The Bearings, Vol 9, No 12
Articles in this issue
- The L.A.W. Executive Committee meets at the Grand Union Hotel, New York, and resolves the Bulletin postal dispute by establishing the office of publication in Chicago and making subscriptions voluntary, with Luscomb telegraphing the settlement to Abbot Bassett in Boston.
- A.A. Zimmerman departs New York on the steamer New York bound for France, accompanied by Willis B. Troy and George Banker, cheered off by hundreds of cycling friends; also, John S. Johnson is refused membership at the New York Athletic Club, which insists on Class A amateurs only.
- Boston cyclists plan elaborate Patriot's Day (April 19) celebrations, riding the routes of Paul Revere and the British march to Concord; the A.C.C. simultaneously adopts a detailed new set of road racing rules drafted by John C. Kerrison, to be enforced first at the Linscott event on May 5.
- The 100-mile relay race around San Francisco Bay on April 8, organised by the Associated Cycling Clubs, is won by Garden City Cyclers of San Jose over the Acmes of Oakland by just four and one-fifth seconds; A. Griffiths of the Bay City Wheelmen rides his ten-mile relay in 26:44, a possible course record.
- Cleveland L.A.W. members debate renewal: the Lakeside Club votes to stay after a speech by vice-consul Geo. Collister, but the Cleveland Wheel Club threatens to secede unless ex-Secretary Davis is expelled from the League; meanwhile, the city's lamp-and-bell ordinance is rigidly enforced against wheelmen, even those merely pushing their bikes on sidewalks.
- The defunct Tioga Athletic Association grounds in Philadelphia are contested between the Tioga Cricket Club and the Temple Baptist Church Athletic Association; the seventh annual Century Wheelmen banquet draws L.A.W. president Luscomb and Racing Board chairman Howard Raymond as guests of honor.
- An editorial credits The Bearings with exclusive scoops on Zimmerman's plans and the money put up to induce him to turn professional, pointing to its record of important items given ahead of all other papers.
- A withering editorial attacks the editor of the Bicycling World for attempting to block The Bearings and the L.A.W. from sending the official Bulletin through the mails, comparing him to Aesop's dog who could not eat the hay but refused to let others do so.
- Wide-ranging department column covering: the new colored supplement series "The Solitary Tourist"; a Louisville creamery's bicycle milk-delivery scheme; J. Pinkey Bliss (the mile record holder) in a scorching encounter on Michigan Avenue; Georgia's misleadingly long mile-markers; and a comic verse predicting Zimmerman will soon be declared a professional, followed by a parody of President Bates's classical argument for allowing cash prizes in racing.
- The Bearings' New York correspondent describes boarding the ocean liner Majestic in a violent storm at Quarantine to interview W. B. Troy, who reveals that Zimmerman's French professional contract guarantees $10,000 cash plus race fees and gate percentages estimated at $40,000 for the season, with his debut set for June 17 at the Velodrome-Seine in Paris; Troy also details plans for a Raleigh professional team of Zimmerman, Wheeler, and Crooks based in a private Paris house.
- Texas L.A.W. chief consul E. W. Hope reports that the racial exclusion amendment and Denver's selection as the 1894 meet city were paramount to Texas members, and pledges to at least double the division's membership before his term expires; also: Louisville Cycle Club votes to incorporate with $2,000 capital; Century Road Club announces a relay ride from Chicago to Washington and awards for meritorious century rides including a Morgan & Wright gold medal; and Cleveland's old Cleveland Bicycle Club (L.A.W. No. 6) plans a reunion run on high-wheel ordinaries.
- The world's championships at Antwerp in August will span a full week, with events for one mile, ten kilometers, and 100 kilometers, plus road races, professional championships in Brussels, and international meets in Blankenberghe, Ghent, and Luttich.
- Twenty-six members of the Stanley C.C. complete an Easter tour through Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and La Hague, welcomed by Dutch cycling clubs including the Kettinggangers; separately, the N.C.U. council re-elects the Earl of Albemarle as president, adopts new professional licensing rules, and passes a resolution allowing pacemakers for championships over one mile.
