The Bearings, Vol 9, No 4
Articles in this issue
- Cleveland correspondent reports on a standoff between the C.W.C. board and L.A.W. membership chairman Pennell over the demanded expulsion of a former club secretary charged with financial irregularities; also covers the Keating Century Wheel Club's bi-monthly literary entertainments and the Lakeside Club's indoor baseball rivalry with the Cleveland Grays.
- The Chicago Cycling Club is settled in its handsome new clubhouse on Lake Avenue near Thirty-first Street, complete with bowling alleys, pool rooms, shower baths, and a ballroom; the Fifth Annual Poorman road race is announced as a serious rival to the Pullman, with a fourteen-mile course finishing at Carthage.
- San Francisco correspondent reports that the California Associated Cycling Clubs' second annual twenty-five-mile road race on the San Leandro Triangle on February 22 is drawing nearly all the city's fastest men, with a diamond medal as the chief prize; the Bay City Wheelmen have also moved to larger quarters.
- London, Feb. 10 correspondent reports that the N.C.U.'s London Center voted nearly 2-to-1 against allowing amateurs and professionals to meet once a year in a championship, and simplified the professional definition; also covers the false death report for 'Choppy' Warburton after a tandem accident, and Easter professional racing plans at Kensal Rise grounds with a $1,000 first prize.
- London, Feb. 2 letter by C.W. Hartung describes the Mid-Surrey C.C. dinner and the club's deputation to the London County Council seeking a cycle track in Battersea Park; also discusses the Scottish two-class amateur registration scheme, the growing knickerbockers fashion for women riders, and Percy Litchfield's management of the Putney cement track.
- W.C. Payne, an Evansville, Indiana dealer handling the Cleveland wheel, plans to secure the Indiana division meet for his city in June to coincide with the Kentucky division's Ohio River trip; the Ohio division state meet is set for Cincinnati on July 2–4.
- Syracuse, N.Y. correspondent reports that the L.A.W. New York state board of officers, at the instigation of Vice-Consul Charles W. Wood, passed a resolution requiring clubs hosting circuit and state races to admit all League members free on presentation of a ticket—a ruling that would cost the Century Cycling Club alone $1,000 in lost gate receipts and threatens to eliminate meet promotion across the state.
- Paris correspondent A.G. Roux describes the 50-kilometer tandem match at the Marchand track in which the Farman brothers defeated Wheeler and Warwick in 1:22:08 1-5; Wheeler rode a low-geared roadster tandem ill-suited to the distance and a bent pedal crank caused a costly dismount that let the Farmans take a decisive lead.
- A Philadelphia dispatch reports that well-known wheelman A.H. MacOwen was elected to the Philadelphia city council by a large majority, running ahead of his ticket, after the city's wheelmen campaigned actively on his behalf.
- Editorial assessing the key outcomes of the Louisville National Assembly: dues raised from $1 to $1.50 to address near-bankruptcy (Good Roads alone cost the League over $21,000), Good Roads magazine continued at 50 cents to members, the two-class racing system adopted, the next League meet awarded to Denver, and the resolution barring Black members carried.
- Editorial profiles the newly elected L.A.W. officers: Charles H. Luscomb, whose re-election as president after being ousted four years earlier is a triumphant vindication; A.C. Willison, elected first vice-president for the audit-committee work that exposed the League's true finances; and George A. Perkins of Massachusetts, elected second vice-president.
- Short editorial notes defend Thomas F. Sheridan as an honorable and hard-working League man whose only misfortune was association with a bungling administration; also recounts how 3,000 steel balls escaped from a broken Cleveland Machine Screw Co. display case at the Philadelphia show and were mistaken for souvenirs.
- Humorous column in which a cycling journalist visits English tragedian Wilson Barrett's dressing room after Hamlet and tries to ask which wheel he will ride in a mile challenge, only to be met with Shakespearean ranting about Tom Eck and Johnny Johnson on a tandem; Ophelia whispers advice to make a swift exit.
- The Bearings rebukes the cycling writer 'Imlac' of The Wheel for misidentifying the Hindu scripture as the 'Rig-Vedas' written in 'Hindoo' and calling its authors savages—errors copied without correction by Irish Cyclist editor Mecredy—directing readers to Sanskrit scholar Max Mueller of England.
- A satirical editorial lists eleven near-impossible demands for incoming L.A.W. president Luscomb—from frightening road hogs and policing makers' amateurs to satisfying every faction simultaneously—closing with a mock threat of a millstone around the neck if he fails.
- Comprehensive two-day report on the L.A.W. National Assembly in Louisville, Feb. 19–20: Luscomb defeats Sheridan 123-55 for president; the Racing Board's report covers 1,198 sanctions granted, the Zimmerman/N.C.U. credential dispute resolved in Zimmerman's favor, the failed makers'-amateur prosecution of Johnson and Tuttle, and adoption of Class B; the negro exclusion amendment passes 127-54 after Colonel Watts reads a letter of assent from Louisville's Union Cycle Club president Frederick J. Scott; dues fixed at $1.50; Denver wins the 1894 meet 93-70 over Asbury Park; seven riders including C.M. Murphy reinstated.
- Philadelphia correspondent reports on the Park Avenue Wheelmen's second 'Midway Plaisance' smoker entertainment, which packed the clubhouse with Midway-style dances under stage manager Miller; also covers the Philadelphia Bicycle Club annual meeting where Theodore Borden won the captain's cup with 3,220 miles ridden in 1893.
