The Bearings, Vol 9, No 13
Articles in this issue
- Boston wheelmen celebrate Patriots' Day on April 19 with 5,000 cyclists converging on Lexington and Concord; the Massachusetts Bicycle Club escorts the governor in uniform, while the Dedham Cycle Club holds afternoon road races before 5,000 spectators, won by James P. Clark in 6:47 for two miles.
- Seven hundred unemployed miners from Ironwood, Mich. march to Bessemer, the Gogebic County seat, to urge the board of supervisors to bond the county for $75,000 for a road-building program; the board votes 16–2 in favor amid loud cheering.
- Milwaukee and Wisconsin cycling is booming despite hard times, with clubs organizing in Green Bay, Appleton, Burlington, and Clintonville; road races are planned between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls and between Menominee and Marinette, while Ripon has secured several national circuit dates.
- Zimmerman has sailed for Paris aboard the steamer New York with George Banker and B. W. Troy; W. F. Murphy rode 25 miles in the phenomenal time of 1:08:00 in training; the Kings County Wheelmen of Brooklyn plan their 13th annual meet on June 30 at the Parkway Driving Club's half-mile track.
- Sanctions granted for upcoming meets across the country including the Clinton Lancaster Athletic Association relay race on June 2, the Lafayette Band meet on July 30, and meets in New Jersey, California, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Kentucky; Virginia's state racing board is named with C. J. Evans as chairman.
- London, April 7: the NCU Council's new rule barring riders refused licenses from amateur events provokes controversy; the England vs. France international race at Catford on May 5—with Harry Wheeler among the professionals—excites great interest; rational dress for ladies is spreading, with at least fifty London women now wearing the new costume.
- Taxis and Kennedy begin regular track work at Springfield; Kendrick of Philadelphia is placed under Culver's charge for Class A races; Fred C. Graves comes under Leeming and will road-race for the Overman Wheel Co.
- Frank Waller arrived at the Paris eight-day winter track race wearing a vest covered in prize medals and projecting supreme confidence, but abandoned the race after barely two hours when the pace of Medinger and the other Europeans proved overwhelming; he later returned in a reduced role as a pacemaker.
- J. M. Erwin, former author of the 'Johnson's Corners' sketches and recently of the Chicago Record, sails as The Bearings' special correspondent to cover Zimmerman, Wheeler, Banker, and the other Americans competing in the French professional races.
- Editorial arguing that Zimmerman's decision to turn professional is judicious and marks the advent of a legitimate era of professional cycling comparable to horse racing in France; Banker, Crooks, Murphy, Ashinger, Waller, Price, and Wheeler are among those expected to follow.
- The Bearings' long campaign for distinctive racing colors has borne fruit: the Racing Board's new rules provide for registration, and over thirty riders—including Gary, Taxis, Bode, Kennedy, Banker, French, Steele, and Taylor—have already registered; riders from last season are urged to register promptly before losing their chosen combination to rivals.
- R. J. Mecredy of The Cycle gives detailed racing tactics (wheel positioning, never looking round, holding the sprint to the tape, handling corners); Alfred Coningsly's family of ten cyclists in Brooklyn on nine machines once prompted a paper to report a cycle parade; 'Choppy' Warburton warns that Zimmerman will be beaten first time he races in France, rating several Frenchmen clearly above him.
- Philadelphia wheelmen organize a meeting to perpetuate the annual Newark-to-Philadelphia century run, which drew over 600 survivors last year; the Time Wheelmen lead the effort after the Century Wheelmen's long dominance of first prize has dampened competition from other clubs.
- A new bicycle attachment—an arch-bar clamped to the handle-bar supporting an adjustable hinged mirror—allows the rider to observe what is happening behind without looking round; all parts are simple and adjustable with one hand while riding.
- The annual wheeling tour of Europe departs New York on June 2 and concludes August 1 at Rotterdam; the party of fifteen includes riders from Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Indiana, Maine, Ohio, and Missouri, with opportunity to attend the Antwerp World's Fair and the international bicycle races there.
