The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 22
Articles in this issue
- The E. J. Manville Machine Company of Waterbury sued the Excelsior Needle Company of Torrington before Judge Platt at Hartford, Conn., over automatic machinery for making bicycle spoke nipples covered by letters patent to Andrew C. Campbell; both sides set the machines up in the court room to convince the court by ocular demonstration.
- Arnold, Schwinn & Co. of Chicago has installed what is believed to be the largest cycle enamelling oven ever constructed, holding 500 frames; Schwinn reports 1906 among the firm's best years, with plant capacity now 500 bicycles a day.
- William J. Surre was elected secretary and a director of the Corbin Screw Corporation, Theodore E. Smith relinquishing the secretaryship for the treasurership while Charles Glover was re-elected president.
- George W. Sherman returns to the Hendee Mfg. Co. and the Indian motorcycle on Monday, taking up the duties of "traveling ambassador."
- Trade changes of the week: Archie Moreland of Austin, Minn., sold out to B. F. King; E. A. Aismont opened a new store at 78 South Macy Street, Fond du Lac, Wis.; and Reese & Seaborn of Youngstown, Ohio, sold out to H. E. Woodworth.
- The G & J Tire Co. of Indianapolis is preparing to apply Thomas Midgley's wire grip non-skid tread — rows of endless helical coiled spring wire vulcanised into the tread — to motorcycle tires after a year's road test on automobiles.
- E. G. Emerson of San Antonio, Texas, advertises as a "Bicycle Doctor" on a physician-style bill head backed by eight diplomas from the San Antonio Fair Association, sells Tribune and Cleveland wheels, and runs newspaper rebus contests with a $10 gold prize; the winning verse from his "Flint" contest is printed in full.
- J. D. Alexander, a Spokane bicycle dealer, has opened an exclusive motorcycle establishment at 813 Main Avenue and ordered the largest shipment of motorcycles ever consigned to Spokane, evidence of the machine's foothold on the north Pacific coast.
- Warns amateur gas engineers against raising motorcycle compression by reducing clearance volume behind the piston: high compression brings overheating, pre-ignition and loss of power on gradients, and leakage past rings, valves or plugs should be remedied instead. (The head is printed "TIRE" though the article concerns engine compression.)
- A retired trade veteran recalls a trick rider in his repair shop who brazed two old high wheels rigid at the rear for steering only at the front, challenged the firm's repairmen to ride them, and came to grief zig-zagging into the right of way of an electric car.
- Henri De Rudder, cycle importer of Ghent, Belgium, answers the January 26 article "England's Enormous Export": English makers sell complete guaranteed bicycles at 2 to 4 pounds chiefly to the colonies, and he recounts converting a Raleigh-owning English lady in Ghent to a Corbin-braked, G & J-shod Racycle.
- Argues that nothing so impresses a casual visitor with a business's prosperity as the neatness and orderly condition of the place and the well or ill kept condition of the proprietor.
- Urges the bicycle dealer to keep a two-part card index — one for prospects, one for standing customers — recording the machine ridden, the source of the inquiry, circulars sent, interviews, sales and repairs, so that mailings and repair prompts can be aimed accurately and lost customers turned back into prospects.
- A correspondent signing F. A. M. 303 argues that open cut-outs and shell mufflers on high-speed motorcycles are an abominable nuisance in city streets and country towns, invite the anti-motor bills now before Albany and neighbouring legislatures, and calls on club officers to set an example in suppressing unnecessary noise.
- W. H. Logue of Baltimore, Md., writes jocularly on the "renewal of interest" in cycling, arguing that a few persons in every town putting their shoulders to the wheel would produce good results, and jibing at factories that burn something to make the wheels go round.
- Representative Williams's bill would distribute any year-end Treasury surplus among the States, Territories and District of Columbia solely for improving the postal roads, with governors and the Commissioners of the District reporting the expenditure to Congress each 15th of November.
- Elgin, Ill., has doubled its vehicle tax and brought motorcycles in: hitherto free while automobiles paid $2.50, they will now cost $5, and the city supplies number plates 5 inches high that riders have no obvious place to display.
- A bill in the New Jersey legislature would require all vehicles to display two lights after nightfall; the Federation of American Motorcyclists points out that two lamps on a bicycle are not only unnecessary but practically impossible.
- J. F. McLaughlin, the New Yorker who imported a two-cylinder N. S. U. for his own use and now sells the make, reports more than 1,000 miles with only one stop for magneto attention and warns only that the magneto needs a rich mixture; he is equally pleased with the first single-cylinder N. S. U. sample.
