The Bicycling World, Vol 53, No 22
Articles in this issue
- Warns that a tire allowed to creep on the rim eventually rips the valve stem off; prescribes filing or sandpapering every trace of old cement from rim and tire before re-cementing, and keeping the rear tire hard so the road cannot hold it fast.
- Advises brazing the pedal shank into the crank arm when the threads in both are stripped, warning that on one-piece crank-hangers the cones must first be proved able to pass over the brazed shank.
- Reports that bicycles are unexpectedly common on Cyprus, used as transport rather than sport on an island that had no railways until six months earlier; German and Austrian makes have beaten the English trade, with France lately gaining, and ladies' machines have helped emancipate Cyprian women.
- O. G. Williams, writing in the Irish Cyclist, itemises a cycle-camping outfit weighing 12 lbs. 10 ozs. single and 19 lbs. 12 ozs. double - Gipsy tent, Primus and Sirram stoves, aluminium pans and Saxin tablets - against the Association of Cycle Campers' quoted 20-35 pounds.
- The Milwaukee Avenue State Bank crash in Chicago put the Steel Ball Co. in a receiver's hands, Judge Bethea appointing W. F. Ziabel; the company owes the bank about $180,000, its shareholder Stensland having absconded, but deliveries will continue and a larger reorganization is planned.
- The Cycle Manufacturers' Association's monthly meeting set for Toledo, Ohio, on September 5th is put off because so many manufacturers are on vacation; the next will be at the Toledo Club on September 19th.
- The Columbia Steel Co. of Elyria, Ohio, becomes a Connecticut corporation with $300,000 authorized capital in 3,000 shares, George Pope, W. C. Walker and George T. Morrow named as incorporators.
- Amos Whitney, founder of the Pratt & Whitney Company and secretary-treasurer of the Whitney Mfg. Co. of Hartford, has invited guests to his fiftieth wedding anniversary at his Hartford home on September 8th.
- The Syracuse Rubber Co. and the Rochester Rubber Co., both dealing in bicycle tires, incorporate separately under New York law at $25,000 capital each, with F. C. Howless of Syracuse, E. R. Rice of Buffalo and C. W. Barnes of New York named in the papers.
- F. B. Widmayer, the motorcycle dealer at 2312 Broadway, New York, has taken the agency for the belt-driven Yale-California built by the Consolidated Mfg. Co. of Toledo, and has already sold several.
- William Wooster, the Barclay street jobber whose $18,000 failure had been trade talk for weeks, will resume business after creditors agreed to take thirty cents on the dollar; the receiver's sale realized only about $5,000 and was set aside by the court.
- William Waking, president of the Richmond (Ind.) Bicycle Dealers' Association, and William Clark will tour on Indian motorcycles through Fort Wayne, Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Kingston, Montreal, Springfield, Hartford, New York, Reading and Washington.
- D. P. Harris, representing several leading New York bicycle and accessory makers, reports July and August sales larger than in any previous year and three carloads of bicycles shipped in a single week.
- August Newman, a Brooklyn cyclist, consulted an astrologer after his bicycle was stolen; told to watch every seventh wheel that passed, he counted six and recognised the seventh, and Michael Marchetta was arrested and held in the Butler street court.
- Repeated grinding of an exhaust valve lets the stem settle until its fillet fouls the guide and prevents full closure; the remedy is to file off the shoulder and test the clearance between stem end and cam lift.
- A stalled motorist traced his ignition failure to a lost platinum point on a trembler blade and made good the deficiency by cutting and riveting in a link of his silver watch chain.
- Argues that the motorcyclist need not master the origin and generation of electricity, only know when the current is at hand and how to confine it to useful work rather than let it escape.
- Factories complain that manufacturers' agents, admitted to see the buyer, stroll through the shops interviewing the men and attempting to sell direct to them - a breach of the unwritten law and of the management's hospitality.
- Wearing number 13, J. Nash McCrea, the "Idol of Springfield, Ill.," won the quarter-mile bicycle race at the Beadstown athletic meet on the 22nd inst. by twenty yards from Guy Horton of Astoria, with Clyde Cobb of Vermont third.
- So many burglaries have been worked around Nassau County, Long Island, by a gang travelling in a speedy motor car that summer cottagers are petitioning to fund a home guard of special police mounted on motor bicycles.
- Louis Renault has proposed a sectional piston for internal combustion motors in which the body is cast or drop forged with the bosses but without the head, the head being shrunk or screwed on separately, giving uniform thickness and cheap quantity production.
- Attributes unexplained loss of motor power to worn, battered or oil-fouled contact-breaker points, and urges riders to clean and refit the contact device as a matter of a few minutes' work.
- Likens the salesman's enthusiasm to the fire under a boiler - once it is allowed to die because the weather is hot or trade slow, the engine slows and the machinery stops.
