The Bicycling World, Vol 64, No 15
Articles in this issue
- S. A. Falor of Goodyear's motorcycle tire department argues that 1.5-inch rims are too narrow for the new 28 x 2.75 and 3-inch tires, which roll sideways and cause rim-cutting, and urges tire and motorcycle makers to agree on larger rim sizes.
- The Miami Cycle & Mfg. Co. of Middletown, O., will host the third annual Merkel agents' dinner at the Hotel Breslin, New York, on January 11 during show week — its first as host since the Miami-Merkel merger.
- George M. Hendee, Oscar Hedstrom, F. J. Weschler, R. W. Ellingham and eight other Hendee Mfg. Co. men will staff the Indian exhibit at the Madison Square Garden show, January 6-13, with headquarters at the Hotel Breslin.
- The G. H. Westing Company of Indianapolis, one of the largest motor and bicycle concerns in Indiana, has been elected to the National Association of Cycle Jobbers.
- Vice-president Ralph D. Webster of the Eclipse Machine Company denies that he or John N. Willys had any financial interest in W. H. Ives's purchase of the bankrupt Reliance Motorcycle Company of Owego, N. Y., though Elmira capitalists did back Ives.
- T. W. Henderson's new Detroit-built four-cylinder 7-horsepower machine, listing at $325, is described: a bevel-geared jackshaft with the first fully enclosed oil-bath chain drive in America, an Eclipse clutch with starting crank, Bosch magneto and a standard two-passenger saddle on the top tube.
- The Corbin Screw Corporation of New Britain, Conn., corrects its own advertising: only the bicycle coaster brake has the two-speed mechanism, and it has never made a two-speed hub for motorcycles.
- The Bosch Magneto Co. reports that 80.9 per cent of the motorcycles and engines exhibited at the Olympia show in London in November carried Bosch magnetos.
- W. W. Ours has taken the Indian agency at Clarksburg, W. Va., while the F. C. Welch Company keeps the R-S line for 1912; Welch, the local F.A.M. representative, is organizing a club among the town's fifteen riders.
- S. E. Purham, bicycle and motorcycle dealer of Macomb, Ill., pasted illustrations of many makes of motorcycle clipped from trade papers onto a card, displayed it in his store, and now mails post-card copies that bring him inquiries.
- E. W. Fearing has leased 147 Lake street, Oak Park, and will open a Harley-Davidson store there at the first of the year with a full line of machines and supplies.
- Baltimore's annual automobile show is set for February 20-28 at the Fifth Regiment Armory, with motorcycles given a prominent part; a committee will visit the New York show for ideas.
- C. Blankenheim and L. J. Leonard of the Chicago Motorcycle Works, 738 Sheridan road, hold the Excelsior agency for the north and south sides of Chicago, expect to sell 500 machines in 1912 and will open a second store on Fifty-fifth street boulevard.
- J. W. Grady & Co. of Worcester, Mass., have been appointed Excelsior distributors for Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and north-eastern New York State.
- An editorial urging dealers not to shut up shop for the winter, citing a New England dealer who teaches the pattern-making class at the local evening school three nights a week while his partner minds the store.
- An amendment to Section 1, Article III of the F.A.M. constitution would move the annual National Assembly from the June 15-September 15 window to between November 1 and March 31, after the Buffalo meeting failed to hold a quorum past the smoker.
- Vanadium alloy steel, used in proportions of one-quarter to three-quarters of one per cent, is increasingly specified for motor shafts, connecting rods, gears, frames and forks because it raises resistance without making the metal brittle.
- The London Motor Cycle reports British trade anxiety at cheap American machines: Hendee, Aurora Automatic Machinery, American Motor and Pierce already have British agents, and the Humber has shown a fully equipped variable-geared tourist machine can be built for £50.
- The Harley-Davidson Motor Company, over the signature of president Walter Davidson, warns manufacturers, dealers and riders that its "Ful-Floteing" seat is covered by U. S. letters patent and that it has been compelled to sue one maker who copied it.
- Campbell & Co. of Waterloo, Iowa, have contracted with the Hendee Mfg. Co. for three carloads of Indian machines and expect to sell some 200 in the coming season, against 100 last year, handling the Indian exclusively in north-eastern Iowa.
- Borrowing the idea from New York, Toronto's leading motorcycle dealers met at the St. Charles on November 22 to form a trade organization.
- The Madison Square Garden automobile and motorcycle show, opening January 6 with motorcycles shown the first week, will be dressed as an Oriental garden under a three-ton inverted-rug canopy in crimson and gold, with a fountain, a Japanese cherry-blossom concert hall and a Spanish bodega in the basement.
