The Bearings, Vol 9, No 8
Articles in this issue
- Isaac B. Potter withdraws $1,200 from the League of American Wheelmen's Good Roads bank account to offset personal checks he had paid on the organization's behalf, reducing his outstanding claim against the League to around $1,200–$1,500 which he will now seek in court; editor Sterling Elliott accepted the Good Roads editorship at $2,000 per year.
- Reports from Florida (chief consul S.A. Adams) and Texas show the color-line amendment has encouraged southern L.A.W. membership growth; promoters in Augusta, Savannah, Macon, Columbus, and Birmingham are arranging a spring racing circuit for April–May; a bicycle-vs.-horse relay race in Jacksonville over 20 miles ends with the horses winning in 50:55 to the cyclists' 53:41.
- After more than a dozen ballots over two meetings, the Associated Cycling Clubs of Chicago vote 11–7–3 to run their Decoration Day road race over the North Side Sheridan Drive course from the Grant Monument in Lincoln Park, renaming it the Chicago Road Race in honor of longtime manager 'Bob' Garden.
- London correspondent C.W. Hartung reports R.L. Jefferson's departure on a 56-inch safety for Constantinople via France, Switzerland, Hungary, and the Balkans; Herne Hill track has reopened for the season; and Percy Lindley's dispatch in the Stanley Gazette challenges myths about bad Dutch roads ahead of the Stanley Club's Easter visit to Holland.
- New York cycling news: L.A.W. President Luscomb and Racing Chairman Howard Raymond return from the Maryland Bicycle Club's Baltimore banquet; the Berkeley School Athletic Association interscholastic one-mile bicycle race is won by W.H. Blake of Harvard School in 2:48 2/5; manager W.B. Troy sails to Paris on La Champagne to negotiate A.A. Zimmerman's professional debut for $15,000, with Geo. Banker and W.P. Murphy likely accompanying; J.F. Starbuck wins the Madison Square Garden six-day meet's 50-mile scratch race in 2:39:00.
- John T. Monet, aged 21, the most popular wheelman in the District of Columbia and holder of the 24-hour road record, dies of pneumonia at his home at 321 Spruce Street, Le Droit Park; he was a member of the Capitol Bicycle Club and the Arlington Wheelmen.
- E.C. Bode corrects an earlier Bearings report of his Mexico experiences, stating his criticism of degradation referred only to the lower classes; he praises the upper classes as the most agreeable and hospitable of people and promises a full account of his travels.
- The Birmingham (Alabama) Cycle Club, energized by record track rides by Bliss and Dirnberger last fall, announces a meet in late May at the Birmingham Fair Association track, coinciding with the Alabama division L.A.W. meet and Birmingham Athletic Club championships under A.A.U. rules.
- C.M. Murphy will ride a Stearns and W.M. Taxis a Sterling in Class B for the coming season; both men were reinstated at the last National Assembly meeting.
- The editor debates Chairman Raymond's ruling that Class A and B riders cannot compete together in road races for prizes over $50; Raymond's full letter to the L.A.W. Executive Committee is reprinted, asking whether the 1893 Assembly resolution exempting road racing from organizational jurisdiction permits the new amateur rules to affect events such as the Pullman, Irvington-Milburn, and Poorman races.
- Michigan L.A.W. Chief Consul Bressler is suspended by President Luscomb after hold-over officers refused to conduct a new division election as ordered by the National Assembly; the rights and privileges committee will manage the election under the constitutional amendment passed at the last meeting.
- Department column: The Bearings will remain separate from the L.A.W. Bulletin, which will be entered in the League's name and mailed only to individual subscribers at second-class rates; two French electrical timing inventions for cycle races are described, including a peg-and-ink-point electrical recorder able to rank finishers to fractions of a second; the column recounts L.A.W. delegates singing 'John Brown's Body' through their train at Harper's Ferry and a 1887 encounter where Boston tourist Lon Peck nearly came to blows over the song on a Shenandoah train.
- Humorous poem reprinted from the Irish Athlete in the voice of a young woman cyclist who consistently refuses importunate bicycle makers and riders who ask her to try their machines or ride with them, with the repeated refrain 'No, sir; no, sir; no.'
- Frances E. Willard, president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union, is interviewed by Bicycling News while visiting Lady Somerset in England; she describes taking 26 hours spread over several months to learn to ride, her enthusiasm for cycling, and argues that American women have more freedom than English women to dress sensibly for the wheel.
- Trainer C.R. Culver describes plans for a 200-pound, 20-foot aluminum torpedo-shell mounted on three bicycle wheels and powered by storage batteries, designed to create a vacuum for a following rider and pace him to a 1:15 mile; Culver plans to consult Thomas Edison and train a man with a 96-inch gear for a fall attempt on a properly banked mile track.
