The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 17
Articles in this issue
- The National Cycle Trade Association's "Ride a Bicycle Campaign" has run short of money, so a call for $500 was issued and a committee of R. D. Webster (chairman), H. S. White, Fred C. Robie, E. J. Lloyd and A. M. Scheffey named to ask the Cycle Manufacturers' Association at Chicago on February 7th for support; a second edition of 250,000 "Reasons" booklets was also ordered.
- Frank C. Cornish, who covers the East for the Yale and Snell bicycles, says that since September 27th he has sold more machines than in his whole territory during all of last year.
- Survey of the motorcycles at the two New York automobile shows — the rebuilt loop-frame Yale-California, the retrussed Curtiss singles and twins, the Wagner, the Indian's four models, the Reading Standard Thoroughbred and the Thomas Auto-Bi — plus two Reading Standard bicycles turning up unbidden in the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory basement.
- Leader arguing that the improved mufflers and larger tires of the 1906 machines answer the two standing objections to motorcycling — that it is a "noisy little thing" and a dirty one — and urging riders to give up leather clothing along with the racket.
- Cincinnati's Street Cleaning Department has advertised for ten chainless bicycles for its foremen; the piece contrasts New York's neglected Street Cleaning wheels with Newark's Public Service Corporation inspectors, London's thousand bicycle postmen and the New York, Washington and Paris bicycle police.
- France has officially adopted the bicycle for its naval force, while American men-of-war carry wheels with no official recognition and none of the housing provision the British Admiralty orders, whose bicycle rooms sit amidships forward of the cook's galley.
- The handiest way to start a frozen carburetter is to swathe it in hot cloths, or, where a piston throttle valve is used, to plunge the valve body into boiling water and hold it there long enough to heat it through.
- Oscar Hedstrom holds that auxiliary exhaust ports are of no practical value on high-speed motorcycle motors, blames the clergyman's trouble on valve timing or mixture rather than cylinder-wall holes, and gives as a racing tip that he always removes the cylinder head and cleans the carbon off the piston.
- Senator Irving L'Hommedieu of Orleans county is reviving his New York motor tax bill of $1 per horse-power, with F.A.M. president Betts seeking exemption for motorcycles, while Senator Frelinghuysen of Somerset county will introduce a New Jersey bill requiring two licenses and an examination.
- In the first New Jersey suit under the new automobile act to involve a motor bicycle, Judge Gabriel B. Downing at Newton gave James H. Ayres of Branchville $200 against George Fulboam, whose machine frightened Mrs. Ayres's horse at Washingtonville on November 13; an appeal was filed at once.
- America may be represented in the cycle races of the Olympian games at Athens, April 22 to May 2, with talk of Marcus Hurley for the New York A.C. and a rumor that Oscar Goerke will ride for the National Athletic Club of Brooklyn; the Phalerum track measures 333⅓ metres and a 52½-mile road race runs to Marathon and back.
- Émile Bouhours covered 387 kiloms. 380 metres (242 miles) in a six-hours motor-paced essay at the Paris winter track, beating Robl's figures by nearly 30 kilometres and also passing his three, four and five hour records, though the covered track will probably bar official sanction.
- The London County Council's school botanical collectors, formerly paid third-class railway fare, will now use their own bicycles, with the I.C.C. allowing them a penny for every mile covered on duty.
- Morris Manist, a theatrical transfer man, was summoned to West Side Court to show cause why he should not deliver the trunks and bicycles of Edward Root and Joseph Fogler after Root's vaudeville contract fell through; the magistrate thought the riders justified in refusing his $11 charge and threw the case out.
- Harry Heagren, who built and managed the Salt Lake City saucer for two years and rescued its racing after the 1903 blacklisting, is retiring from the cycling game; F. E. Schefski, the National Cycling Association's representative there, succeeds him.
- Cincinnati is to have a horseless street cleaning department: Superintendent Neave has advertised for bids for ten chainless bicycles for the foremen and six automobiles for himself and his assistants, with the horses, wagons and stable stock offered for sale.
- Valentine Simmons was elected president of the Philadelphia Motorcycle Club at its annual meeting at 2513 North Broad street, with Adolph Wicknick vice-president, Harry Scheiter captain, John Benders first lieutenant, Joseph Lees second lieutenant and George W. Reinbold colorbearer.
- The Irish Cyclist's account of a London case in which a motorcycle passed through two repairers and the owner sued the first, the evidence turning on a merely soldered inlet valve nut, a valve an eighth of an inch too long, a missing lever and three parts gone from the rear hub.
- Gasolene has practically doubled in price in five years, drawn on by 70,000 automobiles, 800,000 gasolene stoves and 250,000 stationary engines; relief is sought in Representative Caldenhead's bill exempting denatured alcohol from its $2 a gallon tax, with Prof. Elihu Thompson's experiments cited.