- The solid silver Tourist Trophy won by Oliver Godfrey on an Indian in the Isle of Man race last July — a 38-inch Mercury on a winged wheel worth $500 — will be exhibited on the Hendee Mfg. Co. stand at the New York and Chicago shows.
- The fixture calendar for December 1911 and January 1912, listing the New Year's Eve midnight bicycle races of the New England Wheelmen, C. R. C. A. and Empire City Wheelmen, the Madison Square Garden show of January 6-20, trade dinners and the Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto and Denver shows.
- Mayor Stratton of Reading, Pa., advocates buying motorcycles for the assistant chiefs of the city fire department, who follow other trades by day and need a quick conveyance to an alarm.
- Branch managers and salesmen of John Millen & Son, Ltd., accessory distributers with branches across the Dominion, held their second annual four-day sales convention in Montreal and adopted a new trade mark, "Millenium."
- The National Cyclists' Union is considering James Blair's proposal for a June run of 100-120 miles clock-wise round London from four simultaneous starting points, crossing by the Tilbury-Gravesend ferry, on the model of the Boston Bicycle Club's "Wheel About the Hub."
- Part IV of William Streiff's account of his tour with Esler: Milan's muzzled dogs, tram fares and Victor Emanuel arcade, the sale of Esler's Indian to the local N. S. U. agent, and a gondola trip round Venice.
- A Toronto Motorcycle Club delegation asked the police commissioners for a separate ordinance, objecting to rules drawn for automobiles that force machines to stop dead for motionless trolleys and to paint their numbers on their headlights.
- The Cycle and Motorcycle Trader and Review's November figures: British cycle exports of £47,004 for the month against £39,880 in 1910, eleven-month cycle exports of £559,604, and motorcycle exports for eleven months more than doubled to £244,406.
- Swiss bicycle imports rose to 17,832 machines worth $433,617 in the first half of 1911, of which Germany supplied 14,352 and Great Britain 1,015, with the United States absent from the table altogether.
- Chairman Estabrook of the F.A.M. Membership Committee reports interest from the Hamilton, Ont., club, the Lawndale Motorcycle Association of Chicago and riders at Empire in the Panama Canal Zone — the last moving him to verse — and registers eight more repair shops, Nos. 412-419.
- M. J. Graves and Charles Balke fought four heats to a draw in a five-mile match at the revival of racing at Ascot Park on December 17, Jake DeRosier rode a 0:54 mile exhibition, and G. F. Jankobe won both the novice and private-owner events.
- Jack Prince has wired Howard A. French proposing to lease Electric Park and build a triple-radius half-mile board saucer over the dirt track, good for a hundred miles an hour, with night racing and Prince taking stock himself.
- Paul J. Q. "Daredevil" Derkum is slated to manage Jack Prince's new quarter-mile Los Angeles bowl, which Prince promises will open January 21 with a guarantee of 95-mile speed, running Sunday meets until May.
- Earl Armstrong nosed out Charles Balke by a wheel in the ten-mile free-for-all at the Elmhurst motordrome, Oakland, on December 24; Al Ward took the six-mile final, Joe Wolters was thrown and badly splintered, and Walker won the five-mile amateur handicap.
- Toronto expects a new board saucer at Scarboro Beach, and two new bicycle clubs are forming — one under Fred McCarthy of Stratford and Joe Golden, the other the Riverside Athletic Association of 58 Strange street.
- Forty-five guests attended the Auburn Motorcycle Club's first annual banquet in the palm room of the Osborne House on December 7, with president Edwin Spooner at the head and secretary Harrington reviewing the club's first year.
- F.A.M. secretary Gibson is mailing "straight talk" circulars to delinquent members, urging them to make renewal one of their New Year's resolutions.
- Fourteen started in the Lorain Motorcycle Club's 110-mile holiday reliability run with checks at Elyria and the Cleveland Motorcycle Club; snow and slush on the Dunham Hill climb left only George Williams and Thomas Lynch, both on Indian fours, with perfect scores.
- The reorganized National Capital City Motorcycle Club, meeting at its rooms at 908 Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, elected F. Yowell president, F. Dodson vice-president and G. Beall captain.
- A squeak or chatter from the magneto driving gear case in cold weather is caused by the grease solidifying and failing to reach the shaft ends; the remedy is a simple re-oiling of the bearings.
- Roy Bowser, the expert rider, has taken up the Indian in Nebraska.
- R. W. Ellingham of the Hendee Mfg. Co. is sounding riders on a series of four quarterly trials promoted from Springfield, Boston, Worcester and Providence — a hill climb, a 24-hour reliability run and an economy test — modelled on the Auto-Cycle Union's, open to sidecars, forecars, tricars and tandems within the F.A.M. 61-inch limit.
- Thirty-six members of the Toronto club gathered for a Christmas party at which the race track stars did not shine as manipulators.
