The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 23
Articles in this issue
- Fire early on Sunday morning, 25th ult., destroyed one of the large detached buildings of the George N. Pierce Co. plant at Buffalo, N.Y., used for testing Pierce automobile engines and for assembling and storing bicycles; 400 machines ready for shipment to Japan were among the losses, estimated at $75,000 and fully insured. Treasurer Charles Clifton declined to say how badly the company's bicycle business would be disturbed.
- The French Dunlop Tire Company's report for the year ended July 31st shows a net profit of $104,981, with six per cent proposed on the preferred and 10 per cent on the common stock, and a new issue of 60,000 ordinary shares of $15 planned.
- John McGregor, superintendent of the Pope bicycle factory at Westfield, Mass., and R. H. Patterson, foreman of its enameling department, both leave on April 1st to take similar posts with the Hendee Mfg. Co. at Springfield.
- The Diamond Rubber Co. is putting up a three-story building 100 by 80 feet on Michigan avenue near Sixteenth street, which will house its Chicago branch from May 1st.
- The North British Rubber Co. was paid $1,000,000 for its "Clincher" tire patent, reserving shop rights and continuing to make tires — probably the largest sum ever paid for a single tire patent.
- The Neckarsulmer Fahrradwerke Gesellchaft, a large German maker of cycle fittings and motorcycles, has declared a 14 per cent dividend for 1905 on twelve-month profits of $113,000.
- Graduate Bros. of the U. P. Cycle Mart, Meerut, India, are in the market for cycle fittings and accessories.
- Publication of patents 813,464 and 813,465 — filed by Charles W. Svenson and assigned to the Corbin Screw Corporation of New Britain, Conn., makers of the Corbin coaster brake — reveals a two-speed sun-and-planet hub giving high and low gears, a free wheel, coaster and back-pedalling brake, all worked by back-pedalling with no levers or exterior rods.
- The Wilson Co., one of the cleanest of the New York jobbing houses, has incorporated under New York law as the Wilson Trading Co., with Andrew Wilson as president and treasurer and his son Charles T. as vice-president and secretary.
- Trade changes: Demler & Antico, a new firm at Bradford, Pa.; Jacob Burstein's new store at Wallingford, Conn.; Ernest Norton of Sacramento, Cal., sold out to P. E. Nelson; and H. S. Griswold of Phoenix, Ariz., removed to 34-36 West Adams street.
- The new F. N. motor bicycle models use a complete double-fork spring frame in which a dummy fork carries the load and is sprung on the main fork through a plunger shock absorber and parallelogram linkage; the tool kit and a glass-barrelled oil pump are mounted beside the tanks within reach of the saddle.
- A repairman's tip: cut a band from a broken gramophone spring begged from a "side line" agent, anneal it, rivet cycle mudguard connectors to its ends, and use it to compress piston rings into their grooves while entering the cylinder bore.
- A motor that has stood idle often refuses to start not through the ignition outfit or carburetter but because the small quantity of gasolene in the float chamber has gone stale by partial evaporation; shut off the cock, drain the chamber and admit fresh fuel.
- Argues that "pure Para" is used as loosely as "clear Havana," that Para is a Brazilian seaport draining the Amazon valley rather than a grade of rubber, and that much American tire rubber is in fact "reclaimed" from cast-off boots, garden hose and worn-out tires.
- January 1906 bicycle exports jumped from $114,729 to $185,242 year on year: Great Britain more than doubled to $27,315, Germany rose six-fold to $31,598, the Netherlands nearly ten-fold to $43,702 and Italy to $9,182, though "Other Europe" fell back. A full country-by-country table and seven-month fiscal-year comparison are given.
- Stove gasolene of about 60° test makes a carburetter work erratically and is far less "lively" than 80° fuel; an experienced nose detects its strong kerosene savor, but a hydrometer is the only certain test.
- Diamonds of four to five carats are now extensively used as wire-drawing dies for wire up to about 1/40-inch, since hardened steel wears too fast to hold a uniform diameter; platinum wire can be drawn to 0.0005-inch.
- German silver contains no silver whatever and is of Chinese, not German, origin — the Germans merely introduced it to Europe, having borrowed it from the Chinese.
- A rule for estimating speed without buying a speedometer: measure the machine's "development" (ground covered by one full pedal revolution), multiply by 3.6, and count pedal revolutions over that many seconds — worked through with a 20-foot development on a 64 gear.
- Editorial arguing that since the bicycle trade "settled down" dealers have fallen into ruts behind excuses like "I haven't time" and "What's the use?"; quotes a hardware-trade writer and a ship-builder's verse on the value of initiating rather than imitating.
- The Los Angeles Motorcycle Club's first tournament, run under Federation of American Motorcyclists sanction on the sand at Long Beach, Cal., on Saturday the 24th inst.; E. W. Hoag took the mile-and-a-half Thoroughbred event in 1:43 and R. Gould led the Indians in 1:45, with full summaries of six events.
- Two Parisian jockeys have matched a cyclist against a runner over two hours, the runner starting ten minutes ahead and free to go where he pleases through fields and woods, scattering paper as a trail.
