show—dominated by Humber, Raleigh, and Coventry Machinists; Humber shows skeleton fork crown and swinging backstays; Raleigh's stand features a phonograph of Zimmerman's voice and a portrait gallery of racing celebrities; Dunlop displays the original first-ever pneumatic tires.
- Louis Rosenfeld of Columbia School of Mines demonstrates a two-speed gear attachment for any chain bicycle; the rider changes gears mid-ride via a small reel on the upper tube, maintaining a constant 100:75 ratio between high and low gears, adding only 1½ to 2½ pounds.
- The Eclipse Bicycle Co.'s new top-grade 1894 wheel, listing at $125, is aimed squarely at competing with the best high-grade machines on the market, with agents confident they can both show and sell it against anything produced.
- The defunct George R. Bidwell Cycle Co. transfers all rights to manufacture and sell the Tourist to the new Bidwell-Tinkham Cycle Co., which will push the easy-running, long-popular road wheel next year.
- The Anglo-American Iron & Metal Co. introduces a Perry & Co. drop-forged bottom bracket with an automatically locked, adjustable chain wheel that lets a rider swap sprockets in seconds without the expense of the old-style bracket.
- Gormully & Jeffery Mfg. Co. grants B.F. Goodrich Co. of Akron, Ohio a license to manufacture and sell G. & J. pneumatic tires; the tires will also remain available through Hartford Rubber Works, Pope Mfg. Co., and Columbia Rubber Co.
- W. Montague Perrett, ex-clerk-of-the-course and now representative of the Raleigh Cycle Co., is in Chicago this week at the Wellington showing samples of his saddles, tubing, and parts.
- Madison Square Garden cycle show is fully rented; twenty-six large boxes are being floored for additional exhibit space; performers Maltby, Sid Black, and the Stirk family (three ladies, two gentlemen) are engaged for afternoon and evening shows; the committee is advertising widely to the general public.
- Rich & Sager Co. introduce the Sager track racer saddle with a direct post tilting to any angle and a threaded clamp on a square Jessup tool-steel rod; the L-post is eliminated, positioning the rider over the pedals for light 'built to reach' wheels.
- The Trunk Line Association rejects Chairman Hare's application for reduced railroad fares to the Philadelphia cycle show and similarly refuses Madison Square Garden's request, citing association rules against fare reductions for meetings of this nature.
- John F. Palmer visits St. Louis and closes a contract with the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co. for 3,000 sets of Palmer tires to be fitted exclusively on their Lu-mi-num aluminum bicycles.