- Warns that a carburetter jet must be cleaned only with an instrument smaller than the orifice, since a difference of .001 inch in jet size makes a considerable difference in working; blowing the obstruction out is preferable to probing.
- L. F. Jackson of the Dunn Semi-Dry Battery, Hoboken, N. J., told the New York Motorcycle Club that a fourth cell adds at least 2,000 miles of battery life, that cold rather than the carburetter is the real cause of many refusals to start, and that ammeters often read 3 amperes on a dead battery; he exhibited a cell developing 8 amperes and 3.1 volts.
- George M. Hendee is to take the first of the new twin-cylinder Indians turned out, having ridden a patched-up 1904 model for three years.
- Fred St. Onge, then running a cycling school in Boston, taught the deaf, dumb and blind Helen Keller to ride a tandem in May 1898 at Colonel Pope's request, using a code of shoulder taps and finger signals; she and Annie M. Sullivan rode twice a week, their longest ride 28 miles in 2 hours 34 minutes.
- T. K. Hastings, Eastern vice-president of the F. A. M., strung riders along with puns on the Thaw trial — an "Evelyn" model to be made of Thor parts, and an "Aurora" that turned out to be "a roarer."
- An inquest on a Scotch cyclist who failed to negotiate a corner at the foot of a hill returned "death by misadventure," although evidence showed the brakes of the machine were out of order.
- Axel Johnson of Bridgeport, Conn., of the Century Road Club of America, will start from New York next month on a 3,000-mile ride south to Norfolk or Charlestown, Va., then southwest to Atlanta and back by Columbus, Ohio, on a Racycle with Morrow coaster brake, Fisk tires and Persons saddle, earning his expenses by home-trainer exhibitions and selling his picture.
- Hugh MacLean signed Root, Fogler, Bardgett, Krebs, Schlee and Rupprecht for a Boston six-day, but the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad told the Park Square Amusement Co. that its skating-only lease barred the race; MacLean left the New York and Newark riders training in ignorance until it was time to travel.
- The fourteenth congress of the Union Cycliste Internationale at Paris on the 9th allotted the 1908 world's championships to the Steglitz track, Berlin, and elected Emilie de Beukelaer president, Pilade Carozzi vice-president, Paul Rousseau secretary and E. W. Britten of the National Cycling Union treasurer.
- Admirers of the late Rene Pottier propose a monument at the top of the Ballon d'Alsace, the long steep climb on which he dropped the pick of the French road riders in the 1905 and 1906 Tours de France.
- National champion Frank L. Kramer confirms he has signed to ride at Salt Lake for the whole of 1907, ruling out a European trip and leaving Vailsburg without a drawing card; Lawson sails for France on the 30th of next month and McFarland is expected to stay to help him in the world's championship heats.
- England has formed a National Committee on dust drawn from the Automobile Club Dust Committee, the Motor Union, the Roads Improvement Association, the Cyclists' Touring Club, the National Cyclists' Union, the Royal Sanitary Institute and a dozen other bodies, and is organising competitions for tar-spreading machines and tar preparations.
- Spring training should open with a gradual cleansing of the stomach and digestive organs — stewed prunes or rhubarb, Beecham's pills, or a small glass of Hunyadi Janos each morning — with two or three easy rides a week and a long Saturday or Sunday ride for the first fortnight.
- Floyd McFarland beat Cornet over 20 miles behind human tandem pace at the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, on the 10th, winning by two lengths in 40:40 1/5 with pacemakers Vanoni and Thuau; Paul Guignard took the 60-kilometre record in 44:51 3/5, cutting Walthour's 45:55 2/5, from Nat Butler and Menus Bedell.
- Recalls the L. A. W. amateur wars of 1886-1900 — Ducker's Springfield tournament, Abbott Bassett's professionalising of Rowe, Hendee, Burnham and Munger, the rival American Cyclists' Union and "cash prize league," and the "promateur" and Class B definitions — and predicts the F. A. M. will repeat them over motorcycle racing, noting that R. G. Betts, now F. A. M. president, was the lone L. A. W. delegate to oppose Class B.
- Abstracts three patents: a carburetter to Lars Andersen of Chicago (842,052), assigned to the Triplex Gas Engine Company; a connecting-rod for trunk-pistons to Herman Docke of Wyncote, Pa. (843,004); and a wick-type carburetter to Eugene L. Mueller of Paris (843,028).