The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 19
Articles in this issue
- California dealers met at San Jose on January 22-23 and formed the Northern California Retail Bicycle Dealers' Association, electing Joseph A. Desimone of San Jose president, Joseph Holle of San Francisco vice-president, J. A. Benson secretary, A. C. Banta assistant secretary and E. A. Donahoo of Fresno treasurer.
- Only the Consolidated Mfg. Co. (Yale-California) and the Aurora Automatic Machinery Co. (Thor motor) represent Western motorcycle makers at the Chicago Automobile Show; the Hendee Mfg. Co. with the Indian and the Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. with the Thoroughbred are the only other motorcycle exhibitors.
- The Armac Motor Co. of Chicago has taken over the entire McMullin Motive Power Co. plant at 472 Carroll avenue; President Keller reports orders arriving two months earlier than last season and a new capacity of 15 complete motors a day.
- The bankrupt E. H. Hall Co. of Rochester, N. Y., will be sold at public auction on February 13th; its assets include some $15,000 of sundries and a mailing list of 14,000 dealers reputed the most complete of its kind in the country.
- Ballou & Wright of Portland, Oregon, who hold the Northwestern agency for National bicycles and distribute supplies through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, report record spring orders and must duplicate a carload of bicycles within a week.
- R. Goodman, senior member of the Goodman Cycle Co. of Union, S. C., died at his home on the 20th ult. after a long illness; his son E. F. Goodman, already an active partner, will continue the business.
- Miss Alice Lund Kirby of Bloomfield, N. J., won the $50 first prize and Mrs. I. M. Mason of Chicago the $25 second in the National Cycle Trade Association's contest for the best reasons why bicycles should be ridden; W. K. Thomas of the Miami Cycle and Mfg. Co. took the $10 third prize, and forty-nine further "reasons" earned $1 each.
- American bicycle exports for 1905 totalled $1,320,496, a fall of $301,324 on 1904, with Japan still the largest buyer at $263,552; gains in "Other Europe," Mexico, Cuba and the Philippines partly offset losses elsewhere, and a full country-by-country table is printed.
- Sir William Lyne told the Australian House of Representatives that confidential information showed American bicycles cost far more than the $25 invoice price on which duty is paid, so ad valorem duties fall more heavily on British makers than on American or Continental ones.
- Britain's 1905 cycle export trade reached about $4,727,000, of which more than half ($3,190,000) was parts rather than complete machines; exports were £945,490 against £130,288 of imports, with 47,604 cycles shipped out and 2,345 in.
- John P. Holland, inventor of the submarine boat adopted by the American Navy, is reported from England to have created a pedal-worked "bicycle flying machine" with four silk wings 20 inches long, claimed capable of 40 miles an hour.
- R. E. Allen is establishing a general sporting goods store in El Paso, Texas, with bicycles included in his stock.
- Over 1,000 people at Lawrence, Mass., saw Thomas McDermott, New England's champion amateur skater, beat Lowell's "Patsy" Keegan by half a lap over five miles in the rink; Keegan meets Fred White at Boston on Saturday.
- Editorial on the 1905 export returns printed elsewhere in the issue: American figures record the usual shrinkage while England's cycle-goods trade rose by more than a million dollars to near $5,000,000, which the paper reads as neglected opportunity rather than bad luck.
- Editorial prompted by a prominent British maker's four years' guarantee on metal parts, observing that in America makers now replace obviously defective parts as a matter of course, so the once-fierce guarantee dispute has practically disappeared.
- Editorial arguing that simplicity has first call on the motorcycle designer: quadrupling cylinders means eight valves and four spark plugs, so the twin is "most emphatically the thing" and triple and quadruple types are freakish for cycle work.
- Illustrated description of the German Durkopp four-cylinder motorcycle, with cylinders mounted vertically in line on an aluminium crank case, shaft drive through universal joints and bevel gears, magneto enclosed within the crank case, and variable-lift inlet valves governing its rated four and a half horse-power.
- Senator Jackson of Middlesex County introduced a New Jersey motor vehicle bill, thought to be aimed at forestalling the Freylinghuysen measure, limiting riders to eighteen years and over, speed to 20 miles an hour, and requiring lights and front and rear numbers, with arrests without warrants.
- National champion Frank L. Kramer refereed the Bay View Wheelmen's home trainer races at Newark, N. J., where the National Turnverein Wheelmen withdrew and Julius Husse beat Captain Jack Wuenseth over five miles in 6:21 1/5; Edward Rupprecht of the New York Athletic Club rode a five-mile exhibition.
- Works out with figures on an 18-foot road at 1 in 15 that zig-zagging up a hill lengthens the distance by more than half and, with the 9-inch camber added on every tack, makes "corkscrewing" more laborious than restful compared with attacking the hill straightaway.
