The Bearings, Vol 9, No 25
Articles in this issue
- Julian P. Bliss of the Chicago Cycling Club breaks both the flying mile (1:54⁴⁄₅) and standing mile (2:00 flat) world records at Waltham, Mass., on July 14, using G.&J. clincher tires and relay tandem pacemakers Berlo, Cutter, Brandt, McDuffie, Lumsden, and Githens.
- Zimmerman wins three races at the Buffalo-Velodrome in Paris on July 15 before 15,000 spectators, easily outclassing English rider Barden and receiving an enthusiastic ovation from the crowd.
- Walter Sanger rides the unpaced mile in 2:11⅖ at Waltham on July 17—more than four seconds below Fournier's previous world mark—battling a fickle wind; Nat Butler also sets a new Class A mile record of 2:01⅗.
- American George Banker wins the Grand Gara Triest and a 25-mile race at Montebello, Triest (Austria-Hungary), defeating Italian rivals Dani and Opel despite being pocketed in the six-mile race; his 25-mile winning time is 1:18:52.
- At the Asbury Park Wheelmen's two-day July 13–15 meet, marshal S.W. Kirkbride is hissed by 5,000 spectators for physically restraining team manager Wells from aiding injured riders after a four-man crash that left Barnett with two broken ribs; Sanger wins the mile open and two-mile handicap finals.
- F.J. Jenny of Utica dominates the Cortland Wheel Club's July 14 meet, winning the half-mile open, mile open, and two-mile handicap from scratch—overtaking the limit man in the last quarter of the two-mile to win in 5:08.
- Wilbur J. Edwards, Pacific coast mile record holder (2:15) and eighth-of-a-mile world record holder, is banqueted by his Garden City Cyclers club at San Jose before leaving to join the Columbia team at Buffalo.
- Clifford Bouch of Dayton wins the Miamisburg 15¾-mile handicap road race; Earl H. Kiser of Dayton takes the first time prize in 43:35, with G. Morris of Hamilton second overall.
- Editor Barrett hails Bliss's 2:00 standing mile as the first in "even time" to appear in the official record books, calling it a landmark that creates a new era in cycling history and will not be forgotten.
- Editorial argues that Sanger's new 2:11⅖ unpaced mile deserves recognition as a purer test of ability than paced records, and predicts it will soon be challenged by ambitious Class B riders now that a creditable mark has been set.
- Editor decries race promoters who inflate prize valuations—citing a watch listed at $125 that a wholesale jeweler offered to duplicate for $26—and reports Chairman Raymond is investigating the Greenwich Wheelmen and Riverside clubs for overvalued prizes.
- Buffalo correspondent surveys the city's season: Goehler of the Ramblers leads Class A, Pressite Leonert is rapidly improving, Linneman is recovering form, and newcomer Charles Werick—three months on a wheel—is tipped as a future state-level contender after winning every race at the Comrades' C.C. Williamsville meet.
- Untitled editorial on cycling's rigid social hierarchy—cushion tires and solid tires stigmatize riders as poor while pneumatics signal modernity—yet the sport's democracy confers equal health and pleasure on all; editor envisions society figures like Ward McAllister and Mrs. Potter Palmer joining the cycling ranks.
- Comic editorial arguing the tandem is only comfortable when pacing a record attempt or when the companion is an irresistible young woman; maiden aunts, fat country cousins, and novice pedalers disqualify the machine entirely.
- John S. Johnson protests the Associated Press's account of the Syracuse Century Club meet of July 4, explaining that referee Wood imposed a 1:10 half-mile limit on a rough, windy track with no pacemakers, disallowed two legitimate heats, and Johnson withdrew rather than race a third time.
- Sanger and Johnson reconcile their long estrangement after sharing a dressing-room at Dayton and Fort Wayne; Johnson has won seven of ten head-to-head races and pledges to share pacing duties, with Tom Eck calling Sanger "a right good fellow."
