The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 25
Articles in this issue
- The Cycle Manufacturers' Association met at the Lafayette Hotel, Buffalo, on 13 March and made Percy P. Pierce's presidency permanent, debated a trade-only versus open cycle show, heard that railroad agitation was pushing freight rates up rather than down, and renewed the publicity bureau under Harry Walburg, F. C. Finkenstaedt and E. S. Fretz.
- The Bryte, Coates & Campbell Co., San Francisco jobbers, have opened an eastward branch at 35 Warren street, New York, in charge of H. A. Bryte.
- Walthour & Hood begin jobbing in Atlanta, Ga., composed of Palmer Walthour, formerly of the Alexander-Elyea Co., and Mr. Hood, previously in the Columbus, Ga., cycle trade.
- W. F. Remppis's Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. becomes the Reading Standard Co., a $300,000 Pennsylvania corporation with D. F. Printz president, D. P. Harris vice-president, Remppis treasurer and Harry Walburg secretary; Harris's involvement was the surprise.
- Thomas Midgley resigns the presidency of the Hartford Rubber Works Co. for the Midgley Mfg. Co. of Columbus and J. W. Gilson leaves for the Mitchell Motor Car Co.; J. D. Anderson returns from G & J Tire to head both companies, with V. B. Lang made general manager and E. R. Benson secretary.
- "Sports, Ltd.," a $10,000 New York company fathered by P. R. Robinson of the New York Sporting Goods Co. and D. P. Harris, will sell R-S motorcycles and Hudson bicycles from a site sought in upper Broadway's "automobile row."
- W. F. McGuire of the Consolidated Mfg. Co., Toledo, back from the Pacific coast, blames continued rains for a lull in trade but reports prompt deliveries of Yale bicycles and motorcycles.
- The Rex, a belt-driven single- and double-cylinder machine, becomes the first British motorcycle sold commercially in America, through the Franco-American Supply Co. of Chicago.
- The Standard Welding Co. will erect an addition at Cleveland, Ohio, raising annual tubing production from 6,000,000 to 15,000,000 feet.
- The Union Mfg. & Specialty Co. of Buffalo, N. Y., maker of chains and cycle specialties, is about to become the Charles E. Hall Co.
- W. G. Woodruff has reopened his store at Wareham, Mass., and Boland Bros. of Rahway, N. J., have sold out to James McCollum.
- The G. H. Curtiss Mfg. Co. of Hammondsport, N. Y., is erecting a 30x60 addition to a plant already running twenty-four hours a day.
- Nine silencers were bench-tested on a 3 1/2 horsepower motor at 1,500 rpm in the Auto Cycle Club of Great Britain's competition, results withheld in British fashion; the Wat-Not, Radio, Montgomery, Sharpe's Universal, Paragon and Victoria and an aluminium-ball design are described and illustrated.
- H. H. Wheeler of Pomona, Cal., describes a rider's double-lens headlamp built from two Solar bicycle lamps with an old Majestic generator clamped to the frame and joined by rubber tube, throwing light over 100 feet.
- The Retail Bicycle Dealers' Association of Terre Haute, Ind., held a frolic at J. Fred Probst's place, initiating guests through a dark room of sliding rollers and cold water needle jets, with trick matches and loaded cigars.
- Editorial urging that the show sentiment developed at the Buffalo meeting of the Cycle Manufacturers' Association produce an exhibition open to the general public, since publicity is the whole point and a closed trade show would yield the minimum result.
- Editorial on the English experimenter's finding that spark size gives no power advantage, arguing the layman should still keep a fat spark as a surplus that insures firing under high compression.
- Editorial written against the Pittsburg road convention's slogan that the automobile made the good roads movement, insisting the bicycle and the League of American Wheelmen began the work fifteen and twenty years earlier and are now unrepresented.
- Prof. Elihu Thomson in the Electrical World on running motors on denatured alcohol with a preheated vaporizer, noting that raising compression offsets alcohol's lower heat value, that 80 per cent alcohol still fires, and that kerosene can be used interchangeably.
- A Prague company will manufacture a Swedish engineer's artificial rubber, "Zackingummi," at a third the cost of rubber, for filling motor car tires and for packings.
- Seven motor vehicle bills before the Connecticut legislature all raise registration fees on motorcycles - Tucker of Simsbury, Bartlett of Windham, Griffin of Granby and Alsop of Avon each with a scheme - and the Federation of American Motorcyclists is already moving in the matter.
- Senator Elbridge I. Stoddard's bill would end bicycle and motorcycle road races and hill climbs in Rhode Island and set a fifteen-mile speed limit, while Senator Charles H. Ward's would compel riders to stop and give their names after a collision.