- The British Acetylene Association has been considering a rule limiting decomposable phosphorous compounds, calculated as phosphine, to 0.04 per cent by volume of the acetylene generated from merchantable carbide.
- Poses a puzzle: a cyclist and a motorcyclist start toward each other from places thirty miles apart, the motorcycle travelling twice as fast, and the bicyclist gets home five minutes earlier - find the speeds and meeting point.
- Describes the German postal authorities' new card or folder carrying a number, expiry date, the owner's name, profession and residence, the postoffice seal and a pasted photograph under a cancellation stamp, costing 50 pfennigs (12 cents) and useful to touring cyclists at hotels and banks.
- Recalls that the craze for light bicycles was checked only after weight reduction had been overpassed in many sorrowful cases, and hopes motorcycle makers will not be tempted to overreach themselves in the same way.
- Argues that the revival of cycling rests with the clubs, whose organized effort and publicity can gather the dispelled forces of old and new riders far better than one or two energetic individuals.
- Warns that a leaky valve, a chain out of alignment or loose spokes, each trifling alone, pile up until the machine becomes a chronic cripple; prompt attention saves it from a premature demise.
- Three letters answering G. W. Sherman's August 11th letter on the open muffler: Frank B. Widmayer of New York City calls the cut-out the greatest nuisance he knows on upper Broadway, F. H. Chase defends its use on hills and with tandem or tri-car loads, and C. B. Lansing of Colorado Springs urges the Federation of American Motorcyclists to forbid it.
- A five-mile motorcycle race shared honors with an automobile, a mule, a wheelbarrow, a horse and a fat man's race at the House of Delegates of Missouri outing on the St. Louis fair grounds track; John Hurck (Indian) beat Ralph Wilson and Frank Maynard in 8:05 on a wretched track.
- Calendar of coming events from August 26th to September 30th, including Century Road Club of America road races, the Muskegon (Mich.) and Denver motorcycle meets, track meets at Revere Beach and Vailsburg, and the Roy Wheelmen's Inter-State cycling Derby.
- John Peters of Brookdale won the five-mile handicap road race at Bloomfield, N. J., from scratch over the Broad street course in a reported 9 minutes 30 seconds; Roy Rock finished second, John Holmes third.
- The Muskegon (Mich.) Motorcycle Club will run six races at Mona Lake on Labor Day, including club and State championships, a handicap for Michigan riders and a five-mile championship for the Western division of the Federation of American Motorcyclists.
- Six sprint races and two motorpaced exhibitions at the Vailsburg board track on the 19th inst.; John Bedell won the ten-mile handicap and the quarter-mile record trials, Dave Mackay broke his collar-bone in a spill, and "Dare Devil" Bob Hunter rode three laps at a 1:50 gait on a flat rear tire.
- Elmer J. Collins, the young Lynn, Mass., ex-amateur, covered 39 miles 1 lap in the hour at the Revere Beach saucer on the 18th inst., riding William Stinson and Menus Bedell off their feet in the first hour race held in America this season.
- Quotes the Louisiana (Mo.) Times on Earl Patrick, who works for Tobe Holliday and is now a proud possessor of a bicycle, being tired of standing up walking.
- Charles Nerent regained the lead on the point ladder of the Century Road Club Association championship series by winning the five-mile handicap road race from scratch in 12:42; J. Cavanagh was second and Nerent now leads with 10 points.
- The Inter-State Cycling Derby for the 25-mile road championship of the Eastern States, promoted by the Roy Wheelmen of 133 West 26th street, will be run on Long Island on September 30th with nearly $200 in prizes and a gold medal for the time winner.
- Joe Nelson, the pace follower whose records stood until Walthour erased them, returns at the Vailsburg board track in a 15-mile motorpaced race against John King, substituting for Alfred Ashurst.
- The Century Road Club of America's annual Coney Island Cycle Path Race, scheduled for Labor Day, September 3rd, is called off because the roads are torn up.
- Brooklyn's new P. P. C. P. - the Prospect Park Cork Pullers - admits only racing cracks; members include Harry Hoppe, Franklyn Fisher, Louis J. Weintz, Walter Raleigh, Walter Demorest and Arthur Wilcox, and the club's gold cork goes on the saddle of whoever wins its Sunday race over the Coney Island creek bridge.
- Paul Guignard, who recently broke the world's hour paced record, beat Robert L. Walthour, Arthur Vanderstuyft and Ebert at Dresden on August 12th, covering 51 miles 573 1/2 yards in the hour for a local track record.
- Follows the German discovery that successful racing cyclists are knock-kneed with further claims - that "Major" Taylor looks black in the face when racing, as does "Woody" Hedspeth, and that the racing and pleasure bicycle are alike in having two wheels, diamond frames and tires.