- The Associated Cycling Clubs of Milwaukee is formed by the Mercury Club, North Side Club, and Bay View Wheelmen under President Gustav Simmerling; the Milwaukee Wheelmen refuse to join after a constitutional dispute, creating a rivalry; the association sanctions road races on June 16, July 21, and in August on the Waukesha-Milwaukee and Racine-Milwaukee courses.
- Walter C. Sanger is reportedly receiving $500 a month plus expenses from the Union company to ride their wheel, having turned down offers of $4,000 from Columbia and $3,000 from Overman; he is weighing training in San Francisco or Springfield and has been offered a start at the Midwinter Fair.
- Brief items on Wisconsin cycling: new clubs forming at Rice Lake and Marinette (40 charter members), Henry Bergman of Appleton claims to have ridden the first bicycle in Wisconsin after learning in Paris in 1857, Henry Kanaska training at Richfield with skater George Tyson assisting, and a Madison–Sun Prairie road race planned for mid-July.
- Louisville cycling writer W.E. Watts, who organized southern L.A.W. support for Luscomb's presidential campaign, states that Luscomb never pledged to support the color-line amendment in exchange for southern votes; the south backed Luscomb based solely on his prior record at the Philadelphia assembly, and the color question was never discussed between them.
- The annual Kings County Wheelmen (Brooklyn) meeting elects Durant McLean president; a second election for captaincy is ordered (Hawley 39, Needham 24, Gurnee 19); G.R. Needham protests awarding the diamond mileage medal to C.M. Murphy's 9,000-mile season record on grounds Murphy was under L.A.W. suspension during part of it, prompting Murphy's brother William to threaten legal action.
- Philadelphia cycling news: Quaker City Wheelmen petition their racing board for 5–25 mile road races; Walter B. Pollock joins the racing team; the Harrisburg 74-hour race (April 11) features Dawson, Fornwald, and McLaughlin; Eclipse Wheelmen captain William Flenard leads the first club run to Valley Forge; the Alpha Wheelmen open a two-week fair at their clubhouse at 1626 Diamond Street with 16 decorated booths.
- The Massachusetts Bicycle Club plans to ride the British Army's historic route from Boston to Lexington and Concord on April 19, the newly signed Lexington Day holiday championed by club historian Ned McGlennen; the Massachusetts L.A.W. board awards the spring meet to Boston with a $1,000 appropriation, and two top men will attempt the world mile record on the new metallithic surface at the Waltham track.
- A reckless young Chicago cyclist races through the Washington Street tunnel beside a moving cable car with feet on the coasters, then skids on a rail and crashes violently against the tunnel wall when a second train approaches; passengers scream, he is found unhurt but thoroughly frightened, and the crew swears at him until bystanders intervene.
- A Bearings correspondent discovers that opera diva Emma Eames, performing at the Chicago Auditorium, travels everywhere with her safety bicycle and told him she 'cannot do without' it; the comic interview at her hotel ends abruptly when she orders her manager to remove 'that fool.'
- Fable: an old cushion-tired safety and a boastful new pneumatic trade sharp words on the road about obsolescence and punctures until the pneumatic's rear tire explodes with a pistol-crack, stranding its rider and leaving the cushion-tire rider laughing; moral: 'If too much in your pride you trust, / Your inner tube may sometimes bast.'
- Editorial list of changes the daily press must make before the cycling world will take it seriously: spell Darntge's and Plzen's names correctly, stop confusing track and road racing, stop printing Zimmerman's portrait for every other racing man, abandon the stooping-position lung-injury theory, and assign reporters who actually understand cycling.
- Brooklyn Citizen sporting editor W.H. 'Billy' Roberts narrates his comic 1891 one-mile handicap at Bergen Point, N.J.: starting at 125 yards he leads until his rear wheel digs a rut into which Zimmerman crashes on his Star and Anthony sails into a tree; panicked horses then chase Roberts around the track for five extra miles until he smashes into the grandstand foundation and wakes up.
- Humorous taxonomy of cyclist personalities: the over-oiler, the deflator, the mud-guard crank who insists yours must match his, the over-equipped tourist who only rides to Pullman, the novice who sprints to exhaustion within a mile, the calm champion who saves his energy for the path, and the dub who always finishes last and has an excuse involving loose handles or a puncture.
- Editorial warning that A.G. Spalding's 1,000 unsold 1893 Victor bicycles could trigger another trade price collapse if dumped on the retail market; the editor urges larger manufacturers to buy the surplus quietly and settle the Overman-Spalding contract dispute without causing a repeat of last season's panic.
- Overman Wheel Co. issues a circular accusing Spalding of refusing to fulfill its 40-percent-of-output contract and taking under 200 Victors after June 1893; A.G. Spalding is interviewed at length, claiming the letter in Overman's circular was drafted by A.H. Overman himself on his own company paper, and the 600 wheels involved were returned for repair due to poor finish; Spalding offers remaining 1893 Victors to agents at $75–$80 net cash and has already brought suit claiming $100,000 damages.
