The Bearings, Vol 8, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Chicagoan H.A. Githens wins the five-mile open and the mile international at the Metropolitan Association's Waverly, N.J. meet despite injuries, collecting $550 in prizes including a $250 diamond ring; Zimmerman separately wins the AAU two-mile championship in Chicago ahead of Banker, Barrett, Knisely, Hoyland Smith, and Bode.
- New York LAW notes: chief consul Luscomb declares neutrality ahead of the Buffalo National Assembly where orators on Burdett's side are expected to overwhelm the Post-Perkins faction; the Brooklyn Bicycle Club moves to a new clubhouse at 80 Hanson Place and merger with the Kings County Wheelmen is under discussion.
- Two-day meet at Wheeling, W.Va., held on an island in the Ohio River before 3,000 spectators: Zimmerman wins all open events against Banker, Brown, and Githens, closing with an exhibition mile in 2:08 3-5 paced by Githens and Banker; Mahlke wins the West Virginia two-mile championship.
- Sanger wins the international mile at Baltimore before 4,000 people, with George C. Smith scoring three of four lap prizes; Dirnberger takes the half-mile 1:10 class and Bliss the two-mile handicap; meet managers offer a trotting-horse rig as a prize to arrange a Zimmerman-Sanger match.
- Three Chicago road races: Bainbridge wins the Columbia Wheelmen's ten-mile handicap from scratch, breaking Knisely's record by one second; Bodach wins the Æolus C.C. annual road race from the three-minute mark; S. Wallace dominates the South Side C.C. ten-mile from the seven-minute-thirty limit.
- Bicycling News argues that American dominance in 1893 is temporary—the rapid improvement of Watson, Stocks, and Osmond shows England's capacity is neither paralyzed nor dormant—and that a future English champion will in turn raise the pace of all his training partners.
- St. Paul C.C.'s local meet drew a fair crowd but suffered from careless guess-work handicapping that effectively defeated scratch men; state champion B.B. Bird nonetheless won the quarter-mile in 33 1-5 from a standing start on a poor track, with Biggs and 'Skater' Martin close up.
- Swiss champion Lesna wins a Paris 24-hour international contest covering 433 miles, beating F.W. Shorland's world record of 426¼ miles set in the Cuca Cup race; at Baltimore, W.H. Mullikin's three-mile record attempt ends at 7:22 1-5 due to strong wind, though he lowers the track record.
- Nearly all leading racing men of the St. Paul C.C. resign en masse after years of poorly organized meets and plan to form a new club with an initial meet on October 7, also taking up skating when the cycling season closes, with several influential backers already committed.
- First annual Ottumwa Bicycle Club meet draws 2,000 spectators; E.H. Edmands of Des Moines wins the half-mile open in 1:14 and the quarter-mile open in :36, S.H. Rowland wins the mile handicap in 2:30 1-4, and C.F. Shaw wins the mile novice.
- John J. Fister of the Georgetown C.C. in Washington rides 279.7 miles in 24 hours over roads last Saturday and Sunday, breaking the district record of 273.8 miles held by L.C. Wahl, though Fister's claim to the American road record is held by F.E. Spooner with 302 miles.
- The Bearings editorial argues that Southern LAW members threatening secession over Black membership cannot prevail: the north holds the numerical majority in the National Assembly, principle is at stake, and the paper urges the southern men to fight bravely at Buffalo rather than resort to threats they do not intend to carry out.
- Editorial defending The Bearings' independence after a former staffer, now editing a rival cycling journal, attacked the paper for criticizing Century Road Club officers; the paper quotes the man's own words written when he was on staff endorsing the paper's editorial independence, and declines to reply in kind.
- The Bearings editorial urges the LAW Racing Board to adopt a sectional championship system modeled on the Amateur Athletic Union, dividing the country into New England, Eastern, Southern, Central, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific slope divisions, noting that Pacific coast and southern champions already exist without proper LAW authorization.
