The Bearings, Vol 8, No 22
Articles in this issue
- Daily dispatches from Madison Square Garden cover the opening and progress of the six-day professional race, with Frank Waller breaking the 24-hour indoor record at 401 miles and Schock, Martin, and Albert staging a three-way battle for the lead through nearly seventy-two hours.
- Paris correspondent Albert Roux reports that H.C. Wheeler, C.F. Barden, E. Oxborrow, and A.V. Linton are arriving for the Liberal Arts indoor track winter season, while a proposed 1,000-kilometer match between Corre and Stephane is under negotiation for January.
- Senator Hoar presents Col. Albert Pope's massive Good Roads petition—1,400 yards long, bearing 150,000 signatures from governors, state legislatures, and chambers of commerce, mounted on a 600-pound bicycle—to the U.S. Senate, where it is referred to the Committee on Interstate Commerce.
- The Milwaukee Wheelmen continue to block formation of a city Association of Cycling Clubs by refusing to yield control of race meets; the Mercury Club's annual election is marked by Edward Meisenheimer's withdrawal as presidential candidate to avoid discord over his dual membership.
- Boston letter reports that L.A.W. Massachusetts Chief Consul Perkins reshuffled division committees, demoting J.S. Dean from the rights and privileges chairmanship and reassigning opponents of his re-election to minor roles, while expanding the racing board from three to five members under Henry W. Robinson.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung covers the Stanley Club's Bohemian concert attended by 320 cyclists, a Society of Arts lecture comparing granite, wood, and asphalt road pavements, the formation of a Professional Cycling Union with £30,000 capital, and English riders signing with French firms for the Paris indoor racing season.
- Isaac B. Potter publishes an open letter to all L.A.W. members demanding that whoever circulated the story that he fraudulently altered the Roads Improvement Bureau management contract come forward publicly, prove the charge, or be exposed as a slanderer.
- Editor George K. Barrett rebuts rival editor F.A. Egan's downgrading of The Bearings in his paper's rankings, asserting that The Bearings carries 20 percent more advertising than any competitor and has more than twice the paid circulation of any other American cycling journal, daring Egan to submit to a public verification.
- Editorial argues that while the number of Black L.A.W. members is negligible, the organization stands to lose Southern membership if Black men remain eligible; concludes that barring Black members is the pragmatic course because the League has nothing to lose and much to gain in the rapidly expanding South.
- Mixed column praises The Referee's and Cycling Life's Christmas issues, profiles Springfield cycling photographer George H. Van Norman whose half-tones appeared in the Christmas Bearings, reports inventor Matt Ziegler's claim to have ridden a mile under two minutes on his seven-foot-wheeled machine, and notes that a Brazilian royal prince rode as a pacemaker in French road races.
- Feature reprinted from the English journal Cycling (signed "Graphis") argues that while women may enjoy long and fast rides for personal pleasure, competitive racing and public record-breaking carry conditions—pacemakers, public training, crowd scenes, and commercial exploitation—that are incompatible with feminine propriety.
- Satirical editorial compares the manufacturer-sponsored racing amateur to exploited labor, arguing that the absence of any fixed wage scale and the practice of paying faster riders more is an outrage on honest labor, and warns makers that the Racing Board's two-year campaign signals a coming reckoning.
- Editorial uses ballot-stuffing in the Missouri L.A.W. state election—with threats of federal prosecution—to argue that the League is maturing into real politics, though the fraud exposes a dangerous gap: no rule exists to punish election irregularities within the organization.
- Trade editorial concludes that despite the publicity around Pope Mfg. Co.'s new $125 standard Columbia, the finest 1894 bicycles—Columbia semi-racer, Victor top model, Fowler, Stearns—will still list at $150, confirming The Bearings' earlier prediction that premium models would not fall below that price.
- Detailed review of the Pope Mfg. Co.'s seven 1894 Columbia models (34 through 39 and 33), ranging from the 29-lb. Model 34 roadster at $125 to the 19.5-lb. Model 33 racer at $160, with the new Century Columbia (Model 36), a 21.5-lb. semi-racer (Model 37) at $150, and special tall-rider models 38 and 39 also featured.
- Springfield, Mass. dispatch reports that R. Philip Gormully has given the Overman Wheel Co. an option on a G. & J. tire patent license; the maker of the Victor is still considering it, with chances of adoption described as about even.
- Bearings reporter interviews Gormully & Jeffery manufacturer R. Philip Gormully at his expanding North Side factory; he defends horse-paced records as legitimate, advocates Buffalo as the ideal permanent cycle show city, confirms the Pope G. & J. tire deal, and says the Rambler catalogue is delayed two weeks because of the World's Fair.
- New York dispatch reports that R. Philip Gormully and H. Elton of Charles Macintosh & Co. Ltd. met at the Everett House to avert patent litigation over their nearly identical clincher tires; no deal was reached, Macintosh halted its U.S. advertising, and Elton sailed for England looking like a sadly disappointed man.
- Western Wheel Works announces 1894 Crescent bicycle prices from $40 for a 24-inch model to $75 for the 30-inch leader, with matching ladies' and juvenile lines, positioning the Crescent as the leading affordable bicycle on the market.
- The cycle exhibit at the Augusta, Ga. Exposition attracted daily crowds of 50,000; Central Cycle's J.H. Cody secured the standout order—300 wheels for the Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co. to equip linemen across 53 exchanges between Richmond and Mobile—while Ramblers, Columbias, Victors, and Raleighs were also shown.
- Milwaukee railroad man John S. George purchases all Sercombe-Bolte Mfg. Co. assets at auction for $5,000 and plans to reorganize as the Telegram Bicycle Mfg. Co. with $100,000 capital; the failed company, whose chief promotion was W.C. Sanger's racing victories, carried $80,000 in liabilities against less than $20,000 in assets.
- Technical description of W.H. Bright of Morrow, Ohio's variable-gear invention: a sprocket-wheel with planetary gears and a double-feathered pedal shaft that lets a rider shift among three power ratios—including a 3:1 climbing reduction and a coasting mode—without dismounting.
- Detailed description of 1894 improvements to the Gormully & Jeffery clincher tire, including a new Sea Island cotton lining fabric claimed to be five times more durable than any previously tried, easier rim removal by sideways pressure, a new latch-style valve-stem holder, and straightened corrugations.