The Bicycling World, Vol 53, No 1
Articles in this issue
- Denver's city council has passed an ordinance requiring second-hand bicycle dealers to pay a $10 annual licence and file with the chief of police a record of every used wheel bought and every repair made; upward of thirty-five dealers have already complied.
- Trade changes reported: Graves Brothers open a new store at Bay City, Mich.; fire destroys William H. Luck's shop at Woburn, Mass. ($2,000) and Fred Schussler's store at Pittston, Pa.; Frank Mutz and L. A. Miller dissolve partnership at Toledo, Ohio.
- The White Motor Co. of Camden, N. J., takes out papers with $150,000 capital to manufacture motors and cycles; incorporators are J. W. White of Philadelphia, C. F. Woodhull and C. S. King of Camden.
- The Willys Co. of Owego, N. Y., incorporated with $6,000 capital, takes over the Strong bicycle business; J. N. Willys of the Elmira Arms Co. is the moving spirit, with directors J. T. Skehan and C. L. Latin.
- A. P. Morrow, superintendent of the Eclipse Machine Co., is in Europe on business chiefly relating to coaster brake patents.
- The Simmons Hardware Co. of St. Louis, which jobs bicycles on a considerable scale, has let contracts for a three-story fire-proof branch house in Oklahoma City.
- The Berkshire Cycle & Automobile Co. of North Adams, Mass., is incorporated under Massachusetts law with $5,000 capital, W. G. Parker as treasurer.
- Conference committees of the Cycle Manufacturers' Association and the Cycle Parts and Accessories Association met at Toledo — Harry Walburg, Frank E. Southard, F. C. Gilbert, H. S. White, W. S. Gorton and D. S. Troxel — outlining a publicity campaign to be reported at the Buffalo meeting.
- Fire in the five-story building at 80-84 Michigan avenue, Chicago, being reconstructed for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. and supply dealers Beckley-Ralston Co., caused a loss of $100,000.
- February cycle exports leapt from $92,524 to $223,947, a gain of $131,000; the United Kingdom rose from $16,760 to $37,898, Germany from $7,549 to $28,572, the Netherlands from $5,392 to $37,270 and Japan from $16,505 to $29,162, with a full country-by-country table.
- A German manufacturer has resurrected the nail finder or puncture preventer in featherweight form, an aluminum frame carrying a celluloid edge to scrape glass and nails from the tread before they penetrate.
- A quarter or half turn of the adjusting screw on the contact breaker makes all the difference to a motorcycle's running; once set, leave it alone until the motor refuses to start or begins to misfire.
- A foreign authority advises putting a couple of teaspoonfuls of French chalk inside the tire covers, which stops the tube sticking, eases the beads under the rim edges, lubricates between fabric and tube and helps prevent bursts.
- An explanation of polarization in the dry cell: hydrogen bubbles evolved from the sal-ammoniac solution coat the carbon plate and insulate it, which is why a 'tired' battery revives after a rest, and why granulated manganese dioxide is packed in as a depolarizer.
- The French government offers $4,000 for a cheaper denaturant for alcohol motor fuel and $10,000 for a system allowing denatured alcohol to be used for lighting, after wood alcohol proved to corrode cylinders and foul valves.
- Carroll Leroy Mosher, chairman of the Federation of American Motorcyclists' Committee on Transportation and Facilities, is establishing first, second and third class certificates for official repair shops, graded on the repairman's experience, stock and lathe facilities.
- Leader welcoming the F. A. M.'s list of competent motorcycle repairers, arguing the bicycle repairman is the most honest of the three types of workmen while the automobile mechanic and the local electrician profess knowledge they do not possess.
- Henry Hess, speaking before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in New York, credits the bicycle with the widespread realization of the possibilities of the ball bearing and the substitution of rolling for sliding friction.
- Ridicules an English print which, on the strength of a half dozen Belgian four-cylinder motor bicycles sold in America, urges British makers to 'invade' the market; several Belgian and French machines are already going begging here.
- A letter signed 'The Missouri Kicker' defends the St. Louis to De Soto road against a daily paper's slur, recalling that the 'Frisco club named 'Frisco Hill, Kimmswick and Bulltown (now Antonia) in 1883 and that Cola Stone once jabbed a bull with his ordinary's front wheel.
- Frank MacMillan of New York replies to the paper's attacks on loafing long markers, arguing the remedy is fair handicaps rather than races framed to suit the scratch men, and citing riders put back from 90 to 75 yards for protesting.
- At a dinner at Terrace Garden, New York, the Century Road Club of America presented retiring president Peter A. Dyer with an inscribed gold watch; A. G. Armstrong, D. M. Adee, R. G. Betts, Harry Early, Fred E. Mommer and Charles Mock spoke, most urging amalgamation of the 'Americas' and the Century Road Club Association.
- The Bay View Wheelmen of Newark, N. J., will run the Irvington-Millburn road race on Decoration Day, May 30, after Captain Jack Wuensch canvassed businessmen along the course for support.
- Edwin Koenemann, billed as the 'champion Bremen cyclist' and holder of a North German record for 69 kilometres 736 metres, arrived on the steamer Finland from Antwerp; the paper suggests looking up his antecedents.
- Assemblyman Perkins of New Jersey has introduced a bill compelling all vehicles using the public highways to carry two lights at night, burning from an hour after sunset to an hour before sunrise — aimed chiefly at horse drawn vehicles.
- At the Tiger Wheelmen's home trainer meet in Turn Hall, Fifty-fourth street and Eighth avenue, New York, a sulky roller caused long delays; Urban McDonald beat Marcel Dupuis of the Roy Wheelmen by three-fifths of a second on average time, and Root beat King in a $25 match race.
