The Bicycling World, Vol 52, No 25
Articles in this issue
- George N. Pierce, whose Buffalo factory was largely destroyed by fire three weeks earlier, has decided not to abandon bicycle making after his 1906 agents pledged their loyalty; Pierce shipments are expected to resume within 30 days.
- The Reliance Motorcycle Co., now at Addison, N. Y., will move to Elmira next autumn, where local capital is already invested and more is to be put in to erect a larger factory.
- F. A. Baker & Co., New York distributors of Pierce and Indian bicycles and Curtiss motorcycles, have leased the store floor and basement of 37 Warren street and will move there on 1 April from their second-floor quarters at No. 20.
- Creditors of Ernest Norton of the Cleveland Cyclery, Woodland, Cal., have put the sheriff in charge; George W. Walker attached the property after Norton arranged to sell to P. E. Nelson, leaving liabilities of $3,000 against no assets.
- Henry Ephraim, of the Buffalo firm Ephraim Bros., is named as a partner in the newly formed Midland Automobile and Cycle Co. of San Francisco, and marked his rejection by the local Board of Trade with a big cut-price advertisement.
- W. F. Remppis, owner of the Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co., reports twenty-six orders in a single non-working day for the Thoroughbred motorcycle, having already sold more machines than were shipped in all of last year.
- L. B. Whymper, for many years sales manager of the Crawford Mfg. Co. and a long-prominent figure in cycling, died in New York on the fifth; his remains were taken to Baltimore for burial.
- Trade changes of the week: Rousseu & Umstead open a new store in Miami, Fla., and L. P. House of Cheyenne, Wyo., sells out to Frank V. Wright.
- A French maker has fitted a motor bicycle with semi-elliptic springs, the rear axle floating in slotted curved guide plates stayed to the seat post so chain tension stays constant — a departure from the usual telescopic and helical suspensions.
- Soldering motorcycle electrical work hardens the copper conductor and lets flux soak into and rot the insulation; where it is unavoidable a non-conducting flux or plain resin should be used.
- A British concern is offering a front hub brake in which a coiled spring inside the hub is applied by expansion of its coils, giving uniform pressure and a gradual action that avoids the "fierce" grab of earlier front brakes.
- The four-cylinder F. N. is offered as a good foreign example of bevel-gear shaft drive, reducing engine speed about eight to one through two sets of bevels; the Pope Mfg. Co. worked out a similar transmission but found it too costly to market.
- A four-cylinder motor car engine originally rated at 32 horsepower tested at a strong forty after two years' use, the gain traced to wearing surfaces glazing to a perfect finish and cylinder bores enlarging with wear.
- Court testimony shows 25 leading American factories built 47,000 automobiles in three years against some 132,000 bicycles turned out in twelve months by about a dozen plants — proof, the paper argues, that the bicycle trade merely lacks the well paid press agents it once had.
- The fire at the Pierce factory has shown dealers that high grade bicycles are not to be had for the asking: agents in several cities report they could not get another first-class agency if they wanted one.
- The Bicycling World urges the Cycle Manufacturers' Association and the Cycle Parts and Accessories Association to offer prizes through New York's Public School Athletic League, which has $500,000 in city athletic fields and 2,000 newspaper-donated medals but no cycling events.
- An editorial warning that if professional race promoters and track owners take the presidency and board of control of the N. C. A., it will be a sad day for cycle racing; sport government must be free of suspicion of sordid motives.
- The Long Island division of the Century Road Club Association closed its mid-winter home trainer tournament at Bedford Rest, Brooklyn, on 11 March; Gustave Duester set association records at one mile (1:04) and five miles (6:54) and Joseph M. Eifler at two and ten miles.
- The two-mile bicycle race at the Eighth Regiment games in the Ninety-fourth street armory nearly ended in a riot when C. W. Ledyard of the Twenty-third Regiment cut inside the chalk line; judges disqualified him and gave the race to George Cameron in 5:02.
- Several amateurs are expected to be turned professional at the National Cycling Association meeting on Monday, among them Edward Rupprecht, Charles Franks, James Zanes, Alfred Ashhurst, Teddy Billington, J. J. McKinnon and Fred Ernst.
- The Bay View Wheelmen have appointed a committee under Captain Jack Wuensch to canvass business houses along the course and dealers in Newark and New York for support, the classic road race having failed to pay for itself for several years.
- The Federation of American Motorcyclists' 1906 "Members' Diary" — a vest pocket volume now on the press — carries pages for recording daily mileage, destination, weather and the cost of gasolene and oil, plus the conditions governing mileage and touring awards.
- At the twelve hours' team race at the Velodrome d'Hiver, fourteen teams finished level on 259 1/4 miles and a smash-up in the six-lap deciding sprint led the crowd to throw chairs and bottles; the race was later given to Ingold, with Robert Walthour and others protesting.
- The Rochester Motorcycle Club was formed on the 8th inst. with A. D. Fisk president and thirty-six riders enrolled, and immediately applied to host the F. A. M. annual banquet, now being decided by mail vote between Chicago and Rochester.
- The Lockport (N. Y.) Wheelmen, formed twenty years ago by the merger of the rival Niagara and Lock City bicycle clubs, marked the anniversary with a banquet addressed by several prominent men in legislative affairs.
- Germany is imposing a heavy tax on motor vehicles, motorcyclists falling under class A at 10 marks (about $2.38), with non-residents paying three marks for a three-day visit, fifteen for five days and forty for thirty.
- Representative Byrd's House Bill No. 98 would register even pedal-propelled bicycles at $2, require lighted name-and-number lamps visible at 50 yards, and cap speed at four miles an hour in towns; President Betts of the F. A. M. is pressing for exemption.
