The Bicycling World, Vol 64, No 20
Articles in this issue
- President A. B. Coffman has called the Motorcycle Manufacturers' Association to meet in the parlors of the New Southern Hotel, Chicago, at 10 A. M. on February 7 during show week, with a proposed tour of national character among the business.
- Fire in the block at 22 West Lake street on January 25 flooded the basement and filled the Chicago Cycle Supply Company's newly occupied four-story building with smoke, though the insured stock escaped the flames.
- The United States Tire Company's Hartford factory turned out 443,445 bicycle tires in the twelve months to December 31 and its Indianapolis plant fully as many, evidence that pedal-machine output remains enormous.
- Directors of the New York Sporting Goods Co. apportioned a bonus out of 1911 earnings graded by length of service, from 1 per cent of salary for under a year up to 7 per cent at six years.
- The Corbin Screw Corporation of New Britain, Conn., sends a strong force to the Chicago show under William E. Diehl, with its western office at 65-67 West Lake street at the trade's disposal.
- The Stein Double Cushion Tire Company of Akron, O., has begun to manufacture and market motorcycle tires and will bid strongly for business in that field.
- The 2,000-mile tour proposed by A. B. Coffman and A. J. Musselman is taking form with F. A. M. support; trade rider's and private owner's cups worth $150 and $100 are offered, and dealers are urged to bid for the route through their towns.
- The Schneitter Sporting Goods Company, started at Warrensburg, Mo., with an old bicycle and a few supplies, has leased a corner in Springfield and will move there on February 20; president H. C. Schneitter credits his start to the bicycle trade.
- Goodyear motorcycle tire manager S. A. Falor attributes an eastern territory's two tire replacements in a year to machine-built carcasses laid at uniform tension, and says 13 leading makers will fit Goodyear tires in 1912.
- The Shaw Mfg. Co. has bought the Kokomo motorcycle plant and moved its equipment from Kokomo, Ind., to Galesburg, Kan., where the 3.5-horsepower machine will sell for $235 alongside the Shaw motor attachment.
- The New Departure Mfg. Co. of Bristol, Conn., has issued the Engineering Edition of its ball bearing catalog-treatise, 76 pages prepared by its own engineers and sent free to manufacturers and purchasing agents on request.
- F. F. Rick & Co. of Buffalo, N. Y., denies a rumor that it cannot sell dealers, pointing to its travelling supply salesmen, illustrated catalog and five big selling specialties.
- James S. Ramis has organized the Ramis Cycle Company at 7 East Church street, Jacksonville, Fla., taking the Emblem motorcycle and bicycle agency and adding a bicycle line under the Ramis nameplate.
- The Randall Mfg. Co. of Baltimore takes Maryland and E. L. Durham & Co. of Charlotte, N. C., its section for Reading Standard, while the T. Eaton Co. of Toronto and Winnipeg, R-S distributor for most of Canada, has demanded an express shipment ahead of its first carload.
- Savannah's 1912 agencies are placed: Oakman & O'Neil (Yale, Pope, Merkel), George W. Thomas (Pierce), Harris Tire (Indian), Williams Motorcycle Co. (Thor and M-M), Balfour Hardware (Harley-Davidson, Excelsior) and O'Neil & Burch (Flanders); the police add a third Excelsior.
- The Forest City Bicycle company has opened at the corner of Bull and Park avenues, Savannah, under A. W. Moreland, with a complete stock of wheels and supplies and a repair department.
- Arthur Mitchel, formerly of the Merkel-Light racing staff, is now selling Excelsior bicycles and Chicago Cycle Supply company sundries through the Southern territory.
- Percy A. McBride of Toronto has secured the Excelsior contract for the whole of Ontario, is placing agencies at Hamilton, London and Ottawa, keeps his Toronto retail branch and adds the Majestic sidecar.
- Editorial pointing American makers weighing an export campaign to the British 1911 returns — nearly $12,000,000 of machines and parts exported against $1,500,000 imported, with motorcycle exports more than doubling in a year.
- Editorial on professional motorcyclists drawing expense money from both promoter and factory, and a prominent manufacturer's disgust; it calls the "private owner" and "trade rider" classes farcical and urges the officials to punish habitual offenders.
- Editorial urging makers to work the mayors, department heads and commissioners visiting the Chicago show during commercial week, and to sell the motorcycle as an adjunct for police, fire and messenger service.