- Editorial defense of Zimmerman after his Springfield defeats: he completed seven mile rides in six days before the championship, including a 2:01 3-5 record, then faced a perfectly fresh opponent; The Bearings urges suspension of judgment on a man who compiled eighty firsts and only three seconds before arriving exhausted.
- Miscellany column: Tyler and Windle flatly refused to pace Zimmerman's record attempts at Springfield; sympathy for J.S. Johnson who spent his Springfield preparation time in the dentist's chair; barbs aimed at a contemporary journal now written by its janitor.
- Department listing registered racing colors of eighteen American cracks following The Bearings' successful campaign for riders to adopt colors: Githens (dove), Barrett (terra cotta), Knisely (lavender), Banker (white), Dirnberger (light blue), Rhodes (purple), Tyler (black and white), and Taylor (crimson) among others.
- Travel article by Edward H. Elwell, Jr. describing bicycle touring through conservative, Celtic Brittany: the ancient half-timbered towns of Vitre and Fougeres, old fortification towers converted to dwellings, confusing earth-mound lanes where two riders became hopelessly lost, and cider served everywhere in place of wine.
- Feature on the new ten-story Chicago Athletic Association clubhouse: white-marble plunge bath 60×40 feet, a gymnasium 168 feet long costing $8,500 in apparatus, dining room serving 600 lunches a day, and a 100×25 bicycle storeroom in the basement; cycling members Bliss, Githens, Barrett, Knisely, and Bode wear the 'cherry C and circle' under A.G. Spalding's athletic committee.
- South African mining engineer and cyclist L.S. Meintjes, on the eve of departing for Central Africa, impulsively pulls a gold-and-diamond ring from his own mine off his finger and gives it to a disappointed Zimmerman after Springfield; he then refuses manufacturers' lucrative offers to remain for another season's racing.
- Feature by A.B. Lacey of Flushing, Ohio, arguing that only federal government administration of road construction—following England's 1835 General Highway Act and France's 130,000-mile macadam network—can end the chaotic local capitation-tax system and produce permanently improved American highways that raise land values and shorten the distance to market.
- Department column: the triplet bicycle makes its first English appearance; Dick Howell and Alf Robb apply for NCA licenses; a Babylon, L.I. cyclist jails three months after knocking ninety-year-old ex-Sheriff Wilson senseless; Kaufmann and Barber sign articles for a championship match in Rochester; sixty-two-year-old Sidney Putnam of Mill Village, Pa. rides fifty-four miles in fifty-four minutes for $30.
- Paris correspondent A.G. Roux reports: Baze breaks the 12-hour road record with 325.2 km around Chatellerault; Charles Terront plans a St. Petersburg-to-Paris record ride with Count Tolstoi arranging Russian and Polish pacemakers; Rivierre conquers Calais-to-Marseilles beating Coullibeuf's record by over 8 hours, with two new Paris velodromes planned for 1894.
- Profile of Chicago Cycling Club rider G.L. Emerson, who surprised the talent by winning a half-mile handicap at Washington Park last fall, won prizes at Rockford on July 4, and is expected to make a good showing at the Chicago track meet after recovering from a rat-trap pedal wound sustained at Fort Wayne.
- Brief note that German military authorities actively promote cycling in the armed forces, believing in the bicycle for war purposes and regularly organizing races for both privates and officers.
- S.F. Edge wins the Bath Road Club's 100-mile open, breaking T.A. Edge's 100-mile record by several minutes in 5:24:57, paced by professional Oxborrow; Holbein and Brown lower the tandem 100-mile record to 5:36:12 despite wet roads; Lawrence Fletcher rides 1,000 miles in 4 days 23 hours 30 minutes; the Irish 50-mile road championship is retained by Kenna of Limerick in 2:41:50.