- Editor proposes a sanctioned tandem race of brothers toward season's end, naming pairs including W.C. and Willie Sanger, J.S. Johnson and brother, W.F. and C.M. Murphy, and the Callahan, Kennedy, Clark, McDuffee, and Bliss brothers.
- B.B. Bird takes first time prize (1:14:25) at St. Paul's third annual 25-mile Como road race before 8,000 spectators; first-place finisher "N.C. Ewing" (suspected to be Horace Rumsey, winner of the St. Louis Forest Park race in June) finishes under protest for an irregular entry.
- Miss Ella Byrne, 19, is run over and instantly killed by a heavy storage van at the dangerous Broad and Ridge avenue crossing in Philadelphia on July 16 when her wheel is struck by the lead horse while she attempts to pass between two wagons.
- Washington D.C. club riders adopt early-morning short-run strategy to escape summer heat and the notoriously poor Virginia and Maryland roads; Chief Consul French plans the local section of the Denver relay—Washington to Hagerstown (76 miles)—split across the Arlington Wheelmen, Washington Road Club, and Georgetown Cycle Club.
- Berwick Bicycle Club annual meet at the fair grounds; F.S. Gustadder Jr. of Williamsport wins the 15-mile road race from the Bloomsburg courthouse in 44:18 over 20 starters on a bad road; J.B. Corser of Pottsville takes both the mile and half-mile Class A opens.
- Milwaukee news: the Mercury Club's 20.5-mile Racine-Milwaukee road race is set for Saturday; a Madison-to-Milwaukee relay race (94 miles) carries a message from Governor Peck to Mayor Koch on August 4; the Wisconsin state meet at Ripon (August 7–8) offers a $100 diamond for breaking Johnson's 2:13 track record.
- J.W. Conklin, an unattached wheelman in his first race ever, wins the Atalanta Wheelmen's 106-mile road race in 6:27:30 out of 67 finishers; the club's refusal of Negro entries sparks controversy when Chas. B. Brooks starts anyway hoping to win a prize as grounds for legal action.
- Second annual Colorado division meet at Colorado Springs; F.C. Lawton wins the mile state championship in a record 2:23; H.R. Renshaw takes both the five-mile (13:47½) and two-mile (6:26) state championships.
- England's NCU council, meeting at Anderton's Hotel on July 7 in response to the Racing Cyclists' League's revolt, votes to amend rather than suspend the licensing rules and appoints a ten-member joint committee to revise the amateur definition; a second resolution creates a committee to pursue international agreement after the exclusion of foreign riders Eden, Lehr, and Lurion from the English championships.
- The first 24-hour race held in Australia is won by G.W. Chrisp with 401 miles 1,457 yards; G.R. Broadbent led through 12 hours with 212 miles before Chrisp took command; H. Beeson finished second with 384 miles over 18 starters on a one-third-mile track in poor condition.
- Belgian Houben defeats Zimmerman in the four-heat 2,000-meter "grande internationale" at the Velodrome Bruxellois on July 1, leading from the pole throughout the final while a fatigued Zimmerman—off form since returning from Italy—finishes a length back; Medinger beats Wheeler for third after tactical foul disputes.
- Detroit Rambler team riders F.H. Herrick and C.L. Barthol, paced by Gus Steele (Chicago) and Tom Cooper, break all road records from 5 to 50 miles on July 14; Barthol covers 50 miles in 2:32:30, finishing fresh enough to regret not continuing to the century, both on Ramblers with G.&J. tires.
- Comic vignette about John Backus—Zimmerman's former mascot—who arrives in Paris, reunites effusively with Zimmerman ("Oh, Arthur!"), and has secured a footman's post in green livery with buttons "as big as dollars" on M. Watson's Dunlop-company pneumatic-tire phaeton.
- J.S. Johnson visits Toronto's Atheneum C.C. meet at Rosedale, where A.B. Goehler of Buffalo wins the two-mile lap race (4:51¼) and Johnson rides a solo Class B mile against time in 2:05⅖, setting a new Canadian track record; the Buffalo Bisons struggle with the unfamiliar third-mile banked track.
