The Bicycling World, Vol 43, No 26
Articles in this issue
- The American Bicycle Co. abruptly ordered the Columbia Sales Department at Hartford discontinued, giving it thirty days to wind up, a week after it had absorbed the Monarch department; A.B.C. preferred fell to 10 bid and the common to 1 7/8 on the news.
- Colonel J. L. Rice, vice-president of the Single Tube Co., admits that some Tillinghast licences have been cancelled, partly over unpaid royalties, but predicts the differences will be adjusted.
- The E. R. Thomas Motor Co. of Buffalo will make motors only, while the new Auto-Bi Co. takes over the motor bicycle business; Thomas will build air-cooled, water-topped and water-jacketed motors from 1 1/2 to 10 horsepower and guarantee them to retail purchasers.
- Charles H. Knepka, a bicycle dealer at Norwich, N. Y., says a man who tendered a $20 bill for a tire seized over $100 from his money drawer and knocked him unconscious; the robber has not been found.
- G. A. A. Bennett of the Universal Trading Co., Birmingham, in New York hunting a motor bicycle, reports selling four thousand Morrow coaster-brakes and twenty-eight thousand Bowden rim brakes, praises Rudge-Whitworth's $40 and $50 machines, and expects a drop in Dunlop tire prices.
- An old rider tells the Bicycling World that the present-day bicycle is so reliable he has carried a wrench in his riding clothes for years without once needing it.
- A Bicycling World count of 200 bicycles on the Riverside Drive cycle path, New York, found only 28 fitted with coaster-brakes, and just one of the 39 machines ridden by women.
- The Buffalo Specialty Mfg. Co. and the G. W. Cole Co. settle their tire-fluid litigation: Buffalo keeps 'Neverleak' and a collapsible-tube patent, while Cole & Co. drop 'Stop-Leak' and take the 'Baby' and 'Neverslip' spoke-grip patents.
- The murdered President McKinley once signed a cycling club application and wore a cycling badge: at the L. A. W. National Assembly at Columbus, Ohio, in February 1892, W. Fay Tuttle got his signature for honorary membership of the Chicago Cycling Club and Will Herrick pinned a Century Road Club badge on his lapel.
- Vice-President George Pope's affidavit to the Federal Industrial Commission recounts the American Bicycle Company's incorporation on 12 May 1899, A. G. Spalding's private purchase of forty-eight plants, capital of $35,000,000 preferred and $45,000,000 common, and the closing of eight bicycle plants since consolidation.
- Editorial urging dealers to work the country trade, arguing that the cities have been raked over with a fine-tooth comb and that the farmer, his wife and his 'hands' are the most valuable remaining prospects.
- Editorial on the Riverside Drive count: with only one bicycle in seven and one wheelwoman in thirty-nine carrying a coaster-brake, dealers are failing to seek out the riders who have none.
- Editorial likening the motor bicycle's position to that of the safety a dozen years ago, with no uniformity yet possible in motor size, position or method of driving.
- Natural-finish wood rims and guards have all but disappeared, displaced by enamelled and painted rims in fancy colours with striping.
- Cross-frame bicycles have fallen flat in Britain, and the firms that rushed in to meet the expected demand are striving to forget the frame and unload their unsold stock.
- A new pacing machine for small tracks dispenses with pedals altogether, the rider's feet resting in stirrup-like steel frames, with an abnormally long wheelbase and a single chain running direct from the motor shaft to the rear sprocket.
- London letter of 17 September predicting motor bicycles will be the feature of the Stanley and other coming shows, with nearly every firm using the Minerva motor, the Singer still the only lady's motor bicycle, and English makers selling at a loss; illustrated with the Wisconsin Wheel Works 'testing gang' that road-tests every Mitchell motor bicycle at Racine.
- An enterprising dealer tells the Bicycling World he had lots of coaster-brake fitting work last year but very little now, illustrating how retailers let the profitable business of converting old fixed-gear machines slip away.
- A veteran dealer recalls that four fully nickelled bicycles ridden by members of his family just before the boom were the best advertisement he ever had.
- The Forsyth Mfg. Co., Buffalo, N. Y., offers a coaster-brake with no backlash in pedals or cranks, ridden by the Bicycling World man at Buffalo; fewer than a dozen pieces make up the mechanism, which fits between the hub flanges.
- Argues that retailers who treat commercial travellers with contempt forfeit valuable hints, favourable credit reports and the good will of the wholesale houses.
- A Brooklyn dealer, refusing to admit trade has gone to the dogs, explains that thirteen successive weeks brought only one pleasant Saturday, and that cutting Saturday out of the cycle dealer's calendar is like cutting out the other six days.