- The Owensboro Wheel Club is sparing no effort to make the Kentucky state meet in June memorable, securing prizes including cases of 1880 Daviess County sour mash whiskey, diamonds, bicycles, and watches; the club mascot, a yellow hound called 'Stearns, the yellow fellow,' recently accompanied a 64-mile club run.
- The Columbus Cycling Club, which scored a great success over Hartford at last year's Labor Day tournament, is again working to secure the national cracks for its annual meet; the city has 110 miles of asphalt streets, and club president Herbert M. Backus heads a membership of over a hundred active riders.
- Cycling has boomed in the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis as never before, with between 300 and 400 wheelwomen in Minneapolis alone; St. Paul ladies are planning to appear in a body in bloomer suits to overcome public prejudice against rational dress.
- Des Moines cycling is booming with 200 new riders already on the streets and three new agencies opened, bringing genuine competition to formerly complacent dealers; a movement is underway to consolidate all cycling clubs in the city into one powerful organization.
- George E. Williams wins the 34-mile road race from Butler to Pittsburgh in 2:29:33, breaking the old record of 2:40:00; 91 riders started, 65 finished, and 10,000 spectators watched near the finish; last year's winners Jenkins and Bannister broke their wheels early.
- Harold A. Moore's humorous character sketches of the familiar figures at a race meet: announcer W. C. Marion with his Indian jog-trot and crisp cry, Zimmy's excitable English friend Billy Perrett, pusher Asa Windle always offering advice about Springfield, syndicate reporter Spooner writing up races as they unfold, and trainer Dave Schaefer whose whole body sways in sympathy as his man sprints.
- The 1894 Martin road race will be larger than ever, with a first prize valued at around $400 (piano, horse and buggy, or diamond watch still to be decided) plus donated wheels from Columbia, Rambler, Cleveland, Warwick, and Eclipse; the entry fee is $2 and blanks are available from Dai H. Lewis of the Cycle Record, Buffalo.
- Partial list of American amateur riders and their 1894 mounts: Sanger and Tyler on Union, Johnson on Stearns, Bliss and Dirnberger on Rambler, Bald on Columbia, Banker and Murphy on Raleigh, Taxis, Bode, and Kennedy on Sterling; Tudor, French, and a third Cincinnati rider will attempt the Cincinnati–Columbus triplet record.
- Humorous sketch in which Eurydice Guggerty, dressed in rational costume, attempts to take her bicycle out for a ride with Mr. Sideslip, only to be thwarted at every turn by her opinionated Irish stable man Horace, who declares each of her several machines unfit to ride that afternoon.
- B. W. Troy reports that racing cyclist Harry Wheeler is hopelessly in love with 'the most beautiful woman in all France,' currently in St. Petersburg; Wheeler's sole French word is 'jammay,' which he uses to pacify every fussy Frenchman he bumps into while mooning along the Rue de Rivoli.
- The King of Belgium takes a classic header from his tricycle while training for a match race with the Prince of Wales, landing in a rhododendron bush badly scratched but otherwise unharmed; he holds his temper, smiles ruefully, and telegraphs for another machine.
- Illustrated spring verse celebrating the return of cycling season, with imagery of violets, rice birds in the swale, and the club man finally fetching out his last year's wheel.
- Humorous story of Chicago quarter-mile record holder Cy Davis, who converts his entire piano-firm staff to cycling, then attempts to repair a colleague's punctured Palmer tire with a Columbia kit—forgetting to deflate first—and covers himself and onlookers with cement when the pressurized tube blows out the bottom of the cement tube.
- Comic account of a Chicago racing man who secured a free wheel from a manufacturer and set out to repay him by showing his speed on the North Side course, only to be caught sitting down by the very manufacturer in a buggy just after being dropped by his group and nearly falling on a sewer cap.
- Comic sketch of a young Black aspiring scorcher dashing up and down Thirty-first street in Chicago on a cheap English wheel, bragging at a bicycle shop about his strategy of trailing men on ice wagons and refusing to be 'pulled' by riders on light wooden-rim machines.
- A countryman riding on Wabash avenue finds his inner tube has burst through the outer cover and formed a small balloon, stopping his wheel entirely; the ensuing crowd blocks cable cars until a policeman escorts him to the Pope company store, where the tube is deflated and the tire found beyond repair.
