The Bearings, Vol 9, No 21
Articles in this issue
- A.A. Zimmerman makes his professional debut at Florence, Italy, finishing fourth behind Harry Wheeler, Herty, and Dani in a three-kilometer race — the ex-amateur champion's first outing as a professional.
- Tom Eck and Waltham manager Bradstreet secretly plan a flying-start mile record attempt for John S. Johnson, with the full Yellow Fellow tandem, triplet, and quadruplet team as pacers; Johnson expects to do every quarter in :28 or better.
- Connecticut division annual meet at Bridgeport; Titus clips the track record to 2:14 and Bald rides a hard solo half in 1:06, while Silvie and Kennedy have an exciting sprint in the two-third-mile Class B final before Bald nips them both at the tape.
- First-person narrative of the League of American Wheelmen's Ohio River excursion aboard the steamer 'City of Madison,' which struck a jetty at Madison, Indiana and sank; racing men including Githens, Levy, Steele, Baker, and Bernhardt were among the 85 aboard; races were held at New Albany, Evansville, and Owensboro before the accident; no one was hurt.
- Editor Geo. K. Barrett criticizes England's N.C.U. for refusing licenses to Nelson, Jaap Eden, Lehr, and others on arbitrary grounds, resulting in a Dane — Petersen of Copenhagen — winning the English amateur mile championship amid crowd riots and hooting at officials.
- Editorial arguing that Baltimore riders who unknowingly competed for marginally improper prizes at the Clifton Wheelmen's Decoration Day meet deserve a suspension rather than permanent reclassification to Class B.
- Editorial on Zimmerman's first professional defeat by Harry Wheeler at Florence, drawing a parallel with his early-season loss to the same Wheeler at Savannah in 1893 before going on to an unprecedented season of victories.
- Editorial calling for a stringent rule — at least a year's ban — to punish racers who accept training pay and salary from one manufacturer during the early season, then jump their contract for a rival when they are most valuable.
- Profile of Isaac B. Potter's Cornell-decorated study, where he compiles the Good Roads Library; the first 96-page issue had a 100,000-copy print run and features an introductory chapter on highway improvement, with copy nearly complete.
- Brief notice that Chicago's August meet will feature a novel unpaced mile-against-time event for Class B men, with Sanger, Johnson, and Bliss expected to contest it.
- Race report from Rockville, Conn.; Sanger, ill with a cold but cajoled into starting, wins the half-mile open over Tyler by two lengths despite officials announcing his condition to the crowd; Titus rides the fastest officially timed mile of 1894 at 2:07, paced by Tyler, Murphy, George Taylor, and Miller.
- A.P. Hard of Aurora wins the 22-mile Elgin-to-Aurora road race; J.B. Lund of Chicago, who ran eighth in the Chicago road race, takes the time prize over favorite Fred Nessel; Hard edges Rowland by half a length at the finish.
- Illinois Cycling Club's fourth annual century over the Elgin-Aurora course; H.R. Upp finishes first in 7:32; Misses Porter and Hegerty complete the round trip ahead of many male riders and are organizing a ladies' century for the following Sunday.
- Detroit Wheelmen's 25-mile road race on the Belle Isle course sees W.W. Grant win the time prize in 1:09:26⅕ — the fourth time the record has been broken this year; nine of 30 finishers beat Callahan's previous Buffalo record; the Grant brothers make a remarkable homestretch sprint.
- First annual Schmelzer 15-mile road race over a muddy Waldo Park course; Ben Howard wins the race outright; A.E. Proulx of Omaha crosses the tape barely a foot ahead of C. Kindevatter of Kansas City for the time prize after a desperate sprint from scratch.
- New York division meet at Lockport, N.Y.; A.A. Price wins the 12-mile road race from the 5:30 mark; A.B. Goehler sweeps the Class A track events; L.A. Callahan wins the half-mile state championship; ladies in bloomers participate in the parade; the semi-annual board meeting elects a nominating committee and appropriates funds for recruitment.
- John S. Johnson rides 2:02¾ at the Waltham C.C.'s second annual meet on the new metalithic surface, paced by tandems and C.M. Murphy; A.W. Porter sets a Class A mile record of 2:06, and professionals Berlo and Rich record a half-mile tandem time of :57.
- A.M. Chandler of Waupaca, a comparative unknown, wins the North Side Club's 16-mile Cedarburg road race in 53:30; scratch man A. Gardner of Chicago's Columbia Wheelmen takes the time prize, while Bainbridge finishes 31st; 72 riders complete the course and the Wisconsin circuit's first races are also run at Madison.