- Hand-lettered portrait plate of the officials running the Chicago show: N.A.A.M. president Wm. E. Metzger, show committee chairman Albert L. Pope, Harold O. Smith, general manager Samuel A. Miles and motorcycle show committee chairman F. J. Weschler.
- The Twelfth Annual National Association of Automobile Manufacturers show fills the Coliseum and First Regiment Armory with a Moorish-Japanese "study in mosaics" decoration; motorcycles and light delivery machines are staged in the Annex during the second week, when 80 cities send mayors, fire and police chiefs.
- Make-by-make preview of the 16 Chicago exhibits — Emblem, Excelsior, Flanders, Harley-Davidson, Henderson, Indian, Minneapolis, Merkel, M-M, New Era, Pierce, Pope, R-S, Schickel, Thor, Wagner and Yale — the St. Paul-built Wagner being the only machine not shown at Madison Square Garden.
- Directory of Chicago show space numbers: the 16 motorcycle makers in the Coliseum Annex with Schickel in the main gallery, followed by accessory exhibitors listed by trade from batteries and bearings through magnetos and tires to vulcanizers.
- At the office of Dr. B. J. Patterson in Pratt, Kans., the Pratt division of the Short Grass Club was organized with E. H. Clark captain, Thomas Hodges lieutenant and Leslie Pitzer F. A. M. commissioner, and a tour is planned to eclipse all previous ones.
- Fixture calendar running from the Motorcycle Manufacturers' Association meeting at Chicago on February 7 to the Stockholm Olympic 200-mile road race round Lake Malar on July 7, taking in the Brooklyn, Quincy, Toronto and Denver shows and the Century Road Club runs.
- The Savannah Motorcycle Club has named a committee to treat with the owners of the local half-mile dirt track with a view to converting it into a motordrome; with Savannah and Augusta both in the F. A. M., a May 30 opening is talked of.
- A Toronto by-law restricting tobogganing and kindred sports on the Lord's Day has passed its first reading, and a threat that motorcycling may also be tabooed has the city's riders uneasy.
- Indianapolis riders await a banquet at the Denison Hotel to settle the proposed 200-mile Speedway race and a three-laps-to-the-mile board track; F. A. M. competition chairman J. P. Thornley has set the conditions, and a site near the water works on the Riverside Park car line has been chosen.
- Under new president Fred Johnston the Toronto Motorcycle Club has scrapped its last two winter socials for campaign meetings, plans a race meet a month, and has made Captain McCarthy archivist and W. M. Gladish publicity man.
- A. H. Bartsch traces what each vehicle has borrowed from the other — silence and the long tailpipe against the muffler cut-out, magneto mounting and protection, long-stroke motors, mechanical lubrication, carbureters, band brakes, foot starters, detachable wheels, shaft drive and the British monocar.
- Circular Number 591 of the Boston Bicycle Club, the oldest in America, announces its thirty-fourth annual dinner at the Copley Square Hotel Rathskeller on February 10, with Abbot Bassett as guest of honor and "Wheel about the Hub" medals distributed.
- The Rock Island Motorcycle Club, meeting at Koch's garage, elected Guy L. Munger president and Ben. A. Koch secretary-treasurer; all 23 members attended and a drive to pass 50 is under consideration.
- Rhode Island's first motor exhibition since 1908 closed at the State Armory with 13 motorcycles staged — B. A. Swenson's six Indians including the home-built "Indian Jr," Clarence Loftes's four Harley-Davidsons, Hirah Baxter's two Excelsiors and one Pope — amid Dixie-garden decorations and over 20,000 on opening night.
- Hirah G. Baxter will move his Excelsior agency to 172 Washington street at the corner of Snow street, and the Rhode Island Motor Car Co. of 69 Broad street becomes the first local automobile house to take on Pope motorcycles.
- The Wearwell Rubber Co. has closed its branch factory at Marion, Ind., and will make its mechanical rubber goods, repair materials, casings, tubes and vulcanizers at Kokomo; general manager G. R. Van Aucken has left the house.
- Chairman Estabrook reports three clubs affiliated in the week to January 27 — Turlock (Calif.), Tacoma (Wash.) and the Quaker City M. C. of Philadelphia — nineteen more registered repair shops, and the Legal Action Committee canvassing state commissioners on burdensome laws.
- Secretary-Treasurer Gibson's bulletin shows 402 new F. A. M. members in January, a gain of 169 over December, California leading with 104, plus 153 renewals; a booklet of registered repair shops is to be issued about March 1.