- Trego of the Oakland Wheelmen came within one-fifth of a second of the Pacific Coast home trainer record of 2:04 at an inter-club tournament, and the Oakland Wheelmen took the cup on combined times.
- The Richmond (Ind.) Bicycle Dealers' Association has scheduled a road race for 26 May and is negotiating for a track for fortnightly bicycle racing; John Darnell was elected president.
- Emile Bouhours broke the world's professional paced twenty-four hour record at the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, covering 1,312 kilometres 666 metres — 815 miles 1,146 yards — beating Jenny Walters's 1899 mark by nearly 200 miles, with Vanderstuyft second.
- The National Cycling Association's deferred annual meeting at the Hotel Bartholdi will elect a new president and board of control chairman; A. G. Batchelder and R. F. Kelsey are standing down, with P. T. Powers and C. B. Bloemecke mentioned.
- One thousand Chicago property owners have petitioned the West Park board to remove the bicycle and trotting tracks in Garfield Park as a nuisance — not the first such attempt to be defeated by cyclists and horsemen.
- Champion Frank L. Kramer sailed on the Deutschland from Hoboken for a seventeen-race European contract, riding a French Peugeot for $1,000 over eleven weeks; his trainer Jack Neville stayed behind through illness, and Gabriel Poulain is expected to be his strongest opponent.
- The Revere Beach track at Boston opens on 19 April with Robert J. Walthour carded to appear, probably in a match against English champion Tommy Hall.
- William B. Everett, one of the League's founders, was elected president of the League of American Wheelmen on 14 February at the National Assembly in Boston, a fact only now made known; membership statistics showed 2,134 members left of the once 100,000 and $43.10 in the treasury.
- Noble O. Tarbell's report for the Century Road Club of America shows Ernest G. Grupe heading the National century competition, with Fred E. Mommer leading the January-February mileage from Alfred H. Seeley, Henry H. Wheeler and William Hampshire.
- The Brown yielding gear wheel, controlled by the Armac Motor Co. of Chicago, turns out not to be exclusive to Armac: it is offered for any motorcycle using a Thor or Corbin coaster brake, and has stood a 4,000 mile test on a 3 1/2 horsepower motor.
- A reflection that worry is an expensive luxury but a little concern about the future keeps the rust from gathering — a bed of down is more comfortable than one of thistles, but the thistles get a man up earlier.
- Black smoke from the muffler pipe means too rich a mixture, blue smoke an overplus of lubricating oil, and white smoke usually kerosene being burned or used to clean the cylinders.
- Plans for the new Plainfield, N. J., high school called for a bicycle room, but it was cut to bring the cost within the appropriation; as most pupils ride to school, a shed will now have to be built.
- Senator Frelinghuysen's New Jersey bill has passed the Senate in amended form: motorcycles now pay a flat $1 annual registration instead of a per-horsepower tax, are exempt from number plates, photographs and licence examinations, and are defined as motor vehicles with pedals and saddles ridden astride.
- An English court gave the verdict to a motor car driver whose sudden stop caused a motor bicyclist riding close behind to swerve into an oncoming vehicle, ruling that cyclists who persist in riding close behind cars must take the risk.
- A high polish on a motorcycle piston or cylinder is a tell-tale of excessive friction from low grade oil, not of good lubrication; a well lubricated cylinder should show a rather dull colour.
- Officials of the Child Saving Institute in Omaha, Neb., advertised for old rubber to fund their nursery and have received more cast-off bicycle tires than any other gum product.
- The New York Motorcycle Club has adopted an aluminium strip bearing the club's initials, secured to two spokes of the front wheel near the rim, so members can recognise each other on the road.
- Mrs. M. E. McClure of Kansas City, Mo., has been knocked down and injured twice in two weeks — once by a cyclist and once by a motor bicycle — and has refused to prosecute either offender.
- E. M. Estabrook's recollection of a pioneer "Star" bicycle salesman who pushed his new "Allright" motorcycle thirteen miles without one explosion, blamed the grip control, and finally shipped the machine back to the factory in two boxes.
- After three successful road races last year the Atlantic City (N. J.) Wheelmen are arranging two twenty-five-mile events for April and May, laying courses so riders pass the start many times and spectators can follow the race; jobber George W. Robb of Philadelphia has backed them.
- An old timer's story of an uninvited stranger who joined a group of cyclists discussing the spring run and announced that he had won the Irvington-Milburn — to blank looks all round.
- William A. Greville of Newark, N. J., reported his bicycle stolen from Broad and Bank streets at 8 o'clock, spotted it from a trolley car at Broad street and Belleville avenue, fought the thief and recovered the machine by 3:30.
- The Scranton (Pa.) Bicycle Club's twenty-fifth annual meeting reported 315 members, assessments including real estate of $35,844.31, receipts of $8,000 against $2,400 expenditure, and elected C. A. Godfrey president after a spirited vice-presidency contest.
- A would-be inventor writes to the Technical World describing a machine of radial arms whose end weights change from 6 to 9 pounds as it revolves right to left, and asks only that no one throw a brick.
- Loss of power under load, refusal to speed up and knocking in the cylinder often point to the ignition system but may be due solely to loss of compression, which shows up on the stand as an engine that revs freely under no load.
- Patents granted include 813,104, a sparking device by Harry A. Miller of Los Angeles using an oscillating contact member actuated by cylinder pressure, and 813,025, an ice-velocipede by Henry Schierieckloth of Holstein, Iowa, worked by a lazy-tongs lever.