The Bearings, Vol 8, No 26
Articles in this issue
- Howard E. Raymond, chairman of the L.A.W. Racing Board, tells a Bearings correspondent that the board will recommend adopting Class A and Class B amateurs at the Louisville National Assembly, while dismissing concerns that manufacturers will exploit the system by placing paid men in Class A.
- London correspondent C. W. Hartung reports on severe snow and frost paralyzing London traffic, Sunday cycling excursions on the Ripley road, the Stanley Club New Year supper, and The Bearings Christmas number's admiring reception among English wheelmen.
- A Boston cycling correspondent argues that Massachusetts, holding one-fifth of the L.A.W.'s membership and capable of staging the largest wheel parade ever seen (2,500 wheels at the May 1893 spring meet), deserves the 1894 national meet over rival bids from Asbury Park and Denver.
- Philadelphia news covers the Century Wheelmen's sell-out week-long minstrel show managed by E. H. Collins, the Park Avenue Wheelmen's planned Midway Plaisance, pre-show excitement over the upcoming Philadelphia cycle show, and Thomas Hare's re-election as Century Wheelmen president.
- Kansas City cyclists have enjoyed a mild winter of uninterrupted Sunday runs and moonlight rides, including regular century runs to Paola, Kansas, with W. W. Jacques and O. C. Mandeville among those completing the distance.
- The Alameda (California) Bicycle and Athletic Club faces collapse, with membership fallen from 150 to 40 and creditors threatening to seize their $1,500 track built on a five-year land lease.
- Milwaukee's federated labor unions unanimously endorse the Coxey Bill's $500 million federal highway improvement plan, while the article argues that national government management produces far superior roads than local or county control, with California counties moving toward road-improvement bond issues and Des Moines Wheelmen organizing charity efforts.
- The Des Moines Cycling Club plans a grand charity ball aimed at raising $1,000 for associated charities, with W. C. Harbach re-elected president by nearly eighty votes and mild winter weather allowing nearly continuous riding since Christmas.
- The editors signal that The Bearings Publishing Company may bid to become the L.A.W.'s official organ at the Louisville National Assembly, arguing the League deserves a genuinely first-class paper and that the current Wheelman Company contract has steadily lost money.
- Editorial survey of the major amendments before the February Louisville meeting, including the two-class amateur rule, the insertion of the word 'white' to draw the color line in membership, the official organ contract, salary for the president, and structural reforms to League governance.
- The L.A.W. Racing Board blacklists the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Turners Falls, Massachusetts, for failing to deliver prizes promised at their May 30, 1893 cycling events, barring them from future race sanctions until their promises are made good.
- Regular department covering Zimmerman's 1893 prize haul totaling $11,848 across 32 meets in five countries; the comic tale of Samuel Snell of the Snell Cycle Fittings Co. stranded in borrowed clothes after his Pullman car was detached at Buffalo; musings on racing men emigrating to Europe; the Kings County Wheelmen's 483-member historical roster; libel suits between The Wheel and the American Wheelman; 'Quilla Rich training near Boston for 1894; and enthusiastic British press tributes to The Bearings Christmas number from Cycling, the Scottish Cyclist, the Irish Cyclist, and the Canadian Wheelman.
- Satirical column in which the Idler mock-interviews a bicycle-riding Madame Patti at the Auditorium Hotel, recounts amateur cyclist Harry Wheeler's comic misadventures in European capitals—mistaken by Paris police for a suspect, baffled by German place-names—and offers cycling puns and reveries on summer roads.
- Editorial warning dealers that manufacturers and supply houses, scarred by 1893's disastrous season, are holding back stock and watching credits carefully; retailers who fail to secure orders early may be unable to fill demand when the season opens.
- Editorial urging cycle manufacturers to track which of the thirty-five to forty cycling papers actually generate sales rather than spreading budgets indiscriminately, predicting that careful bookkeeping will show The Bearings leads on results.
- All space at the fourth National Cycle Show in Philadelphia is sold out; the article previews entertainers including the Stirk family, Sid Black, and Charles Kilpatrick, notes the Germania orchestra's promenade concerts, and reports that Philadelphia papers have given the show unprecedented lay-press coverage.
- E. H. Sperry of the Sperry Cycle Co. files two $150,000 suits—against Pope Mfg. Co. and their Denver agent James Joyce Jr.—for false imprisonment and slander after being briefly jailed on a charge of misappropriating Pope bicycles, a charge subsequently dismissed by Justice of the Peace Morse.
- Colonel Albert Pope tells a Bearings correspondent that the proposed cycle trade association will not regulate guarantees or prices, that voting rights will be proportional to stock investment, and that the country's forty-odd cycling papers must be drastically reduced to four—one each in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago.
- Sterling Cycle Works agent E. C. Bode reports from a fourteen-day Mexican trip that American bicycles are virtually unknown there, cheap old-fashioned English machines dominate, locals are ignorant of pneumatic tire repair, and hotel conditions are prison-like cells with adobe walls.
- New York correspondent reports that the Madison Square Garden cycle show drew well-to-do non-riders who are likely new customers for 1894, while dealers are tightening installment-credit terms, the Geo. R. Bidwell Cycle Co. is dissolved with a permanent receiver named, and D. H. Dorsett exhibits a hand-and-foot-powered bicycle at the show.
- George W. Marble of the Indiana Novelty Mfg. Co. argues that the lapped or skived splice joints used in most wooden bicycle rims fail when wet because spoke tension slides them apart, and proposes an interlocking square joint—analogous to a keystone arch—that grows stronger as spoke tension increases.
- E. C. Stearns & Co. introduce the 21.5-pound Stearns Special road wheel listed at $150 and the 26-pound Model A at $125, both fitted with new light hubs, Stearns wooden rims, and improved dust-proof bearings.
- A correspondent surveys the 1894 Texas cycle market across Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio, finding dealers stocking Ramblers, Columbias, and Victors for an expected surge in business driven partly by Bliss and Dirnberger's record runs at Birmingham stimulating racing interest throughout the south.
- S. W. Merrihew argues that hardware and sporting-goods houses which cut bicycle prices freely undermine the entire trade, while exclusive cycle dealers who hold rigidly to list price—even at the cost of lost sales during the 1893 Warwick collapse—protect manufacturer reputation and long-term profitability.
- Reviews the 1894 catalogues of Overman Wheel Co. (featuring the Victoria tilting ladies' saddle), Marble Cycle Mfg. Co. (Smalley models at $125–$150), American Dunlop Tire Co. (with a detailed account of Para rubber manufacture and vulcanization), Gendron Iron Wheel Co. (Buckeye tire, Toledo Cadet military endorsement), and Spaulding Machine Screw Co.
- Department of brief trade and personnel notes including Overman Victor agency assignments in Chicago, New York, and Boston; the Kingsland Wood Rim Co. suing multiple manufacturers for one-piece rim patent infringement; Gormully & Jeffery's major Philadelphia show preparations; A. J. Cahill joining The Referee's eastern New York office; and a new railroad bicycle by C. W. Cochran of Wabash, Indiana.