The Bicycling World, Vol 43, No 14
Articles in this issue
- The Bicycling World retracts its June 20 report that John R. Keim had settled the American Bicycle Co.'s Smith bottom-bracket patent suit; the case actually compromised was the Copeland handlebar patent, No. 568,786, and Keim states he has taken no license from anyone and means to fight to the bitter end.
- Hey & Parsons of Syracuse have served a bill of complaint in the United States Court action brought by John Ziegler and Henry C. England of Reading, Pa., against the Reed & Curtis Machine Screw Co. of Worcester, Mass., to restrain the E-Z-Y coaster-brake as an imitation of the plaintiffs' Wyoma brake.
- Chr. Gottschalck of Copenhagen, one of Denmark's best known importers of American cycles, parts and sundries, is due in New York early in July on a purchasing tour that will take him to Buffalo and then to the Palmer House, Chicago.
- A. W. Gamage, Ltd., the London jobbing house that deals so largely in American cycles and cycle sundries, reports a gross profit of £42,698 for the twelve months ending with January and a net of £7,977.
- The Eclipse Mfg. Co. makes public that its Morrow coaster-brake for chainless bicycles, hitherto known to only a few in the trade, will be ready in time for next season.
- The Chicago Handle Bar Co. may remove to Brockton, Mass.; B. F. Muehler of the concern was there last week looking up a site for the manufacture of the firm's product.
- Judge Hooker, in the Supreme Court at Buffalo, hands down judgments totalling nearly $40,000 against twenty insurance companies in favour of Mortimer C. Rosenfeld of the Cleveland Cycle Fittings Co., whose $36,000 fire claim the companies had declined to pay.
- L. C. Havener, the well-known Worcester (Mass.) bicycle dealer, is circulating a paper binding bicycle and sporting-goods dealers to close four evenings a week and Friday afternoons through the summer, to take effect the second week in July.
- The Cycle Trades' Protective Association is to hold an important meeting at Buffalo, with matters of considerable moment coming up for discussion.
- Cycle exports for the eleven months of the fiscal year ending with May remain nearly $1,000,000 behind, but May itself lost little: England fell below its 1900 record while gains ran throughout Europe, Germany included, and the heaviest loss was in British North America following the Trust's withdrawal from the Canadian market.
- A well known figure in the trade says he is glad John R. Keim did not compromise with the Trust on the bottom bracket suit, and remarks that the litigation opens up legal points a lawyer could make considerable use of.
- In extremely hot weather the coaster-brake is particularly appropriate, since it is the movement of the legs rather than the force of the thrust that heats the rider, and coasting brings him considerable relief.
- In Allen J. Gray's action against the Richmond Bicycle Company the New York Court of Appeals holds that an out-of-State judgment on a promissory note bars suit here by a transferee after maturity unless the payee was induced to take the judgment by the maker's fraud, as the defendant company's president was found to have done through misstatements about the mortgages and assets.
- Bright, sunshiny weather has been the rule rather than the exception in England for the greater part of the season, producing a small-sized boom and a much better mood in the trade.
- Repair outfits now figure far less as free giveaways: riders who mend their own tires want something special, those who use regular repairers care nothing about them, and some tire makers have ceased to furnish outfits gratis.
- Tradesmen discussing the scant showing of cycle manufacturers at the Pan-American Exposition recall the shiftlessness of the Chicago World's Fair exhibits — machines covered with dust, dull nickelling and tires left flat — and draw the moral that exhibits must be properly looked after.
- At the Waldorf-Astoria breakfast table Colonel Pope of the Pope Mfg. Co. asked Charles M. Schwab of the steel combine to recommend a manufacturing plant manager willing to work for $25,000 a year; Schwab replied that he was himself looking for about eight such men.
- The catalog of the Lozier Motor Co. of Plattsburgh, N.Y., though dealing mainly with marine gasolene motors, should prove a mine of information to anyone interested, the firm also making engines for motocycles.
- Consul Brittain at Nantes, answering the Bicycling World's inquiry, blames the fall in American cycle exports to France on exporters' neglect of cities outside Paris and on the poor handling their wheels receive there.
- English racing men Jenkins and Gascoyne are riding American bicycles in this country but shod with foreign tires — a cemented combination of single and double tube whose inner tube can be reached only by loosening the outer cover.
- An indolent rider admits that in nine cases out of ten the fault is the user's, then recounts his accumulation of electric, acetylene and oil lamps and says he would chuck the whole collection in the river if he were sure he would not regret it.
- G. H. Curtis of Hammondsport, N.Y., describes the fight he makes against the large numbers of mail-order bicycles being shipped into his part of the country.
- The leader anatomises mail-order bicycle selling — the extent of its sales, next year's supply already bought, where the wheels go, the failings of manufacturers' catalogs and advertising, and the complacency of the "John Jones" country merchant — and urges makers and dealers to fight fire with fire by advertising and following up.
- With racing men riding well forward "over the pedals," a saddle post is wanted that will carry the rider forward and yet be as rigid as the frame; the whittled homemade makeshift now in use works only after a fashion.