- At the California Associated Cycling Clubs' second annual 25-mile road race on the muddy San Leandro Triangle, A.Y. Swain finished first on a 7.5-minute handicap in 1:24:20, but Emil Ulbricht—formerly of Chicago, now of the Bay City Wheelmen—won the time prize from scratch with 1:49:08 1-5, coming in seventh overall among thirty-three starters.
- Milwaukee correspondent reports that T.F. Melius is considering taking Peter Weber's patented ice bicycle on an Arctic expedition to search for missing Swedish botanists Bjorling and Kallstenius; also covers the Grand Avenue asphalt paving proposal for a three-mile cycling course, and the formation of a Milwaukee inter-club association from which the Milwaukee Wheelmen withdrew.
- Boston notes: Springfield Bicycle Club president D.E. Miller says Walter Sanger will likely ride for Springfield with trainer 'Arry Leeming this season; Leeming's skill in teaching Harry Tyler to sprint aggressively—producing Tyler's victory over Sanger and Zimmerman at Springfield—is recalled; Windle is confirmed as having permanently retired.
- London, Feb. 3 correspondent reports on the liquidations of Macbeth Phillips & Co. and the Wenham Cycle Co., attributing English trade depression to price-cutting and lack of capital among smaller firms; also describes a neat one-piece Pollard Bros. tandem tricycle guaranteed for 30 stone, management changes at the Coventry Machinists' Co., and a brisk demand for detachable gear-cases led by the Dover pattern from the Dorman Engineering Co. of Northampton.
- New York correspondent reports that the committee drafting a national cycle trade association constitution has held two meetings but is not ready to publish its plan; a 'Scotch syndicate' of dry-goods firms including Pettis of Indianapolis and Minneapolis Dry Goods Co. has purchased over 1,000 unsold Bidwell Tourist bicycles from the assignee for about $60 each.
- Lists velocipede and vehicle-wheel patents that expired January 9 and 16, 1894, including grants from 1877 to Walter Katon and Paul Bonfils of North Attleboro, A.A. Philbrick of Coldwater, and Wm. H.H. Stineman and C.T. Holloway of Baltimore.
- Washington dealer and manufacturer H.S. Owen proposes clinching pneumatic tire beads into the rim by inflating them with a pump rather than using wire, which he believes would eliminate edge-weight and allow significantly lighter tires requiring only a single valve for deflation.
- The Lamb Mfg. Co.'s 1894 line of six models is detailed: the new high-grade Spalding road wheel at $125 (27 lbs, Palmer tires, wood rims) and five Credenda models including the Pacer ($100), Consort ($100, with dress guards), Roadster ($85), and new Pacer Junior and Consort Junior on 26-inch wheels at $65 and $75.
- C.E. Duryea responds to R.P. Scott's published criticism of his transverse tire fabric theory, defending his claim—supported by resiliometer experiments—that flexible lateral-threaded fabrics absorb road obstacles rather than lifting the rider, making them faster and more comfortable than diagonal or longitudinal fabrics.
- Review of the St. Louis Refrigerator & Wooden Gutter Co.'s aluminum-framed Lu-mi-num bicycles shown at the Philadelphia exhibition: three models at $135 each, the lightest (No. 300) weighing 25.25 lbs stripped, with jointless one-piece frames, white-ash lock-joint wood rims, and Palmer tires.
- Reviews of 1894 catalogues: the Union Cycle's lavishly illustrated production featuring Tyler, Windle, and McDuffee; Remington Arms Co. (eight models, $100–$135); McKee & Harrington's Lyndhurst ($125–$150, with a race poem); John P. Lovell Arms (range from a 19.5-lb racer at $125 to cheaper machines); Central Cycle Ben Hur; Stokes Mfg.; Columbus Bicycle No. 7 ($90, 28 lbs); A. Featherstone ($15–$100); and Ames & Frost Imperial (22-lb racer).
- Listing of recent business changes across California, Indiana Territory, Kansas, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, and Ontario, including dissolutions, successions, a fire loss, chattel mortgages, and court judgments in the cycle and hardware trade.
- Feature article on the manufacture of cold-drawn weldless steel tubing at the Pope Mfg. Co. in Hartford, Conn.: a twelve-inch steel disk undergoes twelve hydraulic cupping operations and up to thirty gas-annealing cycles in hermetically sealed crucibles before being drawn through dies to produce a single twenty-five-foot length of tubing sufficient for one bicycle frame.
- Compilation of 1894 tire guarantee terms from Palmer Pneumatic Tire Co. (free repair at Akron, New York, or Chicago), American Dunlop Tire Co. (one year against defects in workmanship, material, or design, excluding riding deflated or oil exposure), Eastern Rubber Mfg. Co.'s Climax tires (free puncture repair for one year), and New York Belting & Packing Co.
- Philadelphia trade correspondent covers the Overman Wheel Co.'s Victor reception planned for Washington's Birthday at 835 Arch Street with thousands of personal invitations; dealer William Trafford's capture of a bicycle thief who brought a stolen Warwick in for repairs; and Abe Powell, the Pennsylvania division's official handicapper, taking charge of a Derby Cycle Co. branch.
- Brief trade notes including Roger B. McMullen & Co.'s factory running twenty-two hours a day since November, H.T. Conde Implement Co. of Indianapolis taking the Indiana Eclipse agency, the Knight Cycle Co. of St. Louis planning a seventeen-pound racer, August Lehr taking the Raleigh agency for Germany and Switzerland, and the Munger Cycle Co. closing Chicago and Milwaukee agencies with Sieg & Walpole and T.L. Payne & Co. respectively.