- After one fatality and a collision on the meadow boulevard bridge into Atlantic City a coroner's jury censured the Board of Freeholders for having no lights on the drive; the bridges, which narrow the sixty-foot roadway to twenty feet, will be lighted and their approaches painted white.
- The Twin City motorcycle road race, put off from August 12th to the 19th inst. by wretched roads, sent ten riders over the 74 1/2 miles from Owatonna to St. Paul; Thomas Bird of St. Paul on an Orient won in 2 hours 26 minutes from George Wagner, and six finished within the limit.
- P. T. Powers, who holds the option on Madison Square Garden for bicycle racing, told a Bicycling World man that he would not commit himself but was thinking something about it, the roller skating rink closing on the 29th - leaving hope of a good post season of indoor racing.
- The Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club will hold a race meet at the Hillsgrove oval on Saturday, September 22nd, with novice, club championship, State championship, a five-mile for a trophy donated by the A. W. Harris Oil Company, and a 110-pound machine race.
- The Toronto Automobile Club offers $500, $200 and $100 for the best stretches of roadway in Scarboro, Etibicoke, Vaughan, Markham and Yorke townships, judged on drainage, serviceability, width, crown, hardness, smoothness and permanency.
- L. J. Mueller of Cleveland, with George N. Holden aboard from Ogden, has reached Utah 845 miles out from San Francisco in his attempt on the 48-day transcontinental motorcycle record; his postals describe sleeping in haystacks, bumping railroad ties across the Forty Mile and Great American deserts, and a 105-degree day near Battle Mountain.
- Charles Long, a Welch collier living near Cardiff, has solved the porous-tire problem with a nearly flameless fuse that gives off dense white smoke, struck like a match and burned in a small iron cylinder attached to the inflator so the smoke leaks out at every flaw.
- A commission has reported to the Italian Parliament proposing duties of 80 lire ($16.00) per motorcycle, 42 lire ($8.40) per ordinary cycle, carriage rates for cycles of more than three wheels, and 100 lire ($20.00) per 100 kilos on parts, with cycle frames taxed as finished machines.
- Alzene, aluminum and zinc combined two to one, is said to equal good cast iron in strength and beat it in elasticity, taking a fine white finish and pouring well in thin sections, though its chief defect is brittleness.
- At Salt Lake City on August 18th Iver Lawson refused to ride the second match of the Salt Palace series against Frank Kramer and was indefinitely suspended by the referee, after the Salt Lake Herald cried "fake"; Lawson offers a $1,000 side bet, the loser's end to charity, and says he is through with racing there forever.
- A crank case joint leaking oil should first be met by setting up the bolts; failing that, dismount and inspect for grit, scratches or warping and reassemble with a manila wrapping paper gasket, coating a poor joint with thick shellac but never glue or mucilage.
- A professor at the Charlottenburg Technical College remarked that a Yankee needs only to see a machine in order to improve on it - a tribute to the national inventive genius, and a sign American motor bicycles will become pre-eminent.
- To braze two brass tubes, true the ends with a file, enlarge one over a taper mandrel to take the chamfered end of the other, wire them to an iron rod, and use powdered borax as flux with a low-melting copper and zinc spelter, brazing from the inside if only a blacksmith's fire is available.
- Germany is to honor Baron Von Drais, native of Manheim, with a monument unveiled at the anniversary of the town's founding - the latest of many claimants to the invention of the bicycle.
- Henry H. Wheeler, the Californian who won both the century and mileage competitions of the Century Road Club of America two years ago, describes living on cereals, milk and dates for 10 to 12 cents a day; a vegetarian for twenty years, he wheeled 11,761 miles and made 52 centuries last year.
- An inventor named Hoskins of East Liverpool, Ohio, is said to have turned out a motor bicycle weighing but 23 pounds and of three and a half horsepower, with all working parts encased and only seven of them, though no patent protection is yet alleged.
- Practical directions credited to Mechanic for hardening and tempering taps and dies - heating the tap in a gas-barrel, quenching the teeth two or three seconds, polishing the shank and drawing the color to a rich golden through red-hot tubes.
- A tourist stranded by the Swiss roadside and helped by kindly peasants was arrested by a gendarme for compelling them to work on the Sabbath, fined about $40, and on appeal had a further $37 added to the penalty.
- A New York A. D. T. messenger boy's bicycle was snatched on upper Broadway and a crowd of a hundred chased the thief down past Sixtieth street to Sixth avenue, where a policeman took him; he was charged with petty larceny and committed in default of $500 bail.
- With tin dear, brass founders add antimony to cheapen bronze; recommends copper 88 per cent., zinc 5.5, tin 2.75, lead 2.25 and antimony 1.5 where stiffness and good color are wanted.