The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 1
Articles in this issue
- The Patent Office refused to transmit S. J. Copeland's motion to dissolve the coaster-brake interference he has fought for years with H. P. Townsend (New Departure) and William Robinson (Morrow) on behalf of the Pope Mfg. Co.; Commissioner Allen upheld the Examiner, holding the motion was filed seven months late and the plea that counsel was "too busy" insufficient.
- British cycle exports for August reached 9,975 complete machines worth £52,572 plus £57,670 of parts — £110,242 in all, or about $550,000 — the best month since July 1897, against £82,860 in August 1905.
- The White Light Bicycle Company of Norfolk, Va., was incorporated with $25,000 capital, C. H. White as president, D. S. Alston treasurer and Edward Reid vice-president.
- The steel shortage has reached the cycle trade: F. J. Waters of the Chicago Handlebar Co. explains that a new handle bar a year in preparation is still unbuilt because the tubing and castings ordered for it have not been delivered, and he now hopes only to have it out for the 1907 trade.
- Morgan & Wright are shifting from Chicago to Detroit and will be settled by 1st October in a new seven-acre plant whose four-storey main building measures 300 by 60 feet.
- A technical account of case-hardening bicycle and motorcycle components — packing wrought iron, mild steel or malleable cast-iron in annealing boxes with bone or leather charcoal and potassium cyanide, luting the joints with fire-clay, and judging depth of penetration by quenching the test wires.
- Recommends the automobilist's brass syringe oil gun, a four-inch barrel version being large enough to squirt oil or gasolene into places on a machine that are otherwise hard to reach.
- How to limp home on a twin: disconnect and earth the high-tension wire from the dead plug and block up that cylinder's inlet valve, giving a fairly effective single-cylinder mount.
- The Quadricycle Co. of Detroit, Mich., has incorporated with $10,000 authorized capital — $6,100 subscribed — to build a four-wheeled motorcycle.
- Describes a Briton named Yooll's newly patented anti-vibration device, a hinged sleeve mounted outside the main tube or seat post and held in a midway position by pivoted yokes and helical springs, so flexibility is gained without weakening the forks or frame.
- A repairman who sold a young woman's bicycle in May after she left it for repair in December, relying on his posted "left over" notice, was haled before a magistrate and made to pay the full value of the machine plus damages for its detention.
- Warns that even an imperceptible change in the carburetter float chamber's fuel level upsets a motor's running, and that because the float is air-tight and the needle valve and suction fairly uniform the level seldom alters without cause.
- Argues that the modern wire-spoked wheel's strength tempts riders to neglect broken spokes: because every spoke is in tension the rim begins to sag imperceptibly the moment one defaults, and further strain from ruts and striking stones aggravates it until the wheel wobbles and collapses.
- Motor valve springs lose strength through repeated rapid use and intense heat; those seriously affected should be exchanged for new ones rather than merely stretched or re-shaped, which is only an emergency measure.
- An editorial leader citing alienists on the mental value of a hobby, and arguing that cycling combines recreation with health and dovetails with photography, botany and "bugology" rather than monopolising a man's leisure.
- An editorial urging makers to stop discouraging buyers who ask for 1¾-inch tires: clearances on closely built frames may explain the reluctance, but of five purchasers given a trial three will choose the more generous tire for its comfort.
- A lyrical autumn editorial on the fall colouring of the landscape, urging readers to get out the bicycle and ride while the two-to-five-week show lasts, before the greys and browns take over.
- An editorial welcoming the success of the Providence meet but warning that runaway, processional racing will kill motorcycle meets as it killed New York automobile racing in 1905–06, and citing Barney Oldfield's tours as proof that close finishes draw crowds.
- A trainer explains to the Bicycling World that over-training, not under-training, dulls riders — a man who can do a quarter in 28 seconds should not attack his own figures three or four times a week; he advocates weekly weighing, a tabulated training diary, and complete rest after a hard day's racing.
- Franklyn Fisher, one-time Harlem Wheelmen champion and ex-champion of Long Island, lost the gold cork of the Cork Pullers' Club to Carl Erricson, an ambitious young rider who pulls teeth by day.
- Harry Silver of San José, Cal., ran through Oakland with his muffler cut out in breach of the local ordinance; Judge Smith rejected his plea that part of the muffler had been lost and fined him $50, which Silver paid.
- Charles Libbey of Lynn, Mass., the trick motorcyclist styled "daredevil" by the local prints, plans a transcontinental record attempt on Marsh machines and expects to beat the mark by at least five days, though a start "shortly" may be delayed by snow.
