The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 4
Articles in this issue
- For 1907 the Indian motor bicycle will be built wholly in the Hendee Mfg. Co.'s own Springfield, Mass., factory, ending its use of Aurora Automatic Machinery Co. motors and parts; George M. Hendee blames Aurora's inability to supply enough motors, and says Oscar Hedstrom's patent licence to Aurora is unaffected.
- Charles E. Hunt, for several years the travelling representative to the jobbing trade for the "3 in One" lubricant, is appointed sales manager of its maker, the G. W. Cole Company.
- Benjamin F. Darrow, a pioneer of the bicycle business in the West and secretary and general manager of the Wheelmen's Company of Indianapolis, died at his home there on October 3rd, aged 36.
- Charles F. Splitdorf of New York has in hand the first American motorcycle magneto, driven by bevel gears rather than a chain; M. E. Toepel of the Splitdorf laboratory has run one on his motor bicycle for six weeks, largely on club runs.
- Advices from Japan via London report "unprincipled Japanese" imitating well-known foreign bicycles and passing them off as genuine, the copies so cleverly made that an expert is needed to tell false from true.
- Morgan & Wright's removal from Chicago to a nine-acre Jefferson avenue site opposite Belle Isle, Detroit, described: over 6,000,000 white sand-lime bricks, 6,000 piles, 2,500 horsepower of boilers fed from the Detroit river, and two cross-compound engines driving the rubber mills by Dodge American rope transmission.
- Explains that gasolene vapor is heavier than air and lies in the corners of a tank, citing a repairman whose blow torch exploded an "empty" motorcycle tank and another tank merely rinsed with water that still exploded; compressed or hot air, not water, is the safe way to clear one.
- Leader holding that macadam's two weaknesses are surface pulverization and water damage, and that after trials of deliquescent salts, oils, and tar mixed with coke dust or slag, permanent amalgamation of the top layer by asphalt or cement is the likeliest solution to the dust problem.
- George Guthrie Cameron of the New York Athletic Club and Eighth Regiment A.A. explains armory flat-floor technique: a short wheelbase Reading Standard, Yale or Columbia, Palmer inch-and-a-quarter road racing tires soaked and rubbed black with emery, 6 1/2-inch cranks and a left pedal cut half an inch short.
- Pernette's chain snapped three laps into a match with Contant at the Buffalo track, Paris, on October 8th; Contant struck a post swerving past the fallen machine and his motorcycle ploughed into the crowd, killing two young men and badly injuring two women and a man.
- A Torquay paper's advertisement quoted, seeking "a smart, active wife, well up in laundry work, fond of singing, can ride a bicycle, and be a loving old man's darling."
- MacLean, nicknamed the "Lady-Killer" in France, beat Louis Darragon by three-quarters of a lap in the 100 kilometre paced race at the Velodrome Parc des Princes, Paris, on October 7th, with Simar third and Louis Mettling fourth; Guippone won the 10 kilometre motorcycle race in 5:54.
- The New York Motorcycle Club's regularity and speed judgment run went from 108th street to Bedford, N.Y., and back on a 15-mile basis with cyclometer dials covered and four secret checks laid by Capt. Bendix, Roland Douglas and Frederick William Horenburger; A. Kreuder on a Marsh cut the finest pace and twelve of fourteen starters finished.
- The Supreme Court of Appeals in Germany has held a cyclist justified in shooting a dog that endangers his life; English cycling correspondents prefer whistling the dog closer or turning on it, or a stern "Down, sir, down!"
- Season's record review: Iver Lawson and A. J. Clarke's professional handicap marks at Salt Lake City, Jack Hume's amateur figures, Robl's and Guignard's hour rides at Munich and Leipsic, Mettling's paced kilometre records and Robert Walthour's 60, 70 and 80 kilometre marks in Paris.
- Petit-Breton beat Trousselier by a few inches over the 149 1/2 miles from Paris to Tours on October 1st in 7:55:00, with Cornet and Christophe some ten minutes back.
- Axel Johnson, a Bridgeport, Conn., newspaperman carrying a letter from his mayor to the mayor of Chicago, reached Buffalo 24 hours behind schedule on a 3,000-mile round trip, having been chased into the Erie canal by a bull and arrested for riding the tow path.
- Walter U. Lawson of New York City was added on October 3rd as the twelfth name on the Boston Bicycle Club's roster of Club Veterans, headed by Frank W. Weston, Paul Butler and Willis Farrington from February 1878.