- Miscellaneous notes from Ocean Grove: Sanger uses a magnifying glass to inspect his diamond prize and finds two flaws; Palmer tire wins 35 of 39 prizes over two Asbury Park days; the Columbia team adds Bald, MacDonald, Edwards, Murphy, and Murphy's advertising dog Napoleon (wearing stovepipe hat and blanket) as general manager Bridgman takes financial control.
- At the Maryland division meet, Sanger wins the two-mile handicap from scratch by six inches over Maddox in 4:43⅖; Murphy wins the mile open in 2:17⅖; Johnson sets a new Maryland half-mile record of 1:01⅖; a morning riders' strike over a referee's ruling is settled before racing resumes.
- Preview of the national circuit meet at the World's Fair track (August 2–4): $2,500 in diamond prizes, a novel unpaced-mile event where each competitor rides alone and the best time wins, and $500 in "optional" prizes redeemable as merchandise of the winner's choice.
- The planned comparative strength test between E.C. Stearns's steel frames and the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co.'s aluminum (Lu-mi-num) frames collapses at Cornell University when Stearns arrives without the required twelve frames; the rescheduled test is set for Washington University, St. Louis, July 23, with forfeiture rules if either party again fails to appear.
- Dunlop's American representative (per Kirk Brown) rebuts an English correspondent's praise of rival road tires, citing 83 British championships won on Dunlops (77 exclusively) since pneumatics were introduced, and the Anerley Club's fifty-mile race where a Dunlop rider beat the rival tire's fastest time by three minutes eleven seconds.
- Brief notices of bicycle trade openings, closures, lawsuits, and incorporations from Detroit, Lockport, Newton (Mass.), Toronto, Louisville, Salem (Ore.), Rochester, Erie, Akron, Indianapolis, Houston, and a dozen other cities, including the Detroit Cycle Co. sued by Peerless Mfg. Co. for $2,705.
- Yazoo City holds its first-ever bicycle race meet with large civic fanfare—business suspended, 3,000 spectators, a military band parade—conducted in first-class fashion; local riders Powell and Dunn are singled out as promising, with Powell winning a 10-mile match race over challenger Brown of Deasonville in 35:04¼.
- Cleveland's Lakeside Cycling Club annual tournament at C.A.C. park; L.C. Johnson lowers the track record to 2:21⅖ in the evening one-mile handicap, winning a $50 diamond; three women in bloomers—including Mrs. George E. Poole, who rides a diamond-frame wheel—make their first public cycling appearance in Cleveland.
- M.J. Bailey wins both the one-mile club handicap (2:41⅖) and the one-mile open handicap (2:36⅙) at Riverton, N.J. on July 14; W.A. Wenzel breaks the track mile record in 2:26; one-legged rider J.J. Cummings covers a quarter in :40 against a headwind.
- Calendar of upcoming race meets from July 21 through October, listing more than 50 venues including the Racine-Milwaukee road race, the Antwerp international championships (August 12–13), the Denver L.A.W. national meet, and the Springfield (Mass.) national circuit meet.
- Humorous anecdote from a veteran cyclist: his first race was on a grass track "once around the field to a gate" with only two starters—himself and a bull at virtual scratch—resulting in "the deadest of heats," decided when the bull tossed him.
- Short editorial notes: F. Howard Tuttle plans to offer a real live monkey as a special Class B prize, predicted to draw every B man on the circuit; editor warns that loose dogs on race tracks pose a serious accident risk in handicap events where riders are scattered.
- Spurred by Wells' recent races, Louisville wheelmen raise $1,000 in ten minutes toward a corporation to build a three-lap cement track near the boulevard; H. Cochran Bailey leads the effort; Thomas Jefferis issues a formal three-heat challenge to Hugh Caperton with a $50 diamond ring at stake and $200 side bets.