The Bearings, Vol 9, No 20
Articles in this issue
- J.S. Johnson defeats Sanger in the mile open at the Rochester, N.Y. circuit meet, while Sanger wins the two-mile and half-mile opens; the highlight is a quadruplet team race between the Stearns and Yellow Fellow squads, won by Johnson's side in 2:10 before 4,500–5,000 spectators.
- W.A. Thompson of the Chicago Cycling Club dominates the Saturday matinee races at the Associated Cycling Clubs meet, winning both the two-mile and five-mile handicaps; Levy is suspended 30 days for fouling Ellithorpe but the suspension is later lifted at Ellithorpe's request.
- J.P. Bliss, A.L. Atkins, and Dave Shafer return to Chicago from California; Bliss does not plan to race before July and is working on getting into shape at the track, recording a five-mile training ride in 13:13.
- The Remington Cycle Club meet at Ilion, N.Y. on the New York state circuit sees Sanger defeat Johnson in the mile open, Bald yield to Sanger in the half-mile, and Raymond McDonald emerge as a new Class A star by winning the quarter-mile state championship; ten events are run off in under two hours before 1,500 spectators.
- The Oneonta Wheel Club's Class B races are disrupted by a heavy, dangerous track; riders draw lots to decide who will compete, Johnson wins the two-mile handicap from scratch in 5:35, and referee Dr. Santee controversially calls off the five-mile state championship that Helfert was winning for failing a 15-minute time limit, drawing hisses from the crowd.
- The seventh annual Newark-to-Philadelphia century run draws 482 starters from over 100 clubs; the Mercer County Wheelmen of Trenton win first prize with 80 survivors, three women start including Mrs. Smith in bloomers, and three colored riders from Newark's Eagle Wheelmen complete the 101-mile course despite an attempt by the committee to bar all colored competitors.
- Members of Philadelphia's Meteor Wheelmen—a colored cycling club including a councilman, a physician, and the city gas bureau's chief draughtsman—protest to The Bearings' correspondent that their exclusion from the century run was unjust and inexplicable, especially as Newark's colored Eagle Wheelmen were given badges and completed the course.
- Billy Taxis is recovering from severe injuries—nearly losing an ear—sustained in a racing crash he attributes to a deliberate foul by Murphy, who he claims pulled across Taylor and threw him into Taxis after Murphy saw he was beaten.
- Brooklyn Wheelmen break from the Metropolitan Association of Cycling Clubs and form the independent Associated Cycling Clubs of Brooklyn, electing George T. Stebbins of the Brooklyn Bicycle Club as president.
- The Bearings' editorial argues that Sanger is the leading candidate to succeed Zimmerman as amateur champion of America, though Johnson's wheel-sucking tactics earn hollow victories and the season remains young with Bald, Bliss, Taxis, and Tyler yet to show their best form.
- L.A.W. Racing Board Chairman Raymond issues firm official notices to referees demanding strict enforcement against fouling, pocketing, and prearranged races, and warns all riders that 'ride fair or else do not ride at all,' with particular pressure on Class A men competing illegally outside the 200-mile amateur limit.
- Isaac B. Potter, undeterred by being turned down by the L.A.W., independently publishes the first number of his Good Roads Library—a practically illustrated pamphlet on Country Roads covering drainage, surface improvement, culverts, and bridges, with cost tables useful to road builders.
- Chicago-area cyclists are being systematically fined $5 by Winnetka authorities for riding on the sidewalk to avoid a torn-up road, with newly-sworn officers promised half the fine as an incentive; at least 100 riders have been caught in two weeks.
- An extended extract from the opening chapter of Potter's Good Roads Library argues passionately that American country roads are the product of 'bungle, blunder, and botch,' costing millions in tax money while never receiving a single hour of serious thought, and that every kicking farm horse is making an eloquent argument for better roads.
- Lutie and Ernie Johnson of Cleveland dominate the Oberlin Bicycle Club races before over 1,000 spectators, each winning two events and taking multiple seconds; Lutie Johnson sets a new Ohio state competition record in the mile handicap in 2:21¼ from scratch.
- The Springfield Bicycle Club opens a new summer clubhouse at Wilbraham, set on an eminence overlooking a pretty sheet of water with broad piazzas, intended to serve as a terminus for summer runs and winter sleighing parties; the formal opening will coincide with the annual field day.
- H.L. Dodson of Chicago claims to have ridden the De Soto course in St. Louis in 3:02:00 on an American Hill Climber two-speed-gear machine, cutting nearly 28 minutes off Bert Harding's record, though St. Louis cyclists are skeptical of the timing.
- A humorous anecdote from Michigan Avenue: when one of two bloomer-clad ladies breaks her wheel miles from home, the practical costume allows her to mount a gentleman's bicycle without difficulty, leaving him to ride the streetcar alone.
