The Bicycling World, Vol 53, No 21
Articles in this issue
- At the Toledo meeting of 13th inst. the creditors of the Consolidated Mfg. Co. consented to withdraw the bankruptcy proceedings and continue the business under Receiver Robinson for a year, appointing an advisory committee of W. H. Crosby of The Crosby Co., H. S. White of Shelby Steel Tube, E. J. Lobdell of Mutual Rim and Tracey Carr.
- The published constitution and by-laws of the National Bicycle Jobbers' Association restrict membership to jobbers designated by the Cycle Manufacturers' Association and the Cycle Parts and Accessories Association, with a July annual meeting and other meetings timed to coincide with trade events.
- Trade changes: H. D. Ticknor of Rockford, Ill., sells out to Lewis T. Theiss; J. M. Thompson of Cottage street, Easthampton, Mass., closes out; the Anderson cycle store at San Pedro, Cal., loses its stock to fire ($500, uninsured); and A. B. Crosby takes over Frank Anderson's Aurora, Ill., business at 12 River street.
- A Lahore firm that started ten years ago with four bicycles and twelve sewing machines now keeps branch stores in eleven other Indian cities, employs about 100 people and carries upwards of 500 bicycles in stock.
- British South Africa — the Transvaal, Orange River, Cape Colony, Natal and southern Rhodesia — has raised the duty on bicycles from 12 1/2 to 15 per cent. ad valorem and on motorcycles from 5 to 15 per cent.
- The Echo Bicycle and Motor Boat Co., whose Tonawanda, N. Y., plant burned down, is preparing to rebuild and will replace the machines Tonawanda cyclists lost in the fire.
- Secretary Parmelee flatly denies the Atlantic City convention report that Sears, Roebuck & Co. had acquired 51 per cent. of the Davis Sewing Machine Co. of Dayton, Ohio, calling it "without foundation," though he confirms the company will increase its bicycle output next season.
- The Elizabeth Motor and Cycle Co. of 18 Julian Place, Elizabeth, N. J., incorporates under New Jersey law with $2,000 — Mortimer S. Ross, James S. Henderson and Ada H. Foote named — taking over the bicycle, motorcycle and automobile business Henderson has run for years.
- Quoting Engineering, the article weighs dividing the frame and using the engine as a rigid link against seating it in a cradle, arguing for a continuous frame with the crank case in a cradle solid with the tubes so the engine neither rocks nor becomes impossible to withdraw.
- Garros's "asbestos porcelain" is made by kneading a paste of asbestos fibres 0.00016 to 0.0002 millimetre thick, moulding it and firing at 1,700 deg. C., and is claimed to equal porcelain as an insulating core for spark plugs.
- Lay the cylinder on its side on a bench and try to draw the piston out with a sharp jerk: with properly fitting rings this should be impossible, and the resistance offered measures their condition.
- At the postponed hearing before Commissioner Alexander, John Wooster was questioned about the transfer of the Brooklyn branch two days before his son William's $18,000 failure at 10 Barclay street, New York; the absent bankrupt's property is to be sold on Wednesday the 22nd, with attorney Samuel Kahan seeking an injunction.
- A caution not to set the thread too far when putting a cold spark plug into a hot engine, since the resulting "shrink" fit makes subsequent removal of the plug a delicate business.
- The French "L'Auto Fauteuil" is a four and a half horsepower air-cooled motor tricycle armchair with a variable speed gear giving 5 to 15 miles an hour, offered as relief for the negro "human mules" who pedal the wheel chairs of Florida and Atlantic City.
- An English rural cycle repairer whose main show window was demolished by a heavy wagon pasted a sign on the boarding reading "The van which ran into this window was not equipped with Blank brakes, but all our bicycles are."
- Reprinted from Hardware: the habit of letting a hastily dashed-off letter, an unchecked agreement or a carelessly balanced stock order pass as "good enough" loses contracts and leaves shelves empty where the stock was really short.
- Jean Roy, a New York dealer, poses the puzzle of the customer who pawned a $2 bill for $1.50, sold the pawn ticket to a friend for $1.50, and then paid $3 to hire a bicycle — who is out the dollar?
- Editorial arguing that with the largest corn, wheat, rice and cotton crops ever known, U. S. Steel resuming common dividends and Kansas savings deposits averaging $100 a head, only timidity in the selling departments can keep the cycle trade's 1907 balance sheets from beating this season's.
- Editorial on how a product carries its town's name across the world — beer for Milwaukee, furniture for Grand Rapids, and pneumatic tires for the little Indiana town of Kokomo — and on the factory forge that must keep adding links to that chain.
- Writing from Liverpool on August 8, Holt and Creutz report the first miles awheel of their round-the-world trip: the crowds of cyclists at St. George's Hall, England's strict lamp-lighting law, its liability rules for hired machines, the scarcity of a pump to fit American valves, and the $2.50 steamship charge levied on each bicycle.
- Calendar of meets from August 19 to September 23, including the C. R. C. of A. championships and Century Road Club Association runs at Valley Stream, L. I., the Muskegon Motorcycle Club's race meet, motorcycle races at Dongan Hills, S. I., and track meets at Revere Beach and Vailsburg.
- L. J. Mueller of Cleveland, still accompanied by George N. Holden of Springfield, Mass., left San Francisco on the 10th to attack the 48 day 11 hour motorcycle transcontinental record, crossing the Sierras to Truckee and reaching Hazen, Nevada, 305 miles out, walking ten or twelve miles of one 84-mile day in the sand.
- National Treasurer Harry Early of Bayonne, N. J., leads both the century and mileage competitions of the Century Road Club of America to August 1; Alfred H. Seeley holds second despite appendicitis, and Andrew Clausen of Chicago and H. H. Hintze have swapped third and fourth. In all 306 centuries and 34,389 miles have been ridden.