- Surrey B.C. autumn meeting at Kennington Oval before an estimated 12,000 spectators: Harris wins the Surrey Cup in a record 27:23 4-5; Lambley and Harris lower grass records from the quarter-mile to the mile; Osmond and Merry win the five-mile tandem safety in 12:54 1-5, lowering all grass tandem records from one-quarter mile onward.
- Standing directory of Century Road Club officers: president W.A. Skinkle (Cleveland), secretary John E. Templeton (Chicago), treasurer W.M. Brewster (St. Joseph), and state centurions in twenty-six American states plus England and France, with applications from riders in Chicago, Scranton, and Sherman, Texas.
- World's Fair Transportation Building bicycle award committee announces diplomas to Illinois firms including Gormully & Jeffery (Rambler bicycles and pneumatic tire), Monarch Cycle Co. (road racer), and Western Wheel Works; foreign exhibitors Raleigh, Quadrant, Premier, and Adam Opel also honored; E.C. Stearns posts $450 forfeit to bind a challenge match against the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co.'s aluminum bicycle.
- Trade news: the George R. Bidwell Cycle Co. of New York is placed in receivership with $70,000 in direct liabilities and $42,000 contingent, the largest creditor being Revere Rubber Co. for $22,850; the Taylor Cycle Co. of Chicago makes a voluntary assignment triggered by the Bidwell failure; the Roth-Kasten Cycle Co. of Milwaukee also assigns voluntarily.
- Humorous anecdote: an unknown cycle salesman phones Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. trying to place an agency by claiming to know Hyslop, Blauvelt, and Grosch, unaware that Hill already manufactures its own Fowler bicycle; manager Bob Abbott gives him a list of all Chicago manufacturers' telephone numbers as consolation.
- Profile of George L. Davis, new Chicago manager of the Capitol Mfg. Co.'s cycle branch: formerly assistant American manager for the Raleigh Cycle Co. under George Macdonald, he came to manage Raleigh's World's Fair exhibit and decided to settle permanently in Chicago.
- Feature profile of C.F. ('Indiana') Smith, founder of the Indiana Bicycle Co. of Indianapolis: a former racing cyclist turned manufacturer who employs over a thousand men, produces nipples and cones in bulk by automatic machinery, supplies forgings and saddles to the trade, and claims to have made more bicycles than any other manufacturer in the world, with 1894 Waverly production already underway.
- Belgium plans to deploy cyclists in cavalry maneuvers for postal, telegraph, and signal duty; Switzerland employed 240 military cyclists in 1892; in a Vienna-to-Berlin race cyclists covered 360 miles in 31:22 versus 71 hours for cavalry horses, one of which died from fatigue.
- Letter from E.B. Miller, chief clerk for World's Fair Transportation Department awards, asserting that Lozier Co. representative Ensworth did make improper overtures about the award, and that the Lozier exhibit was formally ruled out after the company published a misstatement-filled letter publicly withdrawing it during delicate negotiations with dissatisfied bicycle exhibitors.
- Trade news: Rich & Sager Co. of Rochester shows their 1894 line including a new 15-ounce racing saddle with Jessup tool-steel spring and adjustable nose; the Buffalo Wheel Co. launches a 32-pound $100 high-grade wheel shown by A.J. Cahill and John Neville; Assistant Secretary Hamlin delays signing the free-entry circular for imported bicycles pending a New York consultation.
- Race calendar for late September through October: Philadelphia A.C.C. international meet and Wanderers' B.C. diamond tournament in Toronto on September 23, special LAW National Assembly in Buffalo on September 25, interstate fair races in Trenton September 26-28, Penn Wheelmen international, and the LAW race meet in Chicago on October 5-6.
- Danish lawyer and cycling club president E. Staal reports that 50,000 of Denmark's 2.2 million people ride, including 20,000 in Copenhagen; Danish rider Petersen has broken Zimmerman's 1⅔-kilometer record made in France; John S. Johnson was born in Sweden and Nelson who won this year's Pullman road race is a Dane.