The Bicycling World, Vol 64, No 4
Articles in this issue
- The Motorcycle Manufacturers' Association has been allotted balcony space on the 27th street side for the first week of the twelfth annual Madison Square Garden automobile show beginning January 6th, with the allotment to be made between the 18th and 24th by a committee assisted by M. L. Downs; Chicago can offer only the Coliseum basement or Armory gallery in the second week.
- Fred I. Willis, secretary of the National Association of Cycle Jobbers and former F. A. M. president, was elected vice-president of the Kokomo Rubber Co. at the stockholders' reorganization meeting of October 10th, with F. A. M. president George H. Hamilton as sales manager and Robert H. Colburn of Atlanta as secretary-treasurer.
- August 1911 exports of cycles and motorcycles were worth $71,123 against $54,641 in August 1910, and the eight months to August 1st totalled $655,987 against $486,683 in 1910; imports were $5,905.
- Colonel George Pope of the Pope Mfg. Co. and E. J. Lobdell of the American Wood Rim Co. sailed for Europe on Tuesday the 3rd inst. for about five weeks.
- Charles F. Splitdorf, the New York ignition specialist, has opened a London branch at 41 Great Portland street, W. C.
- The 1912 catalog of the Iver Johnson's Arms and Cycle Works of Fitchburg, Mass. lists fourteen bicycle models — including a heavy-service truss frame, two new juvenile "Midgets" and a Special Racer with Brooks saddle and Renold chain — plus the long-awaited single Iver Johnson motorcycle, a truss-frame machine with the crank case cast integral with the frame, Bosch magneto and Schebler carbureter, at $250.
- Five Pierce Cycle Co. travelers report bright prospects; F. R. Bunker & Bros. take Tacoma, Portland and Seattle under the name Pierce Motorcycle Sales Co., and Edward Van Almkirk takes the exclusive Rochester, N. Y. agency.
- Connecticut's Secretary of State reports 1,858 motorcycles registered from October 1, 1910 to October 1, 1911 yielding $1,515.15, and 1,479 operators' licenses yielding $2,758, a total motorcycle income of $4,273.15.
- The Flanders company has given a distributing agency to the Motorcycle and Equipment Co., 192 King street West, Toronto, while William G. Schaeffer of the Penn Cycle Co. has taken the Berks county, Pennsylvania agency for the Flanders "4."
- The Great Western Mfg. Co. of La Porte, Ind. has completed a fireproof 189 by 50 foot, four-floor addition of 40,000 square feet, served by Pere Marquette and New York Central sidings, giving the plant a daily capacity of a carload of bicycles and 5,000 component parts.
- From November 1st the Billings & Spencer Co. of Hartford, Conn. cuts the list price of its Model '97 bicycle wrench from $6 to $5 per dozen in black finish and $7 in nickel, with net prices withdrawn.
- Benjamin F. Howard, formerly of the American Motor Co., joins the Flanders sales department, and George H. Squier of the Aurora Automatic Machinery Co. becomes a Flanders Mfg. Co. salesman on October 15th.
- Leader praising the F. A. M. New England district's resolutions against the muffler cut-out, arguing the cut-out is an inheritance from the days of inefficient mufflers and that public antipathy to motorcycle noise is killing sales for makers and dealers alike.
- Leader condemning the practice of carrying passengers, usually girls, on motorcycle handlebars, which interferes with steering and vision and has already brought city ordinances against it; a tandem attachment is the only proper place for a passenger.
- Fixture calendar running from the Metropolitan Motor Racing Association meet at Guttenberg, N. J. on October 15th through the Olympia show in London on November 20-25 to the Century Road Club Association's fourteenth annual ball at Alhambra Hall on January 20th.
- The Greater New York Cyclists' Association, meeting October 10th, adopted a constitution, dropped the local title to become the United Cyclists' Association, nominated J. A. Hall for president, and passed the Bicycling World's resolutions against the open muffler, appointing W. R. Stroud, A. H. Patterson and Julius Bindrim to draft a law for the New York Legislature.
- Report of the F. A. M. New England district fall business meeting at Providence on Saturday the 7th inst., which unanimously passed the Bicycling World's resolutions against the muffler cut-out, elected C. A. French vice-chairman, F. S. Morse secretary and C. H. Westcott treasurer, and debated National Treasurer Gibson's centralization of district funds.
- Motorcyclists of the Motorcycle Touring Club of New York paced the Bradhurst Field Club's first cross-country run on the 1st inst., probably the first recorded use of motorcycles for the purpose.
- Captain H. Matthew Gault of the Maryland M. C. of Baltimore is planning a three or four day run for members, tentatively routed to Staunton, Va. by way of Hagerstown, Md.
- Chief of Police Wallace has issued Redlands's 290th motorcycle license, one for every 38 residents; machines are selling at one a day and are used by meat markets, grocers, contractors and orange-grove superintendents, with more than $75,000 invested in them.