- Emil Leuly of the Century Road Club of America left West Hoboken, N. J., with H. E. Fisher for Dayton, Ohio, crossing Mount Pocono to Montrose, Pa., then by Binghampton, Elmira and Buffalo — where Fisher turns for Niagara Falls — a round trip of over 1,600 miles.
- Harry Early and Ben Evessen of the Century Road Club of America rode from Jersey City to beyond Philadelphia and back, two hundred miles, in 16 hours 15 minutes, cutting the record of 18 hours 48 minutes.
- Joseph T. Halligan, back in professional ranks, took the ten-mile open at Vailsburg on the 12th by forty yards from Floyd Krebs, Edward Rupprecht and Alfred Ashurst in 24:42 2/5, while C. A. Sherwood of the New York A. C. won both amateur events and Rupprecht and Ashurst caught Charles Schlee in the pursuit.
- Before nearly 7,000 at the Pimlico mile track, James Mangold (Indian) rode from scratch to win the five-mile motorcycle handicap in 7:54 3/5, leading fellow honor man Raymond Thomas (Indian) over the line.
- Frank Kramer's quarter-mile exhibition of 0:24 4/5 at Salt Lake City failed to touch Iver Lawson's 0:23 4/5 record and the odds went 8 to 5 against him; Floyd McFarland won the Greenwald Furniture Company's two-mile lap race from Cyrus Hollister, and Fred West trounced Jack Hume in the five-mile motorpaced race.
- The Veterans' Century Run from Sag Harbor to Jamaica drew Daniel M. Adee, H. E. Ducker from Albany, C. P. Staubach, George S. Sweet and old Battalion Fire Chief John Castles; Fred E. Mommer joined at Westhampton on a double century and Charles E. Burch, Carl Von Gfug and H. T. Mayo scorned the boat and rode the whole way.
- Thorwald Ellegaard of Denmark won the world's professional sprint championship at Geneva from Poulain and Friol and Verri of Italy the amateur, while America's two representatives failed — Walthour losing the 100-kilometre paced title to Louis Darragon and Oscar Schwab going out in the repechage.
- The Salt Lake saucer has been offered the two and five-mile professional championships, so Kramer may stay on after his match series with Lawson; the amateur titles stay East, with the New York Athletic Club, Tiger, Bay View, Roy and National Turn Verein Wheelmen all planning teams.
- After winning the 20-kilometre race at Cologne on August 5th from Paul Guignard and Rosenlocher, Walthour fell in the hour race at 89 laps, leaving Guignard to finish first with 63 kilometres 50 metres.
- Iver Lawson beat Frank Kramer by three lengths in the first of their $2,500 match series at Salt Lake City on the 14th, the last eighth in 11 3/5 seconds; angered by fake accusations he refused to start the two-mile on the 17th and was indefinitely suspended, Hardy K. Downing riding in his place. A. J. Clarke broke the world's half-mile record from scratch at 0:53 1/5.
- Motorpaced bicycle racing returns to the Vailsburg board track on Sunday, August 26th, after several years' lapse, with Alfred Ashurst and John King contesting behind "Dare Devil" Bob Hunter and Joe Nelson.
- Miss Jessie Blythe and Miss Ruth M. Garrison of Montreal passed through New York en route to Washington, having covered about twelve hundred miles on their motor bicycles in four weeks at forty miles a day and $4 a day, in short stout skirts, leather jackets and gaiters.
- After fifty wheels disappeared in Flushing, L. I., and eight more within days, Acting Captain Murray ordered his men to bring every unguarded bicycle in to the station, so citizens now walk there and ride their recovered wheels home.
- At Paris on August 9th Poulain beat Ellegaard in two straight heats and Delage beat Verri by ten inches and then the width of a tire, while Antonie Dussot led Tommy Hall by six laps and Louis Mettling by twenty in a 40-kilometre international motorpaced race.
- Lawrence Corbett, who won the famous "Sydney Thousand" in 1904 but was disqualified on a technicality, lost his suit to upset the decision, was barred from riding for two years and has now petitioned himself into bankruptcy at Sydney, Australia.
- Nat Butler wobbled and fell just after finishing the first heat of the America-France motorpaced match at the Parc des Princes, Paris, on July 29, breaking his collar bone; his partner Louis Mettling had just cut the 10-kilometre world's record to 7:24 1/2.
- Fifty-four delegates to the Union Cycliste Internationale congress at Geneva ruled that future Olympic games must be decided under international union rules or be prohibited, left the amateurism question to each country, and voted the next championships to Paris.
- When Moran's pacing motor burst a tire at Revere Beach, John Bedell dropped his own pace and offered to settle the heat by an equal one-mile sprint — which he then won before 2,000 spectators — though Elmer J. Collins and James F. Moran still took the Boston-New York inter-city match three heats to one.
- The Roy Wheelmen of New York City are organizing the Inter-State Cycling Derby, a twenty-five mile race at Valley Stream, L. I., on Sunday, September 30th, claimed as the championship of the Eastern States, with gold and silver medals, two high grade bicycles and a gold medal if the 1 hour 2 minutes record falls.
- After months of idleness the Tiger Wheelmen of New York City have entered a racing team with Urban McDonald, twice a winner at Vailsburg, as captain, joined by August Huron of the Roy Wheelmen and Edgcombe plugger Martin Kessler on the "mercury foot" loaned by George Cameron.
- Road repairs have put the Long Island division of the Century Road Club Association's individual handicap record century run back from August 26th to September 9th, starting at Bedford Rest, Brooklyn, with 25 prizes headed by a Columbia racing wheel and a gold watch for first time.