- A.E. Lumsden, the Chicago flyer, leaves Pope Mfg. Co. to join the Rambler team alongside Bliss and Githens, now training at Crown Point, Ind.; he recently rode a mile in 2:10½ at Chicago and the team will not race until July 4.
- A 551½-mile relay from Sarnia to Montreal is completed by 110 riders in just over 33 hours at an average above 16 mph, organized by the Toronto Mail; Will Hyslop and John S. Johnson carry messages through Toronto on a tandem; the Wanderers' meet opens the new Rosedale track before 4,000 spectators; Dr. Doolittle's 300-rider Port Hope to Kingston tour is planned.
- Paris correspondent J.M. Erwin reports that Medinger deliberately runs Harry Wheeler wide into the fence during a 5-kilometer race at the Buffalo track, costing Wheeler the victory; Medinger is suspended for three meetings; George Banker wins his first amateur race in France; the theatrical artists' road race at the Bois de Boulogne is won by Mlle. Dupre of the Opera.
- The 17-mile Massasoit road race draws 10,000 spectators to Forest Park, Springfield, Mass., with 88 starters and 73 finishers; F.A. Landry takes the time prize in 49:32½ on sandy roads; Springfield's finance committee cuts road improvement appropriations, angering wheelmen who discuss political action at the next city election.
- A.W. Harris wins the N.C.U. one-mile professional championship at Aston before 12,000 spectators after Schofield falls and slows Wheeler and Edwards; Jaap Eden defiantly races the amateur mile despite license refusal, nearly beating Dane Petersen in the final; racing men form a Racing Cyclists' Association at Birmingham to fight the N.C.U. licensing scheme.
- C. Arthur Benjamin, a Syracuse-based Stearns agent, shocks the trade by joining the new Eclipse racing team under manager C.E. Houk, who has already signed C.M. Murphy and has his eye on Marshall Wells, John Gardnier, and leading Class A riders.
- Denver's Cycle Corps returns from bloodless duty during the Cripple Creek miners' strike, praised by General Brooks for leading all hazardous missions and scaling mountain peaks with less fatigue than other troops; three Colorado state records are broken at the concurrent Highlands Wheel Club tournament — mile (Feebles, 2:41), half-mile (Gerwing, 1:08), and five-mile (Hamilton, 13:09).
- West Philadelphia Cyclers beat the Quaker City Wheelmen 44–34 in a five-mile road race on the Montgomery Avenue course; Dampman and Rich suffer accidents for the Quakers; the Turner Cyclers' annual road race is won by Frank Boyd in 12:30.
- St. Louis riders question H.L. Dodson's claimed record over the De Soto road, citing a wrong starting point and no club witnesses; clubs issue a cordial invitation for him to repeat the attempt under official timing, with brewery pacemakers offered for the hills.
- Woodbury Wheelmen spring meet draws many Philadelphia spectators; W.D. Osgood of the University of Pennsylvania wins the half-mile open, J.J. Diver of the Bank Clerks' A.A. wins the quarter-mile from 16 starters, and W.W. Henderson takes the 10-mile championship of Woodbury.
- Harry Truax, a boy baritone singer, rides Chicago to New York in 12 days 3 hours on a Spalding with Palmer tires that needed no pumping; his longest day covers 135 miles and he plans to ride back for a record.
- George Taylor leaves the Stearns team to join the Victor team under Harry Leeming this week, dissatisfied with the lack of personal attention under Tom Eck, who favored his own man John S. Johnson.
- National Racing Board member George Gideon of Philadelphia rules that all competitors in several Clifton Wheelmen's Decoration Day events must move to Class B for competing for prizes slightly outside Class A rules; over a dozen riders from Baltimore, Washington, Wheeling, and Pennsylvania are affected, effectively stripping the Baltimore Class A field.
- Elizabeth Athletic Club races at Waverly, N.J.; Raymond MacDonald and Riverside Wheelmen win nearly every individual event, but lose the two-mile team race after MacDonald is ruled to have fouled; the E.A.C.C. wins the team race largely by protesting every rival rider's eligibility.
- Lindmueller and Merrill are denied the Glenville track for a 24-hour world record attempt due to colt training; Cleveland Wheel Club veterans plan a 10-mile road race on July 18; the Ohio relay from Sandusky to Portsmouth (214 miles) finishes in 12:18 under newspaper auspices; the Lakeside team sweeps Pittsburgh.
- C.W. Davis of the Chicago Cycling Club wins the one-third mile scratch and the mile handicap from the 45-yard mark in 2:15, paced by Thompson; C.V. Dasey wins the three-mile lap race with 19 points.