- Darioli, Franz Hoffman, Simar, Contenet and Lorgeu have signed a document endorsing the petition of prominent German and Dutch pace-followers to abolish windshields in motorpaced racing.
- Iver Lawson, Floyd McFarland and Walter Rutt were unplaced in the five-mile scratch race at Sydney, Australia, on the 11th ult., won by the German crack Henri Mayer with the Australian Farley second by a few inches.
- H. T. Mayo of the Eastern Division heads the Century Road Club Association's 1905 competition with 50 centuries and 10,115 miles for 15,115 points; Col. M. W. Lyman of the Western Division is second and Ed. States, who also won the Long Island prize, third, with the full leaders' table printed.
- England's "Cycling" has closed its year-long $500 "Tire Idea" competition without an award, finding among hundreds of entries no workable improvement on the pneumatic tire; laced and hooked covers, twin and sectional tubes, ball tires and non-skid bands were all rejected.
- Harry A. Gliesman, president of the Tiger Wheelmen of New York, runs a Reading Standard Thoroughbred behind the scenes at Proctor's Fifth avenue playhouse, spark advanced and muffler cut out, to supply the automobile noise for a melodrama.
- Motorcycle couriers were used to advantage in carrying the returns from Versailles to Paris in the recent election of the President of France.
- A European motorcyclist who bought a new machine each season gives his verdicts on four of them, from a 2 3/4 horse-power whose whimsical ignition governed its power to a nominal three horse-power ruined by soft exhaust valves and piston rings that lost their spring after four hundred miles.
- A motorcyclist writing in "The Motor Cycle" describes 2,000 miles in twelve months on a 2 1/2 horse-power machine over Transvaal veldt tracks, including dongas, dented rims and rebuilt wheels, the runs from Potchefstroom and Heidelberg to Johannesburg, and repeatedly outpacing a small automobile.
- Cycling's jest on the night sword duel of Fernando Orodia and Valeriano Rodriguez, proposing that sensational duellists instead charge each other at full speed on brakeless bicycles down a quiet country road.
- W. W. Whitelock of the 74th Regiment won the one-mile open at the Buffalo armory on the 28th ult. and received an ovation, but was thrown in the two-mile handicap final when his front tire left the wheel; J. M. Tanner of the Moonshiners took that event from Edward Delling and H. S. Sykes in 4:43 1/5, with full summaries.
- J. S. Benyon, the Englishman who won the world's championship at Anvers last summer, has been turned professional by the National Cyclists' Union after admitting that he had taken cash prizes.
- New York's Department of Street Cleaning has bought bicycles since 1896 and now runs some three hundred, with another hundred requisitioned, for foremen and assistants supervising 1,018 miles of paved streets; two motorcycles bought a year ago serve the Bronx and Brooklyn divisions, and repairs are done in the department's own brazing and enamelling shop.
- F. E. Schefski, official handicapper for the National Cycling Association, will manage the Salt Palace track at Salt Lake, incorporated last week as the Salt Palace Amusement Co., which opens on Decoration Day, May 30; Harry Heagren is thought likely to succeed him as handicapper.
- Dr. Stewart of the Southern Nigeria Government, riding a bicycle ahead of his escort toward the Calabar river, is believed to have missed the main road and entered a hostile village; his carriers found the machine in the track and the partly eaten remains of their master.
- S. M. Howell in the Scientific American argues that an air-cooled cylinder develops more power than a water-jacketed one because the jacket lowers combustion temperature and encourages carbon monoxide formation; injecting water directly is worse than an external jacket, though a small regulated quantity in an air-cooled motor helps lubrication.
- A London pawnbroker hires bicycles to would-be purchasers until the hire equals the price, then offers a cash discount financed by his own money-lending at the trade's "modest" rate, so machine, discount and loan all centre in one individual.
- The Revue Pratique de l'Electricite reports that MM. Mabille and Leclerc render celluloid incombustible by dissolving it in ether and alcohol with a quantity of ferric chloride or another iron salt, then evaporating the solvent.
- A complaint about story adapters, illustrated by an automobile joke retold as a motorcycle one: the owner driven mad by his machine and committed to an asylum, found crouched behind his bed tinkering with the springs and slats.
- Iridium, left in commercial platinum because it is cheaper and expensive to remove, forms the contact breaker points on motor-bicycles; one part iridium to nine of platinum gives a hard, elastic alloy from which springs can be made.
- Six United States grants with their first claims: James E. Bancroft's tire-heater, Friedrich Veith's and James M. Elder's pneumatic tires, Worth and Eten's sparking device for engines, William G. Schaeffer's cushion-fork for motor-cycles, and Louis C. G. Rivierre's two-speed transmission mechanism.