- Captain Ferber's propellor driven voiturette, a tubing skeleton on four wire wheels with a 9 horsepower single cylinder Buchet motor turning two two-bladed propellors of 3 feet 11 1/4 inches, is said to have reached 90 kilometres an hour in trials.
- Century Road Club Association members raced at Itjen's driving park, Lynbrook, L.I.: J. M. Eifler won the ten mile handicap from scratch in 27:39 from F. C. Graf, F. Bauldorf took the mile in 2:16 3/5, and Graf won the miss-and-out; road champion Ernest Olufs could manage only fifth.
- Charles A. Sherwood, captain of the New York Athletic Club's bicycle team, leads the Vailsburg amateur championship with 20 points to George Cameron's 15 after the closing quarter-mile was left unrun; the season's records of Kluczek, Urban MacDonald and Frank Eifler are also reviewed.
- In the St. Louis Cycling Club's 14-mile Olive street road race Robert Warncke won off nine minutes in 48:29 riding a touring Pierce with cushion frame and fork, coaster brake, raised bars and tool kit; J. H. Anderson took the time prize in 41:34, beating Bert Harding by 11 seconds.
- Thaddeus Robl won the 100-kilometre Grand Prix of Europe at Berlin on September 30th, finishing three kilometres ahead of Bruni and Denke and seven ahead of Nat Butler; Louis Darragon started but quit early.
- T. Hodgkinson's verses "A Mud-Plugging Song," reprinted from Cycling, in praise of lowering the gear, fitting a wide mudguard and riding on through mud and rain to the season's closing run.
- Elias Kahn won the Edgecombe Wheelmen's 20-mile handicap at Valley Stream, L.I., off five minutes, while Otto C. Brandes took time prize from scratch in 56:00 1/5; the club will serve champagne from its championship cup at its October 27th ball at Majestic Hall.
- Bardonneau raised the world's amateur paced hour record to 47 miles 1,661 yards at the Parc des Princes, Paris, on October 4th, erasing Tubbax's recent 43 miles 1,246 yards despite punctures and defective pacing.
- Trousselier, Dussot, Gougoltz, Doerflinger, Nedela, Parresieux, Ingold, Catteau and Hedspeth are cabled from Paris to P. T. Powers as willing riders for the annual six-day race, adding to Petit-Breton, Cadolle, Rutt and the Georget brothers.
- At the October meet at Cologne, Nat Butler fell in every heat of the paced race, Huber broke his right clavicle and Dubois was bruised; Gunther won the Prix d'Adieu on 27 points from Bodewig and Butler.
- A contributor to Cycling who has ridden 32 winters advises thickest all-wool Jaeger underclothes, loose golfers' stockings and shoes, three-quarter cloth spats rather than leather leggings, a hard tweed suit with a buttoned neck tab, and a sleeved gabardine rain coat over "dry knee" thigh pieces.
- A tourist in a forsaken mountain region spared his brakes and tires on the endless descents by hitching a ten- or fifteen-pound stone to a rope and letting it drag behind him.
- A tale from India of a rider covering 109 1/4 miles between 8:45 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. on one large sweet orange, half a pound of milk chocolate and a glass of lime juice and soda.
- An expert motorcyclist likens listening for strange noises to a locomotive engineer's habit, then recounts how ignoring a knock caused by worn bronze liners in the connecting rod big end and a bone-dry crankcase wrecked the crankcase, rod and piston in deep sand for a $30 repair bill.
- Internal Revenue Commissioner J. W. Yerkes issues regulations for the tax-free denatured alcohol law taking effect January 1st: "completely denatured" spirit, 10 gallons of wood alcohol and half a gallon of benzine to every 100 of ethyl, expected at about 35 cents a gallon, plus "especially denatured" grades made in bonded warehouses under close supervision.
- Rebuts an exchange's claim that oxygen in racing carburetters leaves no exhaust back pressure, arguing that more complete combustion only raises volume and pressure; oxygen's real value is more rapid and certain ignition and fuller use of the charge.
- From the German journal Gemmi Zeitung: porousness in manufactured rubber traced to damp raw rubber, acid in white substitutes, undried mineral admixtures, over-milled light mixings and a wet steam supply, with remedies including hot rollers and chalk.
- For a union that leaks however tightly set up, red lead works but sets so hard the joint cannot be parted; a cement of litharge and grease, glycerine, or graphite and grease serves equally well.
- A woman cyclist complains that a lamp left on a shelf all summer turns up rusty, rattling and leaking at lighting-up time, and that matches kept in the wallet go damp; she advises carrying a full box in the pocket and lighting a new wick at home before setting out.