- A self-important stranger walks into a Chicago cycle shop on Cycle Row and proposes replacing the bicycle chain with a small pneumatic tire pressed against the driving wheel; the assembled racing men quietly vanish before he finishes, leaving only a small boy who came in for a catalogue.
- Racing Board chairman Howard Raymond publishes official racing colors for dozens of riders across the country, grants sanctions for meets from Florida to California, assigns the national championships to Denver for August 16-18, and suspends Ora Hayman of Grand Island, Nebraska pending an investigation of his amateur status.
- An editorial warns that price-cutting is already rampant—Victors sold for $85, $125 wheels retailing below $75 in Indianapolis and Chicago—threatening the entire trade, and calls on the long-stalled cycle trade association to finally organise and take decisive action.
- New York trade notes: Fred Herbert opens the Herald Cycle Co. at 114 Nassau Street with a spacious riding school; A.G. Spalding's Broadway store is nearly sold out; Charles P. Schatz on Nassau Street is the only outlet in the city stocking all American and European cycling papers, with The Bearings described as selling "like hot cakes" each Saturday.
- Mark W. Hill, president and treasurer of the Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. of Chicago, dies after a brief illness at age fifty-nine; his wife Caroline D. Hill is elected to succeed him as president and treasurer, with son-in-law Frank T. Fowler managing the company's affairs.
- Survey of the Dayton, Ohio cycle trade: A. W. Gump operates the city's sole jobbing house, controlling the Western Wheel Works and Smalley lines across Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia with four road men and thirteen warehouse staff; the Dayton Bicycle Club is planning a monster tournament on June 30 ahead of the Ohio division meet at Cincinnati.
- A technical review finds 1894 pedals from Columbia, Rambler, and Stearns significantly improved over previous designs, using U-shaped frames without weak corner joints; tire widths are shrinking toward 1¼ inches for track and 1½ inches for road racing, requiring harder inflation but delivering measurably faster riding.
- Columbus, Ohio's sole bicycle maker—the Columbus Bicycle Mfg. Co. on Spring Street—runs nights to produce 1,200 machines listing at $90-$100; new dealer A. L. Baker operates a bicycle package delivery service within a three-mile radius at ten to twenty cents; a survey covers a dozen local dealers handling Victor, Columbia, Rambler, Stearns, and other lines.
- A fictional dialogue in which a champion racer visiting a bicycle factory to order a road wheel is persuaded by the superintendent to abandon wood rims—which warp, absorb moisture through nipple holes, and fail—in favour of aluminum; the racer telephones back an hour later to confirm aluminum, citing the example of "Dead-Broke" Wylie's record ride from New York to Chicago.
- "Birdie" Munger and Freddie Dickinson's celebrated Indianapolis racing hospitality house moves to new seven-room quarters across from the Munger Cycle Works factory; the household is managed by their housekeeper "Major" Taylor, and visiting racing men and travelling trade representatives regularly partake of the pair's well-known hospitality.
- A Pope Mfg. Co. representative visiting Europe says his firm opposes multiple trade shows and will support the New York show only; he is also skeptical that the new Class B amateur rule will succeed, fearing the public will regard Class B riders as professionals and give them the cold shoulder.
- Harry T. Hearsey, Indianapolis's leading cycle dealer, has built a handsome new home where cycling is entirely excluded—no bicycle in the barn, no cycling paper in the parlors—devoting his private hours to his dogs, horses, garden, and family.
- Chartered sleeping and dining cars on the Fitchburg, West Shore, Nickel Plate, and Rock Island Route will carry eastern wheelmen to the 1894 L.A.W. meet in Denver at a rate covering berths and meals both ways, dispelling the common impression that the journey is prohibitively expensive.
- Brief trade items: Morgan & Wright reports its largest-ever week of tire shipments as of April 7; young George Weed of Stamford, Connecticut breaks the New York-Stamford road record by sixteen minutes on a Lyndhurst ridden 5,000 miles; the Overman Wheel Co. runs two shifts but still cannot keep pace with orders; and the Cycle Specialty Co. of Niles, Michigan puts racing bands on the market as a 15-cent substitute for toe clips.