- At the first election in its new Golden Gate avenue rooms the San Francisco Motorcycle Club chose J. L. Bellani president, J. Gordan vice-president, W. C. Hofer secretary, C. C. Hopkins treasurer and W. H. Huested captain; retiring captain F. M. Byrne marked his retirement with a blind run and a barbecue at Lake Chabot for some 50 members.
- The German army's South African wireless telegraph corps drives a 100-watt dynamo from a stationary bicycle, the wheels replaced and the chain run forward to the sprocket, with a 30 ampere-hour storage battery in an ebonite box; the piece suggests a motorcycle with a bolted-on dynamo instead.
- Efforts are being made to revive the Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club, with a preliminary meeting set for Tuesday night next and enough interest shown to insure success.
- The Ingenious Rider tells how he stopped a puncture twenty miles from home by sticking a postage stamp over the aperture; the Listener caps him with a Postoffice "Stamp Repair Table" — a 2 cent stamp good for 20 miles, a 10 cent for 100 and a 50 cent for 512.
- A "know it all" young man explains the motorcycle engine to an inquiring old lady as a thing that goes up and down and lets out the smoke that makes the wheels go round — "That's called the hydraulic principle."
- Novelties at the recent Paris show, including the Touring Club of France's Grenoble touring bicycles, the two-speed "Hirondelle retro-direct" worked by back pedaling, the chainless two-speed Touricyclettes, Jacquier of Lyons's double-chain clutch machine and the Svea "levocyclette" with its lever-driven flexible cable.
- To test the fit of an inlet valve in a removable cage, partly fill the cleaned cage with gasolene, wipe the underside dry, tap the stem to open the valve momentarily and watch whether the surface remains wetted.
- Pacing windshields are now a rarity in the East but survive on the Pacific slope: J. I. Baumgartner of San Jose fitted a home-made shield to an ordinary motor bicycle and has paced local cyclists to a number of coast records at the San Jose track, having himself done a mile in 1:12.
- A twenty-four hour motor-paced race is proposed for the winter track at Paris, with March 10-11 spoken of as the date.
- W. C. Chadeayne, in New York for the first time since starting his cross-continent motorcycle ride in September, describes the terrific appetite that followed — two whole ducks at a sitting — the ten pounds he lost and regained, and thawing his frozen carburetter in the Rockies by holding a lighted match to it.
- H. C. Rhodes and G. F. Lewis left Cleveland, Ohio, for Honolulu on the first recorded dead-broke motorcycle trip, wagering $2,500 with Robert Dorgan of Lincoln that they will arrive by February 28 with $500 earned or begged en route; a Phoenix dispatch has them two weeks ahead of schedule with $300 accumulated.
- The New York State division of the Century Road Club of America names its committee chairmen: Charles S. Schnepp (century runs), Ernest Leibundgut secretary, Frank A. Dyer (press), Robers S. Campbell (road records), Albert H. Seeley (touring), John Bailie (auditing), Arthur E. Rhodes (membership) and Victor J. Lind (racing).
- R. L. Jefferson, writing in the Autocar, retraces by motor car the ground he covered single-handed by bicycle twelve years before; at Jagodina the Lord Mayor's emissary produces a copy of his book "To Constantinople on a Bicycle," and the Balkan trails, snow and burst tires prove far harder on the car than they had been on the wheel.
- Two photographs of a Japanese race meet, showing riders strung out along the straight and a dense crowd of spectators thronging the course and its flag-hung stands.
- A week of Shakespeare quotations turned to cycling ends, January 23 to 29, drawn from Pericles, Henry IV, Troilus and Cressida, Coriolanus, Othello and Measure for Measure — the last, "We have strict statutes and most biting laws," tagged "(Not N. C. A.)"
- Motorcycling has become "suddenly popular" in New Zealand, and in two November races on the beach near Christchurch a 3½ horse-power Mitchell won the seven mile scratch event in 12:59 while a 2 horse-power machine finished second in the 16-mile handicap, English, French and Belgian machines also running.
- The annual ball of the New York and New Jersey divisions of the Century Road Club of America at Schwaben Hall, Brooklyn, on March 8 will carry a one mile home trainer championship for the two States, with the Bedell Brothers riding an exhibition match and clubs from the New York Athletic Club to the Montauk Wheelmen entering their best roller riders.
- F. W. Sulzer, from the 100-yard mark, won the two-mile handicap at the Twelfth Regiment Armory, Brooklyn, on January 13th in 5:19, beating Vandendries, after Jacobs, L. J. Weintz, Cameron and F. E. Adams all came to grief in the heats and final.
- A tire valve stuck by the freezing of moisture in the air can usually be freed by forcing the pump for a few strokes until the heat of the compressed air thaws the frost and releases it.
- Seven newly issued patents with claims, including Henri David's anti-slipping tire protector, Pardon W. Tillinghast's non-viscous-surfaced pneumatic tire, Arthur W. Boon's expansible sprocket, William A. Sankey's beaded-edge tire cover, William Ottaway's sparking plug for Aurora Automatic Machinery and Louis T. Weiss's exhaust muffler.