- The Automotor Journal argues that motor bicycles need a clutch between motor and driving wheel, since a fixed gear makes the machine alternately drive and be driven on hills and at low speeds and is liable to upset the steering, and that crank length deserves closer attention.
- A workshop recipe for hardening a newly cut tap with the blowpipe and quenching it in a whirlpool of water in a pail to prevent distortion, followed by the tempering and colouring.
- Oiling the coaster-brake is a matter likely to be neglected, yet it is what keeps the clutches in good condition.
- The Bicycling World wants two copies of The Wheel of August 23, 1900, and offers six months' subscription to the Bicycling World in return for each.
- Neglect and inattention in financial matters are the faults the average cycle dealer is most apt to encourage and the least excused; makers will show consideration to an agent whose collections are slow if he writes frankly instead of hiding from his creditor.
- Consul-General Mason reports to the State Department from Berlin that German firms are unusually eager for American goods, but that American exporters lose the trade by sending catalogs and price lists in English with dollar values, neglecting binding contracts, and packing carelessly.
- The Merkel Mfg. Co. of Milwaukee, Wis., comes out strongly for the belt it uses on its own machine, holding that people who use chains on small machines have something to learn because the motion is too direct.
- On the quips and quirks of the salesman's trade: the way that succeeds with one buyer will lose another, and in selling a bicycle an ill-judged word at the wrong moment can place the sale in danger.
- A trained designer of bridges would stand aghast at 24-gauge frame tubing and 16- or 18-gauge spokes, yet the cycle designer points to hundreds of thousands of machines that have stood the strain — one engineer doubting his accepted axioms on learning that a frame and forks of about eight pounds carry a rider.
- George White of Huntsville, Ala., patents a tire carrying five inner tubes inside the ordinary outer cover, each with its own valve plus a connecting valve, any one or all of which may be inflated, to do away with the worry of burst or leaky tires on bicycles, carriages and automobiles.
- Details of the Mitchell motor bicycle built by the Wisconsin Wheel Works of Racine, a machine not hurriedly got up, fitted with a Morrow coaster-brake for quick stoppage and run on the racetrack before every motor is shipped.
- Racing news of the week: the opening night of the six-night Golden Wheel motor-paced race at Boston, where Walthour dropped out and Champion and Moran left Nelson and Stinson miles behind; Kramer's hard luck at Vailsburg and Fenn's five-mile competition record; the Madison Square Garden indoor meet; the newly organised National Paced Circuit Association under president F. E. Spooner; and Walthour's and Nelson's wins at Woodside Park.
- London letter: at last Saturday's hill-climbing contest the Werners had it all their own way in the motorbicycle class, the fastest time being 2 min. 2 2-5 sec. by a 1½ h.p. machine, and oxygen gas for motors is discussed.
- An English firm advertises a 21¼-pound bicycle as strikingly new beside machines scaling 35 pounds, but the price of this paragon is $150, with a promised reduction of $30 in six weeks.
- Negative evidence is not the equal of positive: the Englishman who says single-tube tires cannot be repaired merely means that he cannot repair one, and the fact that thousands of others do so does not weigh with him.
- The Manumotor, a hand-propelled tricycle listing at $200 and built only to order by the National Cycle Mfg. Co. of Bay City, Mich., has a pair of cranks just above the rider's waist so that a person deprived of the use of his legs can get about.
- Linley recounts the hard time of the inventor: he patented and exhibited the free wheel, tested it over thousands of miles, and was assured no machine would ever want it, showing his 'Protean' with contracting bracket gearing at the Stanley Show of 1894.
- The week's changes and openings in the retail trade: H. E. Toms succeeds C. J. Fritz at Dansville, N.Y., closing-out sales by A. Samuels at Elmira and Tower & Bull at Rochester, and new stores by Mack & Jerine at Windham, N.Y., J. J. McCarty at Dover, N.H., Curran & Powers at Cheshire, Mass., and Harry Noyes at Manchester, N.H.
- The week's grants, headed by Edmond Heirman of Mont-sur-Marchienne, Belgium, for a cylinder head for motors operated by heated gas or air (676,891), together with a pneumatic-tire strengthener, George W. Miller of Buffalo's tricycle frame design (34,693) and the Stearns Bicycle Agency's trademark (35,657).
- England and Germany were again large buyers of American cycle stuff in the week closing June 25, but New Zealand was the largest purchaser and Japan was well up with 78 cases of bicycles and parts valued at $3,503, with shipments also to Antwerp, Havre, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Copenhagen, Mexico and Uruguay.
- Cushman & Denison, long known as makers of the "Perfect" Pocket Oiler, have bought the patents covering the "Perfect" Mucilage Bottle, whose water chamber prevents thickening and evaporation; it is made of frosted aluminum and retails at 50 cents.
- Riders think the valve cap exists only to stop leakage, but it is quite as much intended to keep dust out of the valve; riders should keep the cap in place and see that the pump connection is clean too.