- John Sykes, Jr., new Indian agent at Trenton, N. J., laid places for 60 at a "coming out banquet" with the new machine displayed in the dining hall and addresses by R. S. Crist and Geo. B. Yard of the Central Jersey Motorcycle Club.
- Seattle dealers report their best season yet and look for a big 1912 despite the presidential year, several planning larger quarters; extensive boulevard improvement has stimulated sales.
- Fred I. Johnson of the Fitchburg, Mass., family of cycle makers sent his friends in the trade a blotter with an embossed celluloid art cover carrying the season's greetings.
- After years of experiment the Whitney Mfg. Co. of Hartford, Conn., offers the trade a new silent type chain whose sprocket wheels need no flanges, with hardened steel bushings forced into the links.
- George Bain of the Motorcycle and Equipment Co. has moved to Calgary to open a depot handling British machines, Percy A. McBride of the American Excelsior is at a Chicago sales convention, and Dunlop Tire and Rubber Goods is adding 30,000 square feet at Toronto.
- E. E. Fenn of Bloomington, Ill., warns that a well-dressed young man calling himself Sullivan poses as a carpet-sweeper repair expert, gets dealers to stand good for materials and then leaves town with his board and other bills unpaid.
- Gasoline or naphtha destroys the lustre of side car and fore car upholstery; a ten per cent ammonia solution, rinsed with clear water and rubbed dry with chamois, is recommended instead.
- Subscriptions to the American Olympic Bicycle Race Fund are led by the St. Louis Cycling Club's $54 and the Standard Co.'s $25; the January 10 Hotel Earlington dinner given by the Motorcycle Dealers' Association and United Cyclists will hear Mayor Gaynor, George M. Hendee and James E. Sullivan over a Mouquin menu, and clubs from Baltimore to Atlantic City are training candidates.
- The Atlantic City Wheelmen have adopted a constitution and elected Charles A. VanDoren president, Frank Lacey vice-president and Stephen Gelona secretary-treasurer, with a racing team for the Olympic try-outs as a principal object.
- The C. R. C. A. board canvassed the mail vote in New York on December 21, electing Paul Thomas of Tarrytown national president, R. A. VanDyke treasurer, A. R. Cooley centurion of the New York Division and I. Taub of Hoboken of the New Jersey Division.
- Jas. F. Moran sailed on the French liner Rochambeau to team with Joe Fogler in the Berlin six-day race, taking Kramer's trainer Jack Neville with him.
- Four Crescent B. C. men entered Baltimore's elimination contest for the best duckpin bowler; only Thomas W. Baker survived the first round, with 470 pins in five games against Capt. J. Fred Huber's 350.
- Fifty members of the St. Louis Cycling Club, some of 25 years' standing, sat down to the club's annual Christmas dinner on Saturday, December 16.
- The British War Office is considering a national reserve of cyclist defenders: detachments of not more than 25 men drawn from one locality, grouped into corps under a commander working with the nearest cyclist battalion, to watch the coast, railways and telegraph lines and harass enemy cavalry.
- Some twenty Empire City Wheelmen who turned up at their Brooklyn headquarters on Christmas morning got up a ten-mile race over the Twenty-second Avenue course, Carl Ericson taking the turkey, Franklin Fisher the duck and John Becht the chicken.
- Marcel Planes, an English century plugger, completed his 313th century on December 10 to equal Teddy Hale's record and added another the next day, having ridden 230 centuries in 225 consecutive days.
- A gallery god roused early on Wednesday morning at the six-day race, finding the riders circling at ten miles an hour, called out for someone to open the gate and show them the way out.
- Otto Ziegler, the first man to ride a mile in under two minutes with 1:50 flat at Alameda, is totally blind at his California home.
- The Cedarhurst Cycle Club of Cedarhurst, L. I., held its first election, choosing James Lynch president, H. Pettit secretary and W. Miller trainer.
- A two-mile handicap bicycle race open to registered riders will be held at the Seventy-first Regiment Athletic Association's general athletic meet in New York this evening.
- B. H. Davis of Omaha asks whether steam heat will harm the tires of the Excelsior twin he is storing; the reply gives the United States Tire Company's rules — remove the tires, wash and repair, graphite the rims, dust with soapstone, wrap in burlap and store dark at 50 degrees.
- Henry Fitz Gerald of New York asks which maker Harley-Davidson has sued over the "Ful-Floteing" seat and for the patent numbers, citing a Rex Motor Co. advertisement of 1905 and a Berkey Spring Seat Post Company device as prior art; the editor replies that neither has been divulged.
- "W. G. H." of Melbourne, travelling Australia and New Zealand for English motorcycle and cycle makers, offers to take American accounts on commission with sole handling rights for five years, and will send a representative to the United States next year.