- Historical feature on H.P. Whiting, who won England's first bicycle championship in August 1871 under the Amateur Athletic Club and dominated British cycling for five years, winning 26 of 32 races before voluntarily turning professional to race French champion Camille Thuillet, beating him in 37:32 at Wolverhampton.
- Racing circuit column covering the Johnson–Sanger rivalry, upcoming Albany, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Louisville meets, Tom Eck's proposed world championship race format, L.A. Callahan's expected promotion to Class B, Kennedy's presence of mind in a crash at Cohoes, and Eddie Bald's comic antics on the train to Ilion.
- Humorous satirical column cataloguing the ego inflation of successful racing men as the season peaks — swelling their mouths by a yard, growing fastidious about diamond prizes, boasting of ladies who admire them on the track, and imagining themselves small tin gods on wheels.
- Humorous editorial commentary on a newspaper report that a pedestrian grabbed a cyclist and flung man and machine six feet into a tree; the editor argues the victim must have been a featherweight boy racer, since many cyclists would defy even Sandow to throw carelessly.
- Editorial lament that cigarette manufacturers have begun illustrating their products with pictures of prominent racing cyclists without consent — 'for this evil there is no redress' — after wheelmen have long endured taunts from pedestrians and millionaires alike.
- Thieves steal the magnificent time prize medal and a gold watch donated by General Poorman for his July 4 road race.
- A.G. Spalding & Bros. answer Overman Wheel Co.'s suit and file a $160,000 countersuit, alleging defective Victor bicycles, breach of exclusive-territory agreements, and improper national advertising expenditures during 1892–93; Spalding is represented by ex-Governor Robinson, who also defended Lizzie Borden.
- R. Philip Gormully renames Schwalbach's New York riding school and reports record Rambler output with copper rims and corrugated tires popular; extended New York trade dispatches cover the Brooklyn Cycle Co. (20 wheels sold in one day), Percy Snyder's new Grand Circle store, Ira Perego's booming League Chainless agency, and Gormully & Jeffery's Fifty-seventh Street establishment.
- Description of the Hy-Lo Interchangeable Gear, patented by an 18-year-old Columbia College graduate named Rosenfeld; the device allows an instantaneous one-third gear reduction via interior cog-wheels in the crank hangers without chain slackening, and four wheels are already in daily use in New York.
- List of recently issued U.S. cycle patents including a tricycle (Leininger & Shreiner, Canton, Ohio), elastic gear, several bicycle frame designs, a printing attachment for bicycles (Redmond, Rochester), a tire-setting machine, an aquatic bicycle, and a wheel-tire assigned to E.C. Stearns & Co. of Syracuse.
- R. Philip Gormully writes to The Wheel denying any pending clincher tire suit against his firm; the North British Rubber Co.'s U.S. suit was dismissed, and Gormully asserts that Jeffery's American pneumatic tire patents cover everything of practical value regardless of the English Clincher vs. Macintosh verdict.
- Pope Mfg. Co. has built a 13-lap, well-banked testing track on the roof of its Hartford factory, safely rideable at 15 mph or more; V.P. E.J. Day notes the company has always tested wheels and the new track merely brings the work closer to home.
- London correspondent 'Will o' the Wisp' reports a slow trade season with Coventry firms discharging hands early; covers the new Trigwell Tangent Tire, Quadrant Cycle Co. likely giving up American trading, the Prince of Wales ordering tricycles for his family, Humber's injunction against the Humber Unicycle Co., and Harvey Du Cros's discussion of the Boudard speed gear at the Cycle Components Co. meeting.
- San Antonio correspondent 'El. Sid.' reports strong overall Southern cycle sales despite financial stringency, but argues that uncontrolled proliferation of agencies — placed with lawyers, doctors, hotel proprietors, and railroad agents — is destroying dealer profits and calls for state retail trade associations to remedy the situation.
- A proposed Philadelphia cycle show, possibly growing into a national affair, is warmly received by the trade; dispatches also cover Abe Powell joining the Pennsylvania Bicycle Co., Frank Silvers leading the Newark-to-Philadelphia century on a League Chainless Wheel, Lozier Co. acquiring the Central Cycle Co., and H. Le Cato's $50 challenge to beat Silvers' century time.
- Thomas Clifford of Los Angeles has a thief arrested who brought him a stolen Columbia bicycle to sell; Clifford quietly summoned an officer through the back door, the rightful owner recovered the wheel within an hour, and Columbia pays the $50 reward.