- W. Vandendries was the all-around winner at the Twenty-second Regiment armory races, taking the one-mile handicap from ten yards in 2:34 ahead of F. E. Adams and H. V. Reid, and the two-mile from scratch in 5:15 3/5 after a sprint with L. J. Weintz.
- Second instalment of the ignition series, describing the magneto's compounded permanent magnets, pole pieces and H-shaped wound armature, the collector brush and grounded lead, and the step-up induction coil that turns 10 amperes at 10 volts into 00.001 ampere at 10,000 volts.
- A London suit awarded Miss Hamilta Louisa Margaret Stamirowski $1,250 against Mrs. Barber after a fall at Sunderland; evidence showed the loop machine, of N. E. Kaufman's trick school, had fixed handlebars and pedals and was connected to the ring by arms and rollers.
- The Atlanta News prints a letter from Robert J. Walthour to his wife denying he was among the riders mobbed in the Paris twenty-four-hour race; his partner fell at about twenty hours, and the crowd pelted the remaining contestants with umbrellas, olive bottles and high hats.
- W. W. Whitelock fell in the final of the one-mile open at the 74th Regiment armory, Buffalo, letting Fred Schudt take the race in 2:21 with Whitelock second and J. M. Tanner third; long markers Devine, Hitchcock and Schieder swept the two-mile handicap.
- A rider urges track promoters to popularize the miss-and-out race, which keeps riders alert and produces a sprint every lap, and the judgment race in which the rider nearest a set time for the mile wins.
- At the opening of the Buffalo Velodrome, Paris, Marcel Cadolle, Cornet and Robert J. Walthour rode an hour behind human-paced tandems and the American finished last; Cornet covered thirty-one miles, and Louis E. Mettling of Boston was beaten by Lorgeu and Dussot in a thirty-kilometre motor-paced race.
- Iver Lawson has signed to ride the Salt Lake saucer all season, and manager Chapman has offered Frank Kramer $1,000 to come out plus $2,500 if he beats the 'Flying Swede'; Fogler and the Bedell brothers have had similar offers, threatening the Eastern tracks.
- A professional back from the European tracks advises recording reach, saddle-to-bar distance and bar width, working the legs straight up and down with ankle action — citing 'Billy' Fenn's clockwork pedalling — and sitting still instead of wobbling into a sprint.
- Mrs. Jennie Morrill Robinson, the only woman member of the Waltham (Mass.) Motorcycle Club and wife of dealer H. W. Robinson, rides a diamond frame machine in a divided skirt, photographed setting off on a fifty-mile spin to Danville, N. H.
- Assemblyman A. E. Lee's amendment to the New York automobile law, which would force motorcyclists down to six miles an hour within twenty rods of horses and to a full stop at ten rods if the animals are restive, has been referred back to the committee on general laws.
- Nat Butler of Cambridge and Louis E. Mettling of Roxbury have joined the Paris colony of cyclists, where Frank L. Kramer, Robert Walthour, Oscar Schwab and 'Woody' Hedspeth already are; Butler rides behind pace on the German tracks but returns for Boston dates.
- 'Jock' in the Scottish Cyclist takes small stock in the vegetarian dietary, granting that seven pounds of potatoes for sixpence would suit a touring cyclist's purse but arguing that no ordinary hotel keeper could produce a meatless repast at a moment's notice.
- Consul General Robert P. Skinner of Marseilles reports to Washington that French tarring aims at preserving the road surface rather than laying dust, and criticises the American habit of dosing dirt roads with tar and grease instead of rebuilding them.
- Oscar Schwab, the former Newarker, won a six-mile point race at the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, on March 11, beating Schuermann by four points in 13:15 3/5; the international scratch was won by Vanden Born.
- Advises checking at the opening of the season whether the chain has worn enough to ride the sprockets, since a neglected chain wears the teeth into spikes and, once the sprockets lose their pitch, a new chain will not fit.
- The Coxsackie (N. Y.) Cycling Club elected Francis Worden president, Charles O. Odell vice-president, Newton H. Calkins secretary, E. F. Tiel treasurer and Dr. Wm. I. Saxe.
- The New York Motorcycle Club's season slate includes an April 22 spring century on the Patchogue course, a Decoration Day hill climbing contest, a 50-mile inter-club reliability contest with the Brooklyn club for the Nason trophy, a photo run, a gymkana and a July touring party to Rochester.
- After nine world's records fell at the Salt Lake and Ogden saucers last season, the Salt Lake management will offer special prizes to riders who break existing marks, raising the curtain May 30 with two meets a week plus a twenty-four hour and a six-day race.
- The New York division of the Century Road Club of America lists informal century runs every Sunday in April with an April 15 handicap from Valley Stream, then the spring century May 13, the Coney Island Cycle Path race on Labor Day and a 50-mile road race on Thanksgiving Day.
- Captain P. Wollenschlager of the Eastern Division, Century Road Club Association, is gathering entries for the spring century run of April 29 from the Bedford Rest club house, Brooklyn, with 'Good Old Dan' Adee pacing the regular division.
- At the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, on March 11, Robert J. Walthour beat world's record-holder Guignard in a 20-kilometre motor paced race in 13:49, a world's record, then again by six laps over 50 kilometres in 36:31 1/5, paced by Gus Lawson.
- The Bedell Brothers, John and Menus, have had their effects attached by the sheriff after their winter restaurant in Academy street, Newark, N. J., failed to pay as well as bicycle riding.
- The Newbergh (N. Y.) Wheelmen elected William J. Wygant president, Charles O. Odell vice-president, Frank W. Tompkins secretary and John E. Drew treasurer, with a board including R. N. Whelan, A. H. Crawford and R. J. Snyder.