- W. D. Gash, long the business manager of the Waltham Mfg. Co., has transferred his services to the Searchmont Motor Co. of Philadelphia; a general reorganisation of Waltham affairs is said to be on the cards.
- Charles Austin Bates argues that the average trade-journal advertising page is an arid waste, and cites the Jewelers' Circular's rate of $1,560 for fifty-two full-page insertions reaching fifteen thousand jewellers as proof of how cheap the space is.
- The Scottish Cyclist concedes in an editorial that British export trade is not worth seeking, blaming monumental apathy, over-production, bad debts and an ad valorem principle that handicaps British makers against cheaper American and Continental goods.
- Without special authority a drummer can only solicit and transmit an order, and the sale is not complete until his principal accepts it, whatever memoranda he and the buyer exchanged; 61 S. W. Rep. (Ky.) 9.
- George H. Cooper, a British Columbian, proposes an 'octimal system' of notation based on eights instead of tens, claiming it never yields fractions or pieces of units.
- Verses by Frank L. Stanton urging persistence through thorns, hail, wet weather and empty pockets.
- Argues that a business sign should never be cheap or a daub, that a bright sign can be seen a long way off, and that repainting an old board is cheaper than the impression it makes.
- Joseph Holle, a leading San Francisco dealer visiting New York, reports good Coast trade despite the labor strikes, complains that Eastern makers ship new models in February or March when October or November would do twice the good, and notes San Francisco's hilly streets have made coaster-brakes and his repair department the making of his business.
- The Warwick Cycle Co. of Springfield, Mass., will have a motor bicycle on the market in season for the 1902 trade.
- In the Australian gold fields, where water comes only from government wells ten to twenty miles apart, riders locate punctures by turning the tube in fine dust or passing it before the eyes; a Cue dealer describes a customer from Lake Wag who poured two teaspoonfuls of water into his tube and rode a hundred miles, and the 'double gee' plant that nearly killed cycling inland.
- Michael beat Walthour for the fourth consecutive time at Madison Square Garden, taking a 15-mile paced race in 24.32 to break McFarland's record, and sails for Europe on 26 September with manager Tom Eck; Kramer won a 25-mile hammer-and-tongs race at Vailsburg in 58.55 2-5 and the Garden's fifteen-mile lap race, McEachern beat Taylor twice at Baltimore, and Elkes and Walthour must ride off their tie at Charles River Park.
- The Elmira Arms Co. of Elmira, N. Y., incorporates with $20,000 capital, taking over John N. Willeys's business; stockholders include Willeys, W. O. Crew, George T. Wolcott, Ralph E. Webster and Charles S. Lattin, with Crew from E. K. Tryon & Co. running the jobbing department.
- Cycle export return for the week closing 17 September: British Australia took 61 cases of bicycles worth $2,249, London 119 cases worth $1,909 and the British East Indies 62 cases worth $3,467, with Holland the only other country to touch the $1,000 mark.
- Quotes the Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post on the need to diminish noise and nervous tension, and answers that the bicycle is already here and could hardly move more noiselessly.
- Weekly trade changes: Davis & Partlow move to the Tifz Block at Morrisville, Pa.; Lintott & Buswell of Nashua, N. H., dissolve partnership; James C. Bell of Boston files for bankruptcy with $3,298.77 liabilities; and Norman DeVaux buys the retail business of E. G. Eager & Co. at Toledo.
- The Punctnot Tire Co. of Camden, N. J., incorporates with $1,000,000 capital to make non-puncturable tires; incorporators L. C. Wirth, C. S. Bisworth and William F. Eddell.
- A Melbourne merchant contrasts the two trades: he sold 8,000 English block chains in the year to 30 January 1901 but over 5,000 American chains since, can buy handlebars 40 per cent cheaper from America, and describes one English firm splitting a 300 pound order into four shipments with never an invoice that agreed.
- A British dealer writes to Cycling that a good wooden rim has more life and speed than any steel rim, builds perfectly true if drilled at the correct angles, and that he has replaced cartloads of failed steel rims in five years.
- The Crest Mfg. Co. of Cambridge, Mass., offers a hard-rubber induction coil for motor bicycles, proof against dampness, with three connections, plus a box type single coil with four.
- Credits the straight-from-the-shoulder declarations of the Miami Cycle Mfg. Co. with much of the success of the Racycle and the loyalty of its agents, citing their advertisement in this issue.
- Both official American champions of 1901 won on 'independent' bicycles: M. L. Hurley, the amateur champion, rode a Yale, and Frank Kramer, the professional champion, a Pierce.
- Weekly list of United States patents granted, including Charles E. Duryea's explosive engine for motor vehicles, Emil F. Hafelfinger's motor bicycle frame, Denzer and Hullt's bicycle coaster-brake, and Ernest A. Dibbens's resilient or elastic tire.