- The governing board of Boston's Press Cycling Club resigns en masse after members overturn their rejection of three membership applicants at a special meeting; meanwhile, racer Peter McDuffee is critically injured with a fractured skull after colliding with a girl at the Jamaica road race finish line.
- A Willimansett, Mass., Baptist church invites wheelmen to a special Sunday service with the Keating Wheel Co. Band in attendance, while Col. Albert Pope issues a circular endorsing the trend of clergymen welcoming cyclists and arranging bicycle stables at country churches.
- The tournament date dispute between the Cleveland Wheel Club and the Lakeside Club is resolved after Racing Board member Croninger mediates a three-hour conference, awarding the Lakeside Club a sanction for Saturday, July 14 restricted to Class A events so as to minimize interference with the New York state circuit races.
- California cyclists, frustrated with the L.A.W.'s Class A and Class B distinction, pass a resolution at the California Associated Cycling Clubs' San Jose meeting calling for abolition of Class A events at race meets; the Rambler team departs east without securing Otto Ziegler, whose parents refused to sanction the arrangement.
- At Louisville's Martin & Dressing ten-mile road race on June 13, E.V. Minor of Indianapolis sets a new ten-mile road record of 26:54, cutting 11 seconds off Ranshaw's mark; middle-aged John Spalding, 34, wins the handicap race itself from the 4-minute mark in 28:00.
- The afternoon track races at New Albany, Indiana are unexciting: O.L. Burke wins the novice, Githens takes the two-mile open over Steele and Levy, and O.P. Bernhart of Toledo wins both the mile handicap and the half-mile Class A; the Class B mile is declared off after two run-overs fail to meet the time limit.
- The Elizabeth Wheelmen defeat the Elizabeth Athletic Cyclers 45–33 points in the ten-mile team race for the Union County, N.J. championship; five of the twelve finishers break the previous ten-mile road record of 27:26, with William Bettner of the Athletic Cyclers first across in 27:17⅕.
- At Denver's third annual ten-mile handicap road race over the Sand Creek course, H.R. Renshaw captures the time prize in 27:05, breaking the American road record, while F.W. Franz wins the place prize; the Denver Wheel Club also signs the contract for a new three-lap track to be completed by June 25.
- Ed Warren Jr. of Birmingham sweeps all championships at the Alabama division's second annual meet on June 7–8, winning the quarter-mile, one-mile, two-mile, five-mile, and half-mile events; his mile handicap from scratch in 2:29 is the fastest competition mile ever run in Alabama.
- Officials are appointed for the Milwaukee Wheelmen's Waukesha–Milwaukee July 4 road race, expected to draw over 300 starters and more than 100 prizes; Fred Schroeder of Milwaukee is named referee, with N.H. Van Sicklen of Chicago among the judges.
- Paris correspondent J.M. Erwin reports that American amateur George Banker, who announced his first French race would be his last as an amateur, loses to obscure Parisian Carlier and declares he will not turn professional until he wins one; Zimmerman continues twice-daily training at the Buffalo track under Bill Troy's watch but has postponed his first race.
- The Knoxville Wheelmen and Y.M.C.A. joint field day is marred by the serious fall of favorite P.B. Parks, who fractures his collar-bone; W.P. Biddle wins both the Knoxville Wheelmen's championship mile and the two-mile lap race.
- L.A.W. President Charles Luscomb launches a New York state political campaign to elect supervisors pledging road improvement, publishing a circular urging wheelmen to join the League; a national good roads convention at Asbury Park, N.J. on July 5–6 will demonstrate macadam road construction before delegates including governors from Vermont, Rhode Island, and Georgia.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago will give a banquet at the Grand Pacific Hotel to reward delegates and officials who helped make the great Chicago road race a success; tickets at $3.50 are available through named club officers with all applications due by Monday.
- The Bearings publishes and describes the last photograph taken of Zimmerman at an amateur race meet—at Wheeling, W.Va., the previous fall—showing him bearing down on the tape with his tights accidentally put on backwards in his hurry.
- Cambridge inventor B.D. Stevens has fitted a bicycle with a magazine revolver that fires automatically at every wheel revolution when a handlebar lever is engaged, enabling a mounted scout to discharge 14 shots without reloading; Gen. Nelson Miles commends the device as practical, and Stevens is also the inventor of the government-tested Stevens dynamite shells.
- Harold A. Moore details the astonishing contents of a professional racing cyclist's equipment case: colored club blankets, French flannel bath-robes, multiple sets of tights and sweaters, a collapsible cot, a medicine chest with linen and bandages, a sprinkler-can shower, sponges, bulk liniment, and a fitted chest of repair tools with drawers packed between the machines.
- M.F. Dirnberger is confined to bed at Chicago's Hotel Ozark with a severe malarial fever that has been draining his strength all season, explaining his poor form in California; his physician expects recovery with good nursing within a week.
