The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 18
Articles in this issue
- Great Britain's 1906 cycle exports reached £1,140,595 (about $5,700,000), up from £945,490 in 1905, with complete machines rising from 47,604 to 78,841 and cycle parts alone worth £710,399; a further 739 motorcycles and parts valued at £51,270 pushed the year's total towards $6,000,000.
- C. H. Semple has resigned as secretary of the G & J Tire Co., Indianapolis, to become president of a new automobile tire company organized in New Jersey, and H. O. Smith has retired as a director, severing his last link with the Rubber Goods Mfg. Co.
- The Ovington Motor Co., New York, American agents for the F. N. motorcycle, will now push the 2 horsepower single-cylinder model alongside the four-cylinder; it uses belt transmission with enclosed gears for gear-reducing and magneto ignition.
- F. A. Baker, of F. A. Baker & Co., Pierce agents for New England, reports sample orders already more than half of last year's total Pierce sales in his territory and has at last placed an agency in Boston itself; Joseph McDowell of the Yale interests confirms the improvement.
- The G & J Tire Co. is now producing its motorcycle tire with the Bailey studded tread as well as the familiar corrugated tread, giving motorcyclists their first choice of non-skidding treads.
- Earle L. Ovington answers correspondent "H. E. D." on hard starting with a Simms-Bosch magneto, explaining with a diagram of the alternating-current cycle that the plug gap must be very short and the timing lever advanced so the break falls at maximum current.
- An argument that riders' pet diagnoses do real damage: constant jabbing at the carburetter jet wears it out of true, over-grinding ruins the needle valve, and repeated filing of contact points and ill-judged refitting of bearings, piston rings and tank seams cost far more than the imagined fault.
- An editorial blaming the collapse of the Ormond-Daytona speed carnival on the "freak" machine, which set impossible standards, made stock-machine performances look tame and drove public interest out of both automobile and motorcycle racing.
- An editorial warning that automobile dealers and garagemen are now taking motorcycles seriously, and that bicycle dealers who keep untidy shops and appear before customers in overalls will lose the motorcycle trade to better-kept garages.
- R. G. Betts, president of the Federation of American Motorcyclists, writes to W. E. Scarritt, chairman of the Automobile Club of America's Committee of Public Safety, asking that motorists sound horns when overtaking motorcyclists, whose machines drown the noise of modern silent cars; Scarritt promises to spread the word.
- A New York Motorcycle Club member, prompted by the Root-Fogler scandal, recalls that Pat Powers promised $50 in 1903 for arranging the inaugural F. A. M. motorcycle events at Manhattan Beach and never paid it, embarrassing the member who had announced the money to his club.
- The Massachusetts Highway Commission's annual report records 666 motorcycle registrations in 1906 against 533 in 1905, a rise of about 25 per cent, yielding $1,332 in registration income.
- The 1907 world's championship meet, awarded to France, will be held at the Parc des Princes in Paris under the auspices of the U. V. F. on June 30 and July 4 and 7.
- McTighe and Bassett of the Oakland Wheelmen took the Lisseur Trophy from a field of five teams in San Francisco's first inter-club home trainer race of the year, McTighe also winning the individual gold medal with 2:19 3/5; a broken chain disabled a roller, so the later two-mile heats were run against the clock.
- George H. Curtiss of Hammondsport and William H. Wray, Jr., of Brooklyn were the only motorcyclists at the Ormond-Daytona carnival; Curtiss beat Wray's Peugeot by three lengths in a record 46 2/5s, then Wray took the mile record at 44 2/5s, while Curtiss's 40 horsepower eight-cylinder machine broke its transmission.
- Salt Lake City riders are in dispute over the management of the Salt Palace track, where H. W. Heagren was replaced by John M. Chapman; Redman, delegated by a meeting, wrote to lessee John Halvorsen, who replied that he intended to manage the track himself.
- "The Owl" in Cycling reviews the cycling companions he has endured, from the know-all and the map-reader to the camera fiend whose "diffusion of focus" ruined a cyclo-photographic tour, concluding that companions are best when properly managed.
- A note arguing that the rider should go beyond the rudiments, since mastering the little machine's foibles until its management becomes second nature is the acme of the pastime's pleasure.
- C. T. Anderson describes riding an Orient motor bicycle with a tandem attachment 1,350 miles from Jacksonville, Fla., to Scranton, Pa., demonstrating Goodrich tires by way of Folkston, Jessup and Eastman, Ga., Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain, Louisville, Columbus, Akron and Buffalo, through swamps, red clay and railroad ballast.
- N. Ellery, California State Highway Commissioner, sets out in his Biennial Report how crude asphaltic oil should be applied at about a gallon to the square yard over a properly graded and rolled roadbed, and why so many counties lost faith after oiling rutted, unprepared roads.
- A story of how Sam Hyland, the club's motorcycle know-all, was humbled at Jack Warren's repair shop by a rigged cycle repairer's stand wired to a hidden floor push that broke the battery ground, leaving him pedalling for eight minutes before an audience of conspirators.
- The Los Angeles Motorcycle Club elects W. G. Collins president, the Detroit Wheelmen re-elect Robert L. Weyhing, and the Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club elects E. L. Buffington, votes to incorporate and discusses promoting an endurance or long-distance event.
- The Lafayette Wheelmen of Baltimore have split into three mileage teams for 1907 -- the "Fly by Nights," the "Park Heights Shadow Chasers" and the "Cork Pullers" -- the losers to banquet the winner, while the club's Boehm Quad challenges any four-brother team in the State.
- A five-line verse reprinted from the Irish Cyclist praising the neatness, fleetness and above all the sweetness of women cyclists.
- "Reckless Reklaw," whose name reversed betrays his identity, is doing stunts in the Western skating rinks and promoting home trainer races alongside them, and at Akron, Ohio, was slated to meet John Forbes, "the mile champion of that city."