- Cincinnati is strong in trade but weak in club life, with few organizations exceeding fifty members; four clubs share a fine four-story clubhouse at 120 West Ninth street run by the Associated Cyclers' Clubhouse Co.; the Ohio division meet on July 2–4 is being prepared with a $5,000 prize list including diamonds and nine high-grade wheels, alongside the famous Poorman road race.
- Fred Isenring—Milwaukee hotel proprietor, inventor of the Whitefish Bay planked road and the Lake Shore drive, and friend of wheelmen—is elected chairman of the Milwaukee county board; progressive farmers have made good roads a political issue in county campaigns for the first time.
- James Josephi writes from Savannah that T. W. Eck's stable—including John S. Johnson, C. M. Murphy, George Taylor, Callahan, and Dawson—is training hard on the Savannah Wheelmen's quarter-mile cement track; Johnson rode a quarter in :30 on his third day on the track, while Murphy is reportedly giving Johnson 100 yards in a mile and catching him.
- Humorous tall tale narrated by policeman 'Doss' Shafer: accused of murdering a Kansas blacksmith over a disputed repair bill, he is given a chance to prove his innocence by outrunning a pack of bloodhounds across the prairie on his old high-wheel bicycle, flying off a precipice at such speed that he floats safely to the plain below.
- Profile of George W. Coffin of Newark, N.J., born in Portland, Maine, who won the 100-mile Philadelphia-to-Newark road race in 1892 out of 86 starters, riding through 80 miles of mud; his best mile is 2:08½ made at Springfield last fall, and he won sixteen firsts and twelve seconds during 1893.
- International cycling briefs: Wheeler confined to his Paris room with chills; Germany expected to order 20,000 bicycles for the army; Austrian rider Kurz plans a Vienna–Constantinople record; Russian cyclists propose Moscow–Paris, Moscow–Vienna, and Moscow–Berlin records; 4,000 Milan cyclists refuse to pay the city's cycle tax; Lumsden withdrew from the Paris eight-day race citing a payment dispute.
- New York trade report: the Wilson-Myers Co. Brooklyn store sold 18 wheels for cash in one day; Elliott Burris's 'Simplicity 47' tires are receiving glowing testimonials and orders by every mail; F. W. Ensworth reports Clevelands shipped to France; W. H. Webster at Hodgkins & Co. is kept on the jump handling demand for the Union wheel.
- The National Cycle Mfg. Co. of Bay City, Mich. introduces a new chain-adjustment mechanism using a single non-losable washer on each side that distributes drive strain throughout the rear frame rather than concentrating it on the sprocket-side bearing; adjustment to the finest degree is made with the fingers after loosening the axle nuts.
- A Bearings correspondent tours the Western Wheel Works' Chicago factory where 1,200 workmen produce 200 bicycles per day across four floors, including a chain-testing room, 40 forges, eight nickeling vats, six double enameling ovens fired twice daily, and a threading machine that produces 45,000 spokes a day; the factory expects to turn out 35,000 machines in 1894.
- London trade correspondent reports: the new Cycle Components Mfg. Co. (capital $875,000) threatens a tire-and-rim monopoly; the new Dunlop racing tire uses loosely woven cross-thread over the tread; machine deliveries are scandalously delayed again this Easter; the CTC general meeting votes against negotiating club discounts from manufacturers, to the trade's relief.
- Editorial arguing that English cycle builders wisely avoid wood rims, which warp in transit and fail under testing; the Eagle Bicycle Mfg. Co. of Torrington, Conn. found the solution in aluminum rims—rust-proof, non-warping, and as light and stiff as wood—and by using them exclusively has created surging demand for its own wheels.
- Kansas City trade report covering twelve dealers and their lines—including Stutz & Walker (Ariel, Titania), Avery Planter Co. (Sterling, Fowler), J. H. Brunner (Rambler, Western Wheel Works), and others; roadsters of 25–26 pounds with wood rims are the favored high-grade machines.
- Description of the Victoria Motor Cycle from the Motor Cycle Co. of Cleveland, Ohio: a three-wheeled motor carriage powered by two hot-air engines between the rear wheels, running on four-inch pneumatic tires, easily controlled, and priced at $500.