The Bicycling World, Vol 43, No 7
Articles in this issue
- The Rubber Goods Mfg. Co. has paid $120,000 to cancel the guarantees it gave the American Bicycle Co. when it bought the latter's tire factories, covering redemption of 11,500 preferred shares and 4 per cent on 23,000 common; a condensed balance sheet to February 1, 1901 shows $26,884,264 of assets.
- In the U. S. Circuit Court at Minneapolis, Judge Lochren threw out George J. S. Collins's patent No. 585,509 on ball separators as anticipated but upheld No. 595,696 on the Burwell bearing cage, in his suit against A. N. Anderson, agent for H. A. Lozier & Co.
- The bankrupt Sanger Handle Bar and Plating Co. of Milwaukee has filed a schedule showing liabilities of $41,612.92—including $26,000 said to be owed the Sanger family—against assets of $18,892.87.
- After five trials, Colonel Cheney of the defunct Maumee Cycle Co. of Toledo is held liable for the $2,000 he wrote into a $10,000 note held by the First National Bank of Toledo, plus $333.33 interest, while Yost, Huber, Tillinghast and Jacquet go free.
- A Paris correspondent reports the free-wheel and coaster brake at last catching on in France as a stepping-stone to the motocycle, small specialist shops thriving on motor repairs, and Major Taylor beating the Belgian Grogna while Jacquelin trains for their first meeting.
- Office boy Daniel Mulheran of the Wilmington, Del., Sunday Star spotted a confidence man calling himself John Adams passing bad checks on cycle dealers V. R. Pyle and V. V. Harrison, and telephoned the police, who arrested him.
- Williamson versus the Rover Cycle Co. of Coventry comes before the Irish courts for a fourth time over a broken front fork on a second-hand Rover; a jury's £120 award was set aside by Chief Baron Palles and Mr. Justice Kenny, Mr. Justice Madden dissenting.
- From May 1 the Los Angeles cycle dealers and repairers—among them E. R. Braley, A. C. Herrick, E. W. Lincoln, F. B. Morton, C. J. Platt and George C. Smith—close at 6 o'clock every evening except Saturday.
- Buffalo, N. Y., police have fined riders for fancy riding in the street, for taking the wrong side and for exceeding the speed limits.
- The Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut House has reported a compromise lamp bill, printed here in full: a $5 fine for riding unlighted, power for the court to remit it when the light failed by accident, and leave to proceed at six miles an hour giving an audible signal every 500 feet.
- The new Thomas Auto-bi Club of Buffalo made its first run, to North Tonawanda and back, with E. R. Thomas himself at the head of the line and an unusually large escort of bicyclists tagging on.
- Talk of amalgamating the two English exhibitions has come to nothing—entry blanks for both the Stanley and the National shows are already out.
- Official returns show just three bicycle makers at the Pan-American Exposition—the George N. Pierce Co., the National Cycle Mfg. Co. and William Hengerer & Co.—with motocycles from E. R. Thomas, De Dion-Bouton Motorette and Stratton, plus Goodyear, the 20th Century Mfg. Co. and Veeder.
- Judge Wheeler of the New Haven Superior Court appointed Judge James Bishop receiver of the New England Tricycle Co., the Commerce street partnership of Bernard Abelson of New York and Mrs. Lorinda Whitman of New Haven.
- Territory-jumping between dealers is hard to trace and punish; a prominent typewriting firm solves it with one rule—an agent may sell to anyone for shipment anywhere provided the sale is for spot cash and concluded at his own place of business.
- An editorial blaming the season's disappointing trade on the continuous downpours of spring, and urging dealers to mount a short, vigorous campaign to sell the new patterns to the notably increased number of riders.
- An editorial on riders who keep buying $1 to $1.50 tires sold with no guarantee, which dealers will not even cement to the rim; devoid of life and hard to repair, they run up bigger yearly tire bills than good tires would.
- Quoting an upper New York dealer that "unless some combination can be made against the mail-order houses, the bicycle business is in a bad way," the paper argues that 100,000 or 200,000 mail-order machines put nearly a million dollars beyond legitimate dealers.
- An editorial on salesmanship, arguing that salesmen fail to exploit the coaster-brake and cushion frame because they present them in the same flat way as a new head lock nut instead of taking the offensive.
- An editorial answering the claim that the chainless has shot its bolt: sales rise each season, the machines are met in ones and twos where they were formerly absent, and the newer the machine the likelier it is chainless—though the chain wheel remains the standard.
- The paper's pursuit of "Dr. Mary Easton," whose indorsement of American Bicycle Co. machines it calls a fake, draws an abusive letter from Dennis Kelley of the American Queen—reprinted in full—and a threat of action by attorneys Einstein and Townsend; A. B. C. press chief Jim Sullivan is implicated.