- The San Antonio (Tex.) Motorcycle Club has hung up $300 in cash plus a dozen cups and trophies for its meet at the International Fair on November 5.
- At the Uhrichsville (O.) fair hill climb on the 29th ult. C. Anderson on a Yale won the single cylinder class in 20 seconds, beating Howard Amos on an Indian by half a second, while Amos took the free-for-all on a twin Indian in 16 seconds.
- The Sacramento (Cal.) Motorcycle Club offers $500 in prizes at its race meet on the 21st and 22d inst. in connection with the Greater Sacramento Annexation Jubilee, the money donated by the Chamber of Commerce.
- Nineteen of the 21 starters scored perfect in the Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club's eighth annual 140-mile triangle run on Sunday the 8th inst., run through deep mud; H. F. Hildreth plugged a smashed oil window with a half dollar, Morris Ross retired with a broken handlebar, and W. F. Mann was chased through a Hope street police trap.
- Owners of Merkel motorcycles in Dayton, O. have formed the Flying Merkel Club, limited to riders of that make, which celebrated its birth by opening mufflers at Idylwild park.
- Earl Armstrong on an Excelsior beat Hasha and Seymour in a five mile race before 5,000 spectators at the Tuileries track, Denver, on the 24th ult., took the ten mile Colorado sweepstakes in 7:05 and was said to have broken all local track records from one to ten miles.
- Amateur champion Frank Hart has had $700 worth of cups, including the Bosch championship and Standard Welding trophies won at Buffalo, stolen from the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s New York branch at Broadway and Sixty-fourth street, echoing the earlier theft of Walter Goerke's prizes.
- Amateur motorcycle races at the Nutwood Park aviation meet at Dubuque, Ia. on September 28th and 29th outdrew the professionals; Edgar McCheney covered the mile on his Indian in 1 minute 5 seconds in pelting rain, and a race between Aviator Beachey and five motorcycles ended with the aeroplane 200 yards ahead.
- The Motosacoche stolen early this season from J. W. Gibson, president of the Toronto Motorcycle Club, has turned up in a barn near Thornhill, Ontario, sixteen miles from the city, where it had lain in a farmer's possession for six weeks.
- At the New Jersey Motorcycle Club's meet at Olympic Park on Sunday the 8th inst., J. U. Constant of Brooklyn beat Percy Drummond of Newark in the final of their three mile match, Joseph Buckingham took two firsts, and William Pierson was the only Newarker to win.
- The Toronto Motorcycle Club will issue no more race sanctions this year and will suspend riders who compete in unsanctioned events; it ran 25 riders to Niagara Falls on October 8th and plans a reliability run to London, Ontario on October 29th and 30th.
- "Joe" Wolters's homecoming to the Tuileries meet at Denver on the 2d inst. drove most of the stars away; he lost only one event, to Armstrong, and clipped a fifth of a second off the local mile record with 40 4/5 seconds.
- Toronto authorities will charge the Toronto Motorcycle Club $100 plus chair rental for each use of the Exhibition half mile track, so the club turned to sociability with a 73 mile run to Guelph on September 24th that drew thirty-seven riders and two ladies in side cars.
- Motorcycles had their own division in the floral motor parade at Trenton, N. J. on the 4th inst., with prizes to Levi Holmes (Harley-Davidson), M. Manglebaum (Excelsior), James Fenton (Harley-Davidson) and Daniel Radice (Merkel), the Central Jersey Motorcycle Club in charge.
- Hart Bowman of Lincoln, Neb. left home September 22d, reached Chicago the following Tuesday and Springfield on October 3d despite Iowa clay that clogged his rear wheel, water above the wheel hubs, and a spill in Rochester that knocked him unconscious after he swerved to avoid a collie.
- Nine new members, two more members and five applications in the last two meetings make the Providence (R. I.) Motorcycle Club the largest and most prosperous in New England.
- Automobile racer Ralph De Palma, en route to an aviation meet, was run down after a mile-and-a-half chase and served with a summons by the motorcycle police of Jamaica, L. I., admitting it was the first time a motorcycle had overtaken him.
- The Bicycling World has circulated nearly 300 copies of its anti-cut-out resolutions, adopted at Providence and by the United Cyclists' Association; the resolutions are printed in full alongside supporting letters from Charles E. Minnemeyer, the Wagner Motorcycle Co. and W. A. Johnson, sales manager of the Pierce Cycle Company.
- Frank Kerr, the Toronto Indian rider, soldered a metal pocket to the back of his large automobile headlight so his watch is always before his face.
- Some 1,500 motorcyclists from the San Francisco, Oakland, Stockton, Sacramento and San Jose clubs gathered at Livermore and Cresta Blanca for a first annual reunion and barbecