The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 18
Articles in this issue
- An open winter has stirred early bicycle buying; W. K. Thomas of the Miami Cycle and Mfg. Co. shows two agents' letters urging rush shipments, one Northwest dealer advancing an order for 25 machines, and the Racycle catalogue appeared the same week.
- George B. Pieper, formerly of F. A. Baker & Co. and now of Pieper & Connor with H. P. Connor, has secured the Indian agency for Brooklyn, while Baker keeps the lower half of Manhattan and F. B. Widmayer the upper; Baker will handle the Thoroughbred and Curtiss in Brooklyn, the New York Sporting Goods Co. and H. A. Gliesman sharing the Thoroughbred in Manhattan and the Sporting Goods Company taking the Yale-California.
- Henry Ephraim, brother of Lee Ephraim of the failed Ephraim Bros. of Buffalo, has joined Ben Stacy to open the Midland Automobile and Bicycle Supply Co. at 1454 Market street, Los Angeles, its first advertisement slashing prices.
- J. A. Wagner, who conducted a bicycle business at 120 East Seventh street, Los Angeles, has left town; the San Francisco jobbers Hughson & Merton claim $500 from him and accuse him of sending a worthless $125 check.
- The Eagle Tire Repair Co. of New York incorporates under New York law with $1,000 capital, J. G. Battle, Jr., and I. J. Reynard of Glen Ridge, N. J., named as directors.
- The A. J. Menz Co. of Marysville, Cal., incorporates with $10,000 capital to conduct a bicycle and sporting goods store; A. J., E. E. and A. J. S. Menz are the persons interested.
- Rudge-Whitworth, Ltd., promulgates a four years' guarantee on every metal part of its bicycles (one year on tires, saddles, chains, plating, enameling and flexible parts), crediting discoveries in its “R. W. Chemical and Physical Laboratories” and paying carriage both ways on defective parts.
- T. C. Bradford of Wilmington, Del., converts his general bicycle and sporting goods jobbing business into a corporation capitalized at $50,000, to operate as the Bradford Company.
- At the New York Automobile Show G. H. Curtiss tells motorcyclists of a Western buyer who, backed by a dozen local and imported experts, condemned his machine as worthless and threatened suit — the whole trouble proving to be a fly in the feed pipe.
- An Englishman's toe clip uses a leather strap fixed to the pedal at one end and to a metal piece sliding in a slot on the pedal top, holding under upward or downward pressure but releasing the foot the instant side pressure is exerted.
- A tire manufacturer explains that the valve throttles the air, so the pressure actually within the tire runs twenty to twenty-three or four pounds below the pump gauge reading, and argues each rider must learn the right pressure by the feel of the machine.
- High-tension secondary leads on motorcycles demand flawless insulation, since holes no larger than a human hair pass current undetected; a Berlin electrical house has brought out a portable X-ray apparatus that throws a cable's shadow on a fluorescent screen to reveal impurities and air bubbles.
- French experiments on the “Hirondelle retrodirect” and pedal-dynamometer tests by the Manufacture Francaise d'Armes et Cycles find the foot exerts propelling force over 265 degrees of the crank circle in back pedalling against 200 forward, a gain of more than 16 per cent.
- At the recent Paris Salon 572 cycles were staged in the main hall, 556 of them pure pedal machines, and counting the rest of the building the total came to 899 — 859 bicycles, 9 tricycles and 34 tri-cars and fore-cars.
- A motorcycle shown at the recent Stanley Show in England abandons the diamond frame for pressed sheet steel stampings that also serve as the gasolene and lubricating oil tank, with the pedals eliminated, a very low seat, foot rests and a friction clutch controlled by a pedal.
- The A. Nelson Mfg. Co. of Chicago has sued one offender and has other actions in prospect over its adjustable cone patents — No. 651,426, reissue No. 11,883 and No. 660,324 to S. W. Bull for ball bearing.
- The Freylinghuysen bill introduced this week into the New Jersey Senate would tax motorcyclists per horse-power and practically close the State to non-residents; the F. A. M. is seeking exemption and readers with New Jersey ties are urged to protest to senators at once.
- Defends Chairman Douglass of the F. A. M. Competition Committee for taking notice of unauthorized road races, arguing that one fatal “wild cat” event would undo all the privileges motorcycles have inherited from bicycles.
- A ten-part digest of Senator Freylinghuysen's New Jersey bill: registration at fifty cents per horse-power, a $1-a-day “Tourist Special” tag for non-residents, $50 a year for makers and dealers, lamp and signal trumpet requirements, a mile in seven minutes on curves, and fines to $500 or sixty days in jail.
- The New Jersey division of the Century Road Club of America totalled 79,850 miles in 1905; Chester Graham of Bayonne heads the mileage list with 3,295 and P. J. Sheary of Jersey City is second with 2,247, while Emil Leuly of West Hoboken took the century competition with 51.
