The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 14
Articles in this issue
- Patent Commissioner Allen rules on the appeals of Townsend (New Departure) and Copeland (Pope) in the three-cornered coaster-brake interference with Robinson (Morrow): both appeals are dismissed and the primary examiner's finding of interference in fact between the Townsend and Robinson applications is affirmed.
- Judge Kohlsaat, in Chicago, enjoins the Columbia Dry Battery Company and the Vim Company from putting the name "Columbia" on dry cells, the mark having long been held by the National Carbon Company of Cleveland.
- The Gearless Motorcycle Company of Rochester, N. Y., is incorporated with $50,000 capital, A. L. Sweetland, R. Burns and M. A. Harrison of Rochester being named directors.
- The E. H. Hall Co., a Rochester, N. Y., cycle jobbing and mail-order house run by the Hall family, applies for a receiver and John D. Whitbeck is appointed; the Diamond Rubber, Smith-Willys and Crosby companies then file an involuntary bankruptcy petition against liabilities of $34,000 and nominal assets of $20,000.
- The Castle Cycle Co. of Atlanta reports its 1905 bicycle business 60 per cent ahead of 1904 and the sale of about ten new and ten second-hand motorcycles, which it is placing with local merchants for delivery work.
- United States bicycle export returns for November 1905: gains in "Other Europe," the Netherlands, Mexico, Cuba, the Philippines and British Australasia are offset by losses elsewhere, the eleven-month total of $1,210,316 trailing 1903 by more than $700,000. A full country-by-country table is printed.
- General Manager Russell of the Canada Cycle and Motor Co. corrects garbled press dispatches: only the Toronto retail automobile business was sold, to the new Dominion Automobile Co., and the company continues to make bicycles and automobiles, having just added two buildings to its plant.
- Edward Buffum, sales manager of the Consolidated Mfg. Co., reports that the Yale motor bicycle exhibit will occupy space 170 in the Concert Hall at the Madison Square Garden automobile show of January 13-20, rather than the basement.
- The G. H. Curtiss Mfg. Co. of Hammondsport, N. Y., secures gymnasium space in the Automobile Club of America's show at the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory, New York, January 13-20, making three motorcycle exhibitors there.
- The National Cycle Trade Association's "Ride a Bicycle Campaign" prize offer for the best reasons why bicycles should be ridden brings forty-six entries in the first mail.
- Explains wind resistance to cyclists and motorcyclists and the value of a crouching position, with a table of air resistance per square foot from 150 to 10,000 feet per minute; a rider of 7 1-2 square feet frontal area meets about 19 pounds of resistance at 22.7 miles an hour.
- A Chicago repairman remarks that the lazy owner who looks after his motorcycle on Christian Science principles brings him most of his business.
- Trade note recording the new store of George B. Pieper at 1205 Bedford avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y.
- H. A. Smith, a travelling salesman for the Standard Milling Company of Buffalo, reports that the Curtiss single-cylinder motor bicycle he bought at Hammondsport in August let him do five days' work in three, covering sixty to one hundred and twenty-five miles a day at $1.25 a week against $4 and $5 a day for railroad and livery hire.
- Recommends adding glycerine to the water of an acetylene lamp to stop it freezing and bursting the water chamber, giving freezing points for 10, 20, 30 and 40 per cent solutions (30 degrees down to zero Fahrenheit).
- Leader on British cycle agents burned by speculating in automobiles, quoting the Cycle and Motor Trade Journal on one who sank nearly all he had in a car and lost $500 on it, and warning that the automobile trade is no industry for the merchant of small means.
- Leader hailing the certainty of New York State's $50,000,000 good roads appropriation and its 7,400 miles of State road, and reading the vote as proof that the independent-minded American public has at last been convinced it wants good roads.
- Leader answering English gloom about the motor bicycle by arguing that foreign machines are big, heavy, over-powered creations bristling with levers, and that the clean-cut simplicity of the American motorcycle is what will decide its popularity.
- The excuses English motorcyclists offer magistrates for speeding, from riding to fetch a marriage license (which halved one penalty) to an old Boer War wound; a plea that the machine ran away with its rider brought a fine of $50 and costs.
- Confirms that the motor road skate is real, the invention of a Swiss engineer and shown at the recent Paris Salon: a small air-cooled gasolene motor on a four-wheeled chassis with bogey front truck, battery and coil, and a waist-belted fuel tank, claimed to do 25 miles an hour and sold at $120 a pair.
- P. Wollenschlager of the C. R. C. A. organises an unattached weekly run every Tuesday at 8 P. M., leaving Fourth street and Eighth avenue, Manhattan, for a circuit of the city and open to any cyclist.
- A Paris court fines the driver of an oncoming car $200 with $600 compensation after a cyclist, enveloped in dust raised by an automobile passing him on the Paris-Melun road on May 1, swerved into it and was killed; the first driver was cleared and allowed $40 for malicious prosecution.