- The Bearings praises the Chicago Herald for publishing a large feature in which readers explain why they ride, noting that the pro-cycling letters were uniformly written in choice English with intelligence and wit, while the few anti-bicycle letters were 'commonplace and uncultured'—proof that cycling and the humanities go hand in hand.
- A humorous sketch of the non-cycling bore who appears every summer, armed with half-remembered racing gossip, naive questions about pneumatic valves, concern that stooping might cause consumption, and the opinion that his cousin who once worked in a factory knows more about bicycles than any rider.
- A brief satirical note observes that the English cycling press is earnestly debating whether Pope Leo XIII has joined the ranks of cyclists, with the affirmative side citing the Pope's encyclical as supporting evidence.
- L.A.W. Transportation Committee chairman Albert Mott issues a circular naming nine official routes to the Denver annual meet, with rates fixed at $27.50 round trip from Chicago and $53.50 from New York via the Chicago & Alton and Union Pacific railroads, and urges members to notify their initial railroad to facilitate special trains with sleeping and dining cars.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung covers the N.C.U. London Center's closed-doors financial investigation into the January fire, a vigorous debate on whether amateur records made outside competition should count, and the news that W. Brookbanks has broken Shorland's 12-hour road record with 201¾ miles—the first double century on the road in 12 hours.
- Louisville cyclists are buzzing with anticipation for the Kentucky division meet at Owensboro; 150 are expected by boat and 60 more by train, Mayor Broeker has declared a holiday and will head the welcoming procession, and the ten-mile road race course is said to be near track quality and favorable for a record.
- W.W. Windle writes to The Bearings categorically denying reports that he plans to attempt records or race at all, stating he intends never to race again.
- New York police detectives arrest three Broadway-area bicycle dealers—Moen, Brooks, and Graf—for Sunday trading, buying small articles such as oil cans as evidence; the dealers, who customarily open only for wheel rentals and minor repairs on Sundays, are indignant and consider their rights invaded.
- Brief trade notes from across the country: new bicycle agencies in Salt Lake City, Wheeling, and Mitchell, S.D.; Miller & Warren in Detroit records a chattel mortgage; the Union Cycle Co. in Boston will build a new Highlandville manufacturing plant; the Rubber Tire Wheel Co. incorporates in Springfield, Ohio.
- Geo. O. Hart & Son of Paducah, Kentucky describes their store window sensation: 'Professor De Tin,' a fanciful cyclist figure assembled entirely from hardware items—grindstone wheels, fork-frame, shovel seat, stewpan head, and stovepipe limbs—which drew sidewalk-blocking crowds for an entire month.
- Western Wheel Works adds two new models to its Crescent line: a ladies' scorcher with 28-inch wheels, Palmer tires, and wood rims weighing 33 pounds at $90, and a high-frame scorcher two inches taller than the standard model at the same price.
- Siegel Cooper of Chicago caused trade excitement by advertising 1894 Columbias at $93.70; Pope Company's Chicago manager Jackson traced the leak to a tricky agent, stopped it, and confirmed only three or four machines remain in Siegel Cooper's stock.
- London trade correspondent 'Will o' the Wisp' reports that major cycle firms plan to resist the C.T.C.'s push for trade discounts to members, that helical Premier tubing is a quiet success, that Humber & Co. will introduce Boudard's Peveriel gear next season, and that German manufacturers are fraudulently passing inferior machines off as English goods on the Continent.
- A Bearings correspondent touring Owensboro, Ky. ahead of the state division meet finds excellent packed-gravel country roads, the Owensboro Wheel Club hosting visitors in an elegant downtown suite, ten competing bicycle agencies serving a city that has grown from fewer than ten riders to some 500 in a single year, and Kentucky-style hospitality where visitors find their money firmly refused.
- Colonel Pope describes his new book compiling physician responses to his circular on cycling and health, summarizing their consensus: cycling has an established therapeutic role, an erect riding posture is essential, excessive riding should be avoided, and the road improvements spurred by cyclists are themselves a major public health benefit.
- A Stearns agent in Cheyenne, Wyoming describes cutting and joining a series of Stearns advertisements from The Bearings onto a roller turned by water power in his store window, drawing crowds who read through the Yellow Fellow's complete 1893–1894 racing record as it slowly scrolls past.
- R.J. Palmer of Denver's Palmer House completes a 1,200-mile cycling tour from Chicago to Denver in 13 days averaging over 92 miles a day, crossing 100 miles of cactus prairie and 300 miles of railroad track on a Kenwood pneumatic-tire wheel without a single puncture or wreck.
- A satirical dialogue between a bicycle factory stockholder, foreman Jones, and superintendent Greathead reveals that cheap breakable wood rims at $1.25 a pair are deliberately kept because they still cost less than aluminum rims even counting all replacements—though Greathead admits the Eagle Bicycle Co. of Torrington is slowly forcing the industry's hand.