- Senator Irving L'Hommedieu, after advances from President Betts of the F. A. M., has amended his New York motor vehicle bill to exempt motorcycles from the dollar-per-horse-power tax and the two-dollar filing fee.
- John Shillington Prince, known in Atlanta as the “rain maker,” appeared before the city council seeking a lease of the old coliseum, proposing races between Robert Walthour, James F. Moran, Hugh MacLean, Benj. Munroe and European riders.
- A motorcyclist stranded seven miles from habitation with a broken inlet valve spring removed the plunger from his tire pump and found the spring inside happened to be exactly the right size.
- Judge Chadsey ordered the Rochester, N. Y., police to arrest cyclists violating traffic regulations; Charles Hirsch and Nicholas Bumm were the first found guilty of riding on the left hand side and each contributed two dollars.
- The Federation of American Motorcyclists has exchanged articles of alliance with the National Cycling Association and the Amateur Athletic Union, binding each body to respect the others' rules and to enforce their suspensions and penalties.
- The Muskegon (Mich.) Motorcycle Club will attempt the first motorcycle racing on ice at its meet next month, laying a straightaway cinder path five miles long and forty-eight feet wide on Lake Muskegon; Paul Stamsen, Alphonse Gangon, Percy Anderson and J. Spencer Locke will represent the club.
- The New Jersey division of the Century Road Club of America names its 1906 track and road teams — James T. Halligan and B. Hill for Newark, Fred Connor and Fred Jones for Passaic, Chester Graham and William Furze for Bayonne, and six riders for Jersey City.
- A Massachusetts legislator has introduced a bill requiring every motor car and motorcycle to carry bells sounded automatically at every revolution of the wheels.
- Carroll LeRoy Mosher, secretary of the Brooklyn Motorcycle Club and inspector for the Department of Street Cleaning, has ridden a Rambler exactly 10,225 miles since last April covering all of Kings County, describing days of 75 to 100 miles and a greatest day's duty of 162.
- Chairman Roland Douglass of the F. A. M. Competitive Committee suspends every motorcyclist who rode the unsanctioned New Year's midnight race to Yonkers and Tarrytown and denies the Associated Cycling Clubs of New York sanctions for 14 months; W. T. Marsh is expelled and A. T. Hoyt of Brockton suspended two years.
- J. P. Bruyere, F. A. M. Eastern district champion, obtained sanction and Brooklyn's permission for an early morning mile straightaway record trial on Coney Island Boulevard, but the weather and course made it impossible.
- After the South Notts Hussars' last reconnaisance in England a motor bicycle courier was judged worth half a dozen of his fellows in carrying dispatches; three per squadron will be allowed, the men to receive the same pay as mounted men.
- The Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club was revived with twenty-five members enrolled, electing E. L. Buffington president, B. L. Barnes vice president, W. L. Medhurst secretary, B. A. Swenson treasurer and A. Weilborn captain.
- Cycles appear in seven pictures of the Emperor Maximillion's Triumphal Progress of 1515, attributed to Albrecht Durer, prompting an iconoclast to suggest the German Cycling Federation take down its commemorative tablet to Baron von Drais, inventor of the bicycle.
- The motorcycle section of the Austrian Automobile Club will hold an international muffler competition at the Vienna exhibition on March 18th, scoring quietness on a stand and over a 100-kilometre run, and the smallest muffler with the largest tubes.
- “Jock” in the Scottish Cyclist recalls a quarter-century of touring from the ordinary through the Otto, tricycle and Cripper to the tandem, defends the luggage-carrying “toothbrush tourist,” and recommends a moderately geared tandem — about eighty on the normal — as the ideal mount for a couple.
- At the annual election of the Roy Wheelmen of New York City, George Schmoll succeeded Charles Williams as president, Fred Prudent remaining vice president, Robert Roullier succeeding Charles Jacobs as secretary and Jean Roy, for whom the club was named, again treasurer.
- H. F. Cranston of the National A. C. won the two-mile handicap at the Ninth Regiment Armory, New York, in 5:13, after J. Cunningham plainly elbowed W. Vanden Dries at the quarter past the mile to let his clubmate through, throwing Vanden Dries and Charles Jacobs out of stride.
- Fred Peterson, State Centurion of the New Jersey division of the Century Road Club of America, announces his 1906 road officers: deputy centurions Arthur Kinloch of Paterson, Ira Menge of West Toboken and Charles F. Hansen of Jersey City, with Thomas Lusty president, O. J. Nelson vice president and Joseph Haus captain.
- The Detroit Wheelmen of Detroit, Mich., re-elect Louis Schneider president, with J. Walter Weitz and W. E. Dodge vice presidents, Wesley J. Sefter secretary and C. H. Lisch treasurer.
- The Saddle and Cycle Club of Chicago elects John S. Runnels president, Victor Elting vice president, Potter Palmer secretary and Orville C. Babcock treasurer, the old board of directors being re-elected.