- The Providence Motorcycle Club's seventh annual banquet at Perkins' on Weybosset street, with a gasoline-flavored menu, Toastmaster E. L. Buffington, B. A. Swenson on the proposed New England quarterly trials and a Narragansett Park board track, and globe-trotter William "Wallet" Scott on riding in the West Indies.
- The Toledo Motorcycle Club elected E. Ehingen president and A. B. Coffman vice-president at its annual meeting; Captain S. J. Chubbuck told endurance yarns and Coffman asked support for the national motorcycle tour.
- Philadelphia's Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Club has reached 35 members in six weeks under president H. B. Sellers and is arranging a Grand Opera House theatrical benefit to furnish a club house.
- Charles D. Reade is again president of the San Jose Motorcycle Club, which sent a deputation to the mayor and council over City Attorney H. Johnston's ordinance requiring closed mufflers within the city limits.
- Capt. Earl Schanemeyer of the Peoria Motorcycle Club, badly burned in an explosion at the Royal Cleaning Company, is recovering and eager to regain on his new twin the club championship he held in 1910.
- The Yavapai Motorcycle Club's activity has the Prescott chamber of commerce planning a mile track; Jack Crawford won a 44-mile road race on a Harley-Davidson single in 1:13:12 and "Shorty" Belding took a half-mile handicap on a 7-horsepower Indian.
- Directors of Brooklyn's Invincible Motorcycle Club instructed the competition committee to draft single and double century runs on Long Island for about May 5, and will discuss repeating the Long Island Motor Parkway road race.
- Subscriptions to the American Olympic Bicycle Team Fund led by the Newark Velodrome's $100; the St. Louis Cycling Club's banquet where 1908 Marathon third-place man Joseph Forshaw urged sending a team; recruiting by Fred I. Perreault in Boston, James J. Huey in Salt Lake City and Walter A. Bardgett in Providence; and the rider popularity ballot.
- Jack Townsend of the Irish American A. C. won the two-mile handicap final at the 8th Regiment Armory, New York, from the 30-yard mark, then was suspended indefinitely by the U. C. A. for riding wide on Goodwin; Otto C. Brandes was second and Nat Gutoff third.
- Lapize and Emile Georget covered 146 miles to win the eighteen-team six-hour race at the Paris Velodrome on January 28; of three American teams entered, Fogler and Moran finished second.
- Promoter Paul Schwarz is building a rival Hippo-Velodrome within a few blocks of the Sport Palace, offering $2,500 first money banked in advance against the Rostin race directed by Floyd A. Macfarland; entries for his February 23-29 event close February 12.
- The tenth annual Tour de France will run thirty days of road racing from Paris to Dunkirk on June 30 by way of Belfort, Grenoble, Nice, Perpignan, Luchon, Bayonne, Brest and Havre, finishing at Paris on July 28.
- Duane W. Moore of Bayonne, N. J., with only four months' riding behind him, tops the 1911 Century Road Club Association competition with 8,521 miles, 44 centuries and 13,521 points, ahead of Isadore Taub and veteran John M. Mitchell of Greenwich, Conn.
- The Eastern Division, Century Road Club Association, made a festive occasion on January 26 of introducing national president Paul Thomas, secretary Sylvian Segal and road records chairman A. R. Cooley, with songs by the club quartet.
- Miss Anna Rockfellow gave the Irondequoit Chapter, D. A. R., of Rochester, N. Y., a descriptive discourse on her bicycle tour through Holland as the leading feature of a social meeting.
- Sixteen teams including Root-Hill, Fogler-Moran and Collins-Walthour started the Berlin six-day bicycle race on February 1, with Floyd Macfarland in the management; riders and management divide on percentage and prizes run from $1,250 down to $150.
- The Bronxdale Athletic Club's ball at Niblo Gardens, Third avenue and 170th street, on January 27 drew large delegations from the Century Road Club of America, the Century Road Club Association and the New England Wheelmen.
- Baltimore gains another bicycle club in the Yale Bicycle Club, with E. Holofeener president, A. Barsotte secretary-treasurer and L. Fink captain.
- The Empire City Wheelmen of Brooklyn marked five years on January 27 with a party at the Star Theatre and a banquet at the Brooklyn Hoff-Brau; captain Samuel Barnett told how the "Cycle Path Cork Pullers" and their weekly cork race began, and the club is incorporating, seeking N. C. A. membership and forming a track team.