- A custom 48-pound Columbia tandem built by John Webber in Pope's Chicago repair shop for branch manager O.B. Jackson preserves both the ladies' and gentlemen's Columbia frame lines in a 62-inch-geared machine that has proven satisfactory in Jackson's road tests.
- The Carbo-Alumina Metal Co. files a $100,000 suit against the St. Louis Refrigerator and Wooden Gutter Co., charging the defendant took away the plaintiff's secret aluminum-alloy formula patterns, established its own foundry, and published the plaintiff's test results as tests of its own imitation metal, nearly ruining the plaintiff's bicycle-parts business.
- The Black Mfg. Co. of Erie, Pa. introduces the Tribune Model B, a 21.5-pound roadster listed at $150 with wood rims and Hartford road-racing tires, suitable for track or road use; the 1894 catalogue also shows the Model D in the same weight with a deep frame.
- Kansas City correspondents report an encouraging 1894 season opening with no price-cutting observed, about 25 high-grade wheel brands represented, and recent arrivals including Stearns, Imperial, March, and Sunol; second-hand 1893 high-grade machines hold firmly at $75.
- Indiana Bicycle Co. withdraws its backing from George M. Hendee and opens its own store in the same Springfield, Mass. block; over 300 Waverleys were sold at retail in Springfield last season, and the company reports record-breaking orders on its first two days and expects to double that figure.
- Wilson-Myers Co. opens Liberty Hall at 1217–1221 Bedford Avenue with a 60×80-foot carpeted sales floor, a second-floor riding school with ladies' retiring rooms, and basement bowling alleys, managed by Alexander Schwalbach and planned to open by April 1; Brooklyn Cycle Co. branch, James C. Merwin & Co. (Majesties, 250 sold in 1893), Bedford Cycle Depot, and Bensinger, McDonald & Bowdish are also noted.
- E.C. Stearns & Co. describes its rigorous chain quality process: hardened tool-steel center links and carbonized stamping-steel side links are strained to 2,000 lbs., then run at two miles per minute on the firm's own sprocket testing machine; any chain varying more than one thirty-second of an inch in length is rejected.
- London correspondent examines the new Dunlop path tire, featuring a two-layer cotton-thread woven liner instead of canvas on a Warwick rim, with a new simple valve; the cover weighs 15 oz. and has already completed 900 miles of testing; London manager S. Hill says the thread lining will not be applied to road tires this year.
- San Francisco dealer Davis Bros. (Cleveland bicycle agents) are burned out, losing about 50 wheels of their own stock plus customers' machines left for repair; Lozier Co. immediately makes good the loss to repair-shop customers; Rambler agent Thos. H.B. Varney has moved to a new store uptown.
- Virtually all St. Paul bicycle dealers relocate for 1894: F.M. Smith & Bro. expand to Sixth Street carrying Rambler, March, and Liberty with fast northwest riders B.B. Bird and Geo. Biggs; M.F. Kennedy & Bros. convert 100×150 feet of Lowry Arcade into a riding school, gymnasium, and repair shop handling Columbia, Victor, Hartford, and Derby; the St. Paul Cycle Co. moves to Wabash Street.
- The Palmer Pneumatic Tire Co. introduces a multi-part metal valve designed for when a valve stem is pulled off by a soft or creeping tire: threaded through the small hole from inside and secured with a washer and set nut on the rim, it adds no weight and allows a rider to keep a good tire even after a torn-off stem.
- Nationwide compilation of bicycle trade openings, closings, incorporations, mortgage filings, and personnel changes, covering firms from Newman (Ill.) and Washington D.C. to Racine (Wis.), Brooklyn, Detroit, Lincoln (Neb.), and Vancouver B.C., including the Bradley Chainless Bicycle Co.'s $10,000 chattel mortgage and the Racine Hardware Co.'s $175,000 incorporation to manufacture bicycles.
- John Palmer returns from Canada where the Canadian Rubber Co. of Montreal has been licensed to manufacture the Palmer tire for the Canadian market; the first Canadian-made Palmers will reach the trade within two weeks.
- Comprehensive factory round-up: Monarch Cycle Co. finishes steel rims to look like wood and opens an Atlanta office under R.F. Bunting; Morgan & Wright ships 2,900 tire sets in one Saturday and 35,000 sets in one month; Hill Cycle Mfg. Co. runs double shifts to fill back-orders; Derby Cycle Co.'s L.J. Wagner places sub-agencies in cigar stores and drug stores across Chicago; Donnelly & Deward build a novel 30-pound wire-frame wheel with aluminum-bronze fittings; the Two Speed Bicycle Co. tests a machine shifting from 48 to 63 inches under full speed via a chain-changing lever; and the Fulton Machine Works (all Aberdeen Scotchmen) produces 500 Thistle safeties, continuing through page 22.