- The Providence Motorcycle Club's meet at the Hills Grove half-mile track on 23rd September drew some 700 spectators to eleven races run without a single fall; F. E. Domina on his own 3¼ horsepower machine took the club championship from E. L. Buffington's Indian in 1:36⅘, with Roland Douglas as referee and Dr. G. B. Gibson starting.
- Caesar Simar, the recovered French pace follower, beat Louis Mettling and Hugh MacLean in three straight heats at the Parc des Princes velodrome on 16th September, MacLean having arrived in Europe only days before.
- Fred Peterson, State centurion of the New Jersey division of the Century Road Club of America, won the one, three and five mile events at the opening championship meet on the new boulevard at Grant City, Staten Island, to President A. G. Armstrong's evident delight.
- Francesco Verri, the young Italian who won the amateur Grand Prix at Paris, the amateur world's championship at Geneva and every race he rode at the Olympic games in Greece, has turned professional.
- D. D. Adee, son of the "only Dan M." of Metropolitan, L. I., heads the Century Road Club Association's national mileage-century competition for the eight months to 1st September, followed by A. Lewin and J. F. Paulson of Brooklyn and H. Heldman of New York City.
- Before a crowd of over 6,000 at Vailsburg on 23rd September, Charles A. Sherwood of the New York A. C. all but clinched the national amateur championship by taking the five mile title race, and Elmer J. Collins of Lynn beat James F. Moran of Chelsea in two of three motorpaced heats.
- Paul Guignard won the 100-kilometre motorpaced championship of Europe at Dresden on 9th September, with Robert J. Walthour second and Thaddeus Robl and Piet Dickentmann third and fourth.
- An account of the St. Louis Motorcycle Club's 225-mile Saturday-to-Monday run through Pike county and St. Charles, where farmers who had never seen a motorcycle lined the roadside, machines broke down, and the riders were mulcted $2 apiece for county licenses.
- About fifty members of the Garden City Wheelmen and Motorcycle Club of San José rode to Centerville on 16th September for a ball game and races; Livo Maggini won the mile handicap from Clifford Poole, and "Owl" Murphy took the two mile handicap by half a wheel from Plinn Maggini.
- A snapping, crackling noise blamed on a dirty or misaligned chain turned out to come from the bearings: examination found a bent retainer, three broken balls, a broken cone and a badly stripped axle thread, an object lesson in the proper adjustment of ball bearings.
- At Marienbad, King Edward is said to have thrust his cane between the spokes of a small girl's runaway bicycle as it careered down a steep hill towards a sharp turn, saving her from a crash.
- Réne Pottier won the twelfth annual Bol d'Or at the Velodrome Buffalo, Paris, on 8th–9th September, covering 578⅝ miles behind tandem pace at 24 miles an hour to break Petit-Breton's 1904 record; Georget, Cornet, Trousselier and Ringeval also rode.
- Charles Nerent, already champion of the Century Road Club Association, added the Brower Wheelmen title by winning the five mile championship at Valley Stream, L. I., from Charles Schlosser and George Thoreakos.
- Eighteen thousand spectators at Leipzig on 16th September saw Piet Dickentmann beat Henri Contenet by half a lap in 1h 2m 14s over 100 kilometres, with Robert J. Walthour a bad third; Thorwald Ellegaard took the sprints.
- More than 200 riders have entered the Inter-State Cycling Derby promoted by the Roy Wheelmen of New York, a twenty-five mile road championship of the Eastern States starting at Valley Stream, with a gold medal for the scratch record and handicaps from scratch to fifteen minutes.
- Explains the Sellers dynamometer, a London invention consisting of a lever fulcrumed near the pulley with a sliding carriage and spring balance, by which the tangential pull at the pulley rim gives horsepower as W multiplied by S divided by 33,000.
- English cyclists have taken up the idea that tramcars should carry bicycles from town centres out to the limits of congestion, sparing riders the bad central pavements and clearing crowded streets.
- A Pittsburg Post writer describes how the American government's paved streets and the macadamized roads to Sabanas and La Boca brought the bicycle to Panama, where jungle folk who refused other civilised comforts took to riding at once.
- A repairman gives his opinions on motorcycle customers — the man who never touched his bicycle beyond ordering a new spoke, the young fellow who sealed a hole in his gasolene tank with sealing wax, and the owner who packed asbestos into an exhaust joint only to have the disks lodge in the bend.
- From 1st December, the start of the State Highway Department's fiscal year, Pennsylvania motorists must display red enamel tags with white numerals in place of the present blue; 13,500 licenses were issued this year, the State receiving $3 of each.
- A tricar owner has fitted a Cape Cart hood with a large mica window in the back curtain and a plate glass windshield, making the fore-car passenger as comfortable as in a covered automobile.