- A newly formed club at Tampico, Mexico, the Club Rapida Cyclista, will ask the municipal government for assistance and leave to build a race track and promote frequent meets.
- Chairman Batchelder of the National Cycling Association is investigating the scandal arising from the recent New York six-day race, and suspensions of the riders who traded accusations appear certain.
- Director of Public Safety Potter of Philadelphia, satisfied with his experiment of a single motor bicycle policeman, will ask for funds to buy about twenty-two more machines.
- How to grind motor valves with flour of emery mixed to a paste with oil, turned by a screwdriver bit in a brace, and why repeated grinding lowers the valve on its seat so the tappet rod must be filed back to leave a cardboard's clearance.
- A. G. Armstrong, the "chainless bicycle man," succeeds P. A. Dyer as president of the Century Road Club of America, with F. H. Watrous, Albert D. Rice, Harry Early and Fred E. Mommer as national officers and Wieman, Grupe, Peterson and Graham heading the New York and New Jersey divisions; a testimonial dinner for Dyer is planned for January.
- With one dissenting vote the New York Motorcycle Club declares itself against any contest that makes for violation of the law, aiming at the Associated Cycling Clubs' midnight New Year's run to Yonkers and Tarrytown, which the Federation of American Motorcyclists had already asked be abandoned.
- At the Parc des Princes, Paris, Giuppone on a 110-pound Peugeot motor bicycle covers 63.57 miles in the hour against Anzani's 58.23, and lowers world records for all distances up to sixty-three miles; a table of intermediate times is given, with one lap clocked at a 69 1-2 mile-an-hour pace.
- The B. F. Salzer Lumber Co. sues the Denver (Col.) Cycle Track Co. for the value of part of the lumber used in building the track.
- A New York motorcyclist settles a dispute over an uptown hill by borrowing an automobile fitted with a gradometer: his friends guessed 25 to 35 per cent and the automobile man 20, but the instrument never passed 10, fluctuating between 7 and 9.
- Photograph and note on Norway's new rulers, King Haakon and Queen Maud, both devoted cyclists; the king has ridden a Columbia bicycle for years and credits open-air recreation with building up his constitution.
- Henry W. Maull is nominated for a third term as president of the Bay View Wheelmen of Newark, N. J., with William Carr, Frank Wentz, George Courter, William F. Schiller, Ernst Kayser and others on the January ballot.
- Advises taking the weight off the tires when storing a bicycle or motorcycle for the winter, or better, removing them and hanging them inflated in a cool dry room, and protecting the rims from rust with two coats of black asphaltum applied a month apart.
- Some half a dozen fires, mostly on Monday mornings, have broken out at the Chelsea Wheelmen's New York club rooms; after the December 23 blaze naphtha-soaked waste was found by the bathroom door and the fire marshal has been asked to investigate.
- A French mathematician's vest-pocket calculator of three fastened disks reads off horsepower from bore, stroke and revolutions; a motor of 100 millimetres bore and stroke shows about 4 1-2 h. p. at 1,000 r. p. m. and 8 at 1,800.
- E. F. Root and Joseph Fogler, winners of the New York six-day race, are riding nightly match races and exhibitions in theatres, having played Brooklyn and Jersey City with Philadelphia, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Buffalo to follow.
- Bicycles missing at Westerly, R. I., are traced by Chief Bransfield to a machine rebuilt by Herbert Rood from H. P. Clark's frame, with more parts held by Fred Gorman of the Misquamicut Golf Grounds; two others found behind stone walls on the Watch Hill Road turn suspicion on the soldiers of Fort Mansfield.
- The Bay View Wheelmen of Newark keep their annual custom, making over 400 children happy on Christmas Day with a decorated tree in the club gymnasium and nearly 500 boxes of books, candy and fruit.
- George McKesson, business manager of the Toledo (Ohio) Board of Education, says he could not get along without a motor bicycle, which he uses to cover the city several times a week.
- An old cyclist's account of his second wager to ride past a policeman at top speed without being "pinched": his companions had secretly steered the run back to the same boulevard dip, and only the officer's repeatedly stalling motor bicycle let him break through a line of riders and get away.
- The State Board of Canvassers at Albany certifies that New York's $50,000,000 good roads amendment carried 383,188 to 117,181, polling nearly six thousand more votes than any of the six other amendments; State Engineer Van Alstyne reports fifty-one counties have petitioned for improvements, 2,038 miles approved and 704 built.
- A member of the Troy, N. Y., Board of Supervisors has drawn up an ordinance requiring wide tires on all heavily loaded wagons in the city from March 1, 1907, but most of his colleagues have refused to support it.
- The 1906 Pognon sparking plug regulates its own gap: the central rod carrying a platinum terminal expands as the engine heats, opening the four-millimetre cold gap to the right width for a magneto spark, and its three-piece porcelain forms air chambers around the conductor with no cement, so it can be dismounted.