- W. E. Thompson of Christchurch has won the New Zealand hill-climbing championship for the third successive year on the same American Indian, beating British and other foreign machines in the January contest.
- William Blackburn on roller skates beat George Brooks on a bicycle by 300 yards over five miles on the 20-lap Lenox skating rink track, passing him just after the half-mile mark.
- Charles Vanoni, one of the most popular foreign six-day riders and despite his French-Italian extraction a native New Yorker, has arrived with his wife and holds a contract to ride at Salt Lake for the season.
- L'Auto reports via Robert Coquelle that the suspended negro sprinter will sail for France on 10 April; Chairman Kelsey of the N. C. A. Board of Control denies Taylor has approached him but says reinstatement is possible if he makes amends to the Buffalo Velodrome.
- The "Walking Compendium" attacks the National Cycling Association for dead wood on its Board of Appeals - Samuel A. Miles, Albert Mott, George A. Needham and N. E. Turgeon - for unenforced anti-teaming rules at Salt Lake, unpunished novice "ringers" and the by-law providing a $3,000 salary for the chairman.
- The Prefect of Police has ordered motors off Ullrich's Dresden track after the neighbouring hospital's director complained of the noise; the owner has appealed to the Minister of the Interior and Walthour was billed to ride there on 31 March.
- The Tiger Wheelmen of New York advertise exhibitions and match races by "noted professionals" for their 13 April home trainer meet, a New York and New Jersey championship open to all clubs, with a silver loving cup for the leading club.
- Ten days of October motorcycle racing at the Jamestown Exposition remain unsettled; F. A. M. sanction has been sought but the only course available is a four-lap cinder track built for foot racing.
- At the 74th regiment meet in Buffalo on 9 March Edward Delling and Fred Schudt tied on 54 points in the two-mile point race and Delling won the toss, while Adam Fischer took the one-mile handicap from the 50-yard mark; falls kept the regimental hospital corps busy.
- Elmer McGregor, a hitherto unheard-of rider, won the Garden City Wheelmen's five-mile handicap on the East San Jose course in 14 minutes 56 seconds, holding off J. Krusich at the tape; C. Chaboya made best time in 13:15 before nearly 500 spectators.
- The Garden City Wheelmen and Motorcycle Club of San Jose, Cal., elected directors including W. A. Hope, M. Maggini and George F. Lucier, then rode two-mile home trainer heats for a medal donated by J. A. Benson, H. Waltz fastest in 4:48.
- Charles P. Soulier of the Tiger Wheelmen sailed for France on La Savoie for the summer and says he will ride any amateur races that occur conveniently; a club delegation saw him off at the pier.
- In the hill climb outside Los Angeles on 2 March, on a straight mile of oiled road between Pasadena and Altadena, C. F. Dunham's Motoracycle went up in 2:24 and only one of twenty-six automobiles bettered it; 5,000 spectators overran the course.
- McTighe and Bassett of the Oakland Wheelmen won the inter-city home trainer race at the Lakeside rink, Oakland, McTighe's two miles in 1:50 a Pacific coast record; the Garden City Wheelmen of San Jose took second with Castro and Chaboya.
- The French "L'Energique" ignition accumulator seen at a foreign motor show is recharged not by current but by dropping a fresh cake of undisclosed metallic composition into a pierced pocket replacing the negative grid, holding two volts until discharge ends abruptly.
- The Advance Motor Company of Northampton has put out a 3 horsepower drop-frame ladies' motor bicycle with the single cylinder inclined on the lower tube, magneto ignition, trussed forks and a fully enclosed V-belt and dress guard.
- Advancing the ignition almost to the maximum suddenly invites a knock or back-fire, and opening the throttle at once from a medium position enriches the mixture and causes a lag instead of a pick-up.
- An expert explains why carburetting petrol is crude: air and fuel obey widely different laws of inertia, so the petrol lags then overtakes, and with vapour diffusing only 5 mm a second against induction-pipe velocities of hundreds of feet a minute much of the fuel is wasted.
- Dr. W. Watson told the Automobile Club of Great Britain that indicator cards from his twin-cylinder test engine show a lean spark gives the same power as a fat one, the apparent loss coming from a trembler that ceases to act below a critical current, so a plain coil with make and break is preferable.
- The American Roadmakers' Association's fourth annual convention at Pittsburg drew over 2,500 delegates from thirty-eight states; New Jersey road commissioner E. C. Hutchinson reported 1,151 miles improved under the state aid law at $6,655,939 and argued wide roads cost less to repair than narrow ones.