- The Minneapolis Cycle Dealers' Association reported general satisfaction with the season at its monthly meeting, will try to enrol the remaining outsiders, and heard repairmen denounce the "backyard" repair shops.
- At Cincinnati, Oscar C. Selbach, former European agent of the Miami Cycle & Mfg. Co., has filed an amended petition stating four causes of action—$24,500, $20,000, $1,500 and $5,000, with interest.
- A survey of how dealers have answered the sideline question: city men turning to motor vehicles, others stocking sewing machines, typewriters, talking machines, golf and sporting goods, and some simply closing for the off season—while a second class drifts and must eventually quit.
- British patent law lets an inventor make a statutory declaration before disclosing his invention; at a cost of 40 cents it records the date a specification was shown, and protects him if the idea afterwards leaks out.
- The 1901 De Dion quadricycle, now built here by the De Dion-Bouton Motorette Co. of Brooklyn, has a 2¾ horsepower water-cooled motor and a free-clutch that lets the rider pedal the motor up while the machine stands still, with natural circulation and no pump.
- Demand has led the Crest Mfg. Co. of Cambridgeport, Mass., to install special machinery for its indestructible sparking plug, improving quality and cutting the price to $1.25 the world over; it is used on most American motor tandems.
- Quoting the Electrical Review, which argues the American mechanic is threatened with extinction because the apprentice system is dead and the technical school graduate cannot get shop experience—the unions having struck at the industries their descendants must live by.
- Repair practice for a stripped pedal pin thread in the crank end: ream the hole, plug it with steel and braze it fast—some tapping the hole first—then bore slightly undersize and tap a new thread for the pin.
- The dealers of Rome, N. Y., have agreed a repair tariff for the year, printed in full: Hartford, Goodrich, Morgan & Wright and Oxford tire prices, 50 cents to repair an inner tube, $1.50 to respoke a wheel, $3 to enamel frame and forks, and $6 to fit a Morrow coaster-brake.
- Practical notes on coppering parts before nickelling—six to eight volts from an alkaline solution, a pure copper anode, and adding ammonia or cyanide of potassium as the anode crusts green or blue to keep the bath working.
- A mechanical writer reads the lesson of a scrapped frame crushed concertina-like at all four lugs: the serrated liners had been fitted with their points toward the lugs, condemning both the workman and the foreman who never explained the why and wherefore.
- An experienced motor-bicyclist disputes the idea that levers would beat cranks on a motor bicycle: levers limit the legs to one or two positions, while cranks give as many positions as the hands of a clock and so more rest.
- The week's trade movements—Otto A. Wilson of Fairfield, O., in bankruptcy; fires at Milford, N. H., and Indianapolis; new stores from Onset, Mass., to Niagara Falls; and changes including the Lindgren Cycle Co. succeeding Phillips & Lindgren at Duluth.
- The Billings & Spencer Co. of Hartford has patented, on March 12, an improved cutting device for its B. & S. combination pliers, which combine pliers, wrench, wire cutter and screwdriver and change from gas-burner size to ¾-inch pipe by a quarter turn of the handle.
- Four years' use has proved the "good old Ericson" tire bell of Nutter, Barnes & Co. of Boston, worked by a small lever under the left forefinger; the firm is now pushing its longer, louder alarm for motocycles.
- A metallurgist warns that tempering to colour cannot be relied on—a pale straw tool may be softer than a blue one—and lays down three rules: know the steel, know it is hard, and know the use the tool must serve.
- Minneapolis cyclists hold that the cycle paths are for pedal-driven machines only and have declared war on a motor tricyclist who insists on his right to use them and threatens to prove it in the courts.
- Export returns for the week ending May 7 show Copenhagen taking 573 cases of bicycles worth $13,341 plus $3,157 of material, Stockholm $9,234 and London 236 cases worth $2,975, with Britain, France, Germany and Africa accounting for the bulk.
- John McClave, a former Police Commissioner of New York and maker of the Colonial bicycle, died last week; he entered the cycle field at the height of the boom and failed soon after.
- With new sorts of crude rubber reaching the market from newly originated processes of collection and curing, tire makers are warned to test unfamiliar grades for ingredients that may wreck the mixing or behave unexpectedly after manufacture.
- Claims in full for three grants: 673,439, chainless gearing for cycles, Josef Marzion of Mocker, Germany; 673,661, a spring-linked cycle frame, William W. Reid of Edinburgh; and 673,845, a sectional-hub vehicle wheel, Alexander Pinover of New York.
- Bankrupt Hooley admits living at the rate of $75,000 a year, saying the "front" is needed to win investors' confidence and repay creditors, who so far stand to get about sixpence in the pound.
- A dealer in a Scotch town is said to have had 430 machines out on hire on a recent fine Saturday, all but two returned in good condition.