- Argues the French motor skate is not simpler but more complex than the motor bicycle: each skate is a wheeled motor car with its own motor, gearing, gasolene tank, ignition and muffler, and the rider is chained to a waist-band carrying the spark coil and batteries.
- William Poison's long-standing armory record on the 74th Regiment floor at Buffalo, N.Y., fell on Saturday night, 20th ult., when Fred Schudt of the Standard Wheeling club won his mile handicap heat from scratch in 2:12 1/2; Philip Backert took the final and Schudt the two-mile lap race with 61 points from Ed Delling and D. Hitchcock.
- John Chapman, who had himself elected walking delegate of the newly organized Western Racing Cyclists' Union, has ousted F. E. Schefski from the management of the Salt Lake saucer; Harry Heagren dropped his rival track scheme and released his nine riders' three-year contracts, and Schefski stays on as press agent to his former enemy.
- Robert J. Walthour of Atlanta, Ga., and his pacemaker Gus Lawson made their Paris debut in a 12-hour team race at the Velodrome d'Hiver that ended in a small riot, the crowd tearing up barricades and throwing glass over the riders' loafing tactics; also Otto Meyer's Grand Prix Municipal win over Ellegaard and Vanden Born, and Cornet's 49 kilos. 540 metres hour figure.
- The Chicago Motorcycle Club has formally applied for the Federation of American Motorcyclists' national meet, suggesting New York to Chicago as the route for the accompanying endurance contest; Rochester, N.Y., is also bidding, and the choice goes to a mail vote of the F. A. M. executive committee.
- Iver Lawson has quit Australia early, writing from Melbourne that he is "through with racing" there after fourteen firsts and one second and would sail by the Ventura; the paper ties it less to a split with McFarland than to Antipodean promoters agreeing to end fabulous appearance money, and looks ahead to a Lawson–Kramer championship struggle.
- Through the efforts of the Touring Club de Belge, Belgian railways now take motorcycles into the baggage car without requiring the gasolene tanks to be drained first.
- The Century Road Club of America has named its 1906 national committees — road records under Noble O. Tarbell, legislation under John M. Miller, membership under Gilbert C. Badeau, auditing under William B. Handy — together with traveling centurions and a full list of state centurions and secretary-treasurers from California to the Philippine Islands.
- Motorcycles are specifically exempt from New York's new automobile law, but Albany's circulars omitted the exempting clause and $2 registration fees were wrongly collected; F. A. M. president Betts got the instructions corrected, though Secretary of State O'Brien says he cannot see how the money can be refunded.
- Britain's National Cyclists' Union will no longer compel the amateur and professional world champions to ride off a final match — the rule under which J. S. Benyon was suspended a month at Nevers for refusing to meet Gabriel Poulain.
- The Federation of American Motorcyclists will offer gold, silver and bronze medals for mileage and for touring between April 1st and November 30th; mileage reports go monthly to Roads and Tours chairman M. E. Toepel, and touring is verified by postmarked cards from each county visited. Toepel succeeds Carroll LeRoy Mosher, moved to Transportation and Facilities.
- Hartley Harvey won the five-mile open at the St. Augustine, Fla., beach tournament from Willard Colee and Clarence Hill; J. H. Beaumont was disqualified for cutting the course but ran away with the mile handicap, and Roy Colee took the boys' mile.
- With the ground still frozen, the Detroit Wheelmen are already planning their classic 25-mile Belle Isle road race for May 30th, keeping entries open longer to draw crack amateurs from Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Toledo, Milwaukee and Grand Rapids; Oscar Wanderer, Edward Flynn and Henry Lisch will arrange details.
- Analyses where a motor bicycle's power is absorbed — internal motor friction, 1/2 to 2 1/2 per cent per chain, .2 to .5 per cent in the wheel bearings, road resistance, gradient and wind — and works out from draw-bar-pull data that a 260-pound load needs .615 horsepower at 1,500 feet a minute, with tables and a diagram relating power to speed and grade.
- "Jock" in the Scottish Cyclist mocks the perennial route querist who writes in rather than consult a map, recounts failing to teach a lady cyclist map-reading, and advises tourists to build a library at consistent scales — ten or twelve miles to the inch for a country sheet, two miles to the inch for district maps.
- The Clover Cycling Club of Lynn, Mass., elected George H. Paris president, E. S. Hazlett vice-president, F. L. MacLean recording secretary, E. N. Blethen financial secretary and B. R. Brown treasurer, then sat down to a banquet prepared by members.
- The Century Road Club of America's home trainer races at Schwaben Hall, Brooklyn, on Thursday the 8th inst., preceding the club's annual ball, will decide the New York and New Jersey championship; prizes include a Columbia racing wheel and the "America" and "Bicycling World" loving cups, with Charles A. Sherwood, Oscar Goerke, Thomas Shortell and the veteran Charles Mock among the entries.
- Weekly patent abstracts with claims: Wesley Kouns's autoregulated carbureter for hydrocarbon engines (812,753), Hans Richter's valve-gear for explosion engines assigned to the Nuremberg firm of Vereinigte Maschienfabrik Augsburg (813,116), and Archibald D. Morris's detachable link chain (813,229).