The Bicycling World, Vol 54, No 6
Articles in this issue
- Having parted from the Hendee Mfg. Co., the Aurora Automatic Machine Co. will stop working under the Hedstrom patents and Hendee license and build motors, carburetters and other components on its own patents; the new Thor motor is to have a more powerful carburetter, grip control, a new transmission and a noiseless muffler.
- After more than twenty years with the Pope Mfg. Co., A. D. ("Lon") Peck has taken the Boston agency for the entire line of Pope bicycles, occupying the discontinued Pope branch at 223 Columbus avenue.
- Five makers—the Aurora Automatic Machinery Co., G. H. Curtiss Mfg. Co., Hendee Mfg. Co., Reading Standard Cycle Mfg. Co. and Wagner Motorcycle Co.—have space in the Automobile Club of America show at Grand Central Palace, New York, Dec. 1 to 8.
- Manufacturers' agent D. P. Harris leaves next week on an extended round-up of the West and the Pacific Coast, carrying so many lines that he expects to return with a bulging order book.
- The Shelby Steel Tube Co. is erecting an additional mill at Elwood City, Pa., expected in operation by February, which should relieve the embarassing shortage of tubing.
- The Diamond Rubber Co. of Akron, Ohio, adds two bicycle tires for 1907—the "Kim," a woven fabric tire, and the Diamond cushion pneumatic—while retaining the Diamond Hunter, Diamond 400, Diamond 1920 and Ixion brands.
- F. A. Baker & Co., of Warren street, New York, took the Eastern distributing agency for Pierce bicycles from the Pierce Cycle Co. and then the greater New York agency for Indian motorcycles from the Hendee Mfg. Co.
- The September export return totalled only $67,283, about 10 per cent below a year earlier: the United Kingdom took almost six and a half times as many American bicycles ($1,683 to $9,542) and the Netherlands rose from $31,202 to $108,786, but Japan's falling takings wiped out the gains.
- The Champion Cycle Co., of Sheffield, sold a rural bricklayer a $23.50 bicycle on a "ten days free trial" advertisement; when he returned the "one buckled wheel and rusty rims" machine the county court gave him a verdict with costs.
- A tagged dollar spent in a small Eastern town passed within a few hours through a grocer, a butcher, a collector, a sporting goods dealer, a bookstore man and a preacher, paying over $100 of debts—an argument against the mail order house.
- In addition to its one-inch pitch chain, the Duckworth Chain and Mfg. Co., of Springfield, Mass., is producing a 5/8-inch pitch roller chain in quarter-inch width for motorcycle use, with the detachable Duckworth repair link.
- J. Lovell Johnson, of the Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Co., Fitchburg, Mass., is standing for the State Senate and his prospects at Tuesday's election are said to be excellent.
- John C. Cole, for many years superintendent of the Fisk Rubber Co., was elected to an additional vice-presidency created at the company's annual meeting; all other officials were reelected.
- Setting a contact breaker with the motor stopped is like drawing a portrait in the dark; run the machine on the stand, turn the adjusting screw slowly and judge by how the motor responds, then tighten it in place.
- O. B. Slatterly has opened a repair shop on Roe Court, Patchogue, N.Y.; Reese & Seaborn of Youngstown, Ohio, are in involuntary bankruptcy with $4,200 liabilities against $3,300 assets; and Wilmer M. Batten, formerly of Millville, N.J., is opening a Broad street store in Richmond, Va.
- A veteran sporting goods manager's advice on retail salesmanship: study the customer rather than load him up, never sell him what he does not want, and remember that honesty pays in real money because satisfied customers are a store's best advertisement.
- Motorcyclists who have filed despairingly at a case-hardened chain rivet are advised to use a small cold chisel with a rock or heavy wrench, which chips the head off quickly.
- A leader on the mail order house's grip on the backwoods trade: the catalogue-maker persists with a thousand silent messengers while the local dealer waits passively for a spoken demand, and dealers must "get out and bark, too" before complaining of mail order invasions.
- At the Providence Motorcycle Club's racemeet at Hillsgrove on Sept. 28, Fred C. Hoyt won the ten miles national championship in 13:26 from J. De Rosier and B. A. Swenson, De Rosier rode an exhibition mile in 1:15 3/5, and W. G. Friend was knocked senseless when his Indian struck the rail.
- Nine teams are signed for the six-day race at Madison Square Garden, Dec. 10-15, among them Vanoni-Breton, Rutt-McFarland, Walthour-MacLean and Bedell-Bedell; Louis Darragon is engaged for a match race with Hugh MacLean, and Arthur Vanderstuyft has arrived unannounced from Antwerp.
- George W. Thompson of Somerville, N.J., a traveling automobile license inspector, ran over a large bird dog asleep in his path near Freehold, was thrown heavily, injured himself and demolished his motorcycle—but killed the dog.
- Howard Merthrop, a Salt Lake City lad, sprinted his bicycle through a herd of cattle near Bountiful and was chased for nearly a mile by a vicious steer before the animal became exhausted.
- The Century Road Club Association's ten-mile handicap starting and finishing at West's, Valley Stream, L.I., on Sunday the 11th offers fifteen place prizes headed by a gold watch; Emil Greenbaum, 1745 Broadway, Brooklyn, is receiving entries.
- Unverified reports from six-day riders say P. T. Powers will hold a six-day race in Chicago in early March, preceded by a week of sprint and paced racing from Feb. 22 to March 3.
- Ex-Fire Chief John Castles, referee of the Roy Wheelmen's Inter-State Cycling Derby of Oct. 7, refuses the late protest that F. W. Eifler was pushed back to the bunch by a motorcyclist, because it was not lodged within an hour of the finish.
- T. B. Ruch of Allentown, Pa., riding an Indian, won the five-mile motorcycle curtain raiser at the Bethlehem automobile meet on Oct. 27 in a reported 5:09 2/5—a time the paper suspects of slow watches.
- Pure platinum will not corrode but is about as soft as copper, so ignition contact points are made of a glass-hard iridium-platinum alloy; nickel and silver substitutes need replacing far too often to be a good investment.
- An ordinary tire patch laid over a punctured fuel tank will do the trick, but because gasolene dissolves the cement it must be watched, renewed and held in place with a bandage.
- A loose motor tends to be drawn round by the drive, slackening the chain and throwing the sprockets or pulleys out of line; accidents caused this way are usually blamed on something else.
- Dousing an overheated motor with cold water is bad practice: the piston took time to expand and seize through poor lubrication or long running on the stand, and needs four or five times as long to cool naturally.
- The Dunlop road race from Warrnambool to Melbourne, 167 miles, drew 206 starters, of whom 157 finished; D. D. Riley won from the 28-minute mark in 8h 58m 50s and H. Mehrtens took the road championship in 8:53:52, the Dunlop Rubber Company feeding the field bovril, milk and chocolate at forty stations.
- The Prospect Park Cork Pullers of Brooklyn opened their "King Cork Puller" series on Twenty-second avenue with A. R. Wilcox taking the quarter-mile open on a 96-inch gear and Louis J. Weintz beating "Papa" Rhodes in the five-mile handicap in 11:54 4/5.
- Louis Darragon, the world's motorpaced champion, beat Hugh MacLean and R. J. Walthour in an hour race at Paris on Oct. 21, covering 48 1/2 miles; MacLean finished 675 yards behind and Walthour lost 13 laps.
- Floyd A. McFarland—"Long Mac," the "Elongated San Josean"—has ridden since 1895 without a nervous breakdown and refuses to train; a Garden City Wheelmen paper boy who beat Spooner's team from thirty yards, he beat Downing, Samuelson, Fogler, Hollister, Pye, Clark and Bardgett at Salt Lake City last season.
- The Sixty-fifth Regiment Athletic Association's games at Buffalo on Oct. 26 opened the indoor season; J. M. Tanner of the Moonshiners won the five-mile open in 13:30 2/5, clipping 18 seconds off Fred Schudt's flat floor record.
- P. C. Holland, publisher and manager of a Walla Walla, Wash., evening paper, was found guilty of riding without a lighted lamp—the first arrest under the city's bicycle ordinance in nearly ten years.
- A motorcyclist recounts his revenge on the friend who put a motorcycle cop on him over a scorching bet: the party pocketed his battery cells, made him tinker for an hour, towed him with a rope rigged to part on a steep hill, then sent him hunting a repair shop that did not exist.
- A cyclist reports three years of side-slip-free riding with an L pin setting the saddle exactly over the pedals; a new machine with the saddle almost over the back wheel gave him two croppers in a month, one costing him two front teeth.
- C. T. Anderson, formerly of Scranton, Pa., and now of Jacksonville, Fla., rode his motorcycle home to Scranton via Louisville, Ky., southern Ohio and Buffalo in twenty-three days' running time, averaging over a hundred miles a day and carrying a man on a tandem attachment for five hundred of them.
- A contributor to Cycling describes how bookmakers offering "evens on the field" against eight or nine starters have made roping and prearranged placings routine at British race meets, while the National Cycling Union's rule against betting is almost a dead letter.
- The New York Evening Sun's account of a Broadway subway express car in which an intermittent 'ting-a-ling' had passengers suspecting a man with a big bundle, then a fat woman with a shopping bag, then a man by the door—until a small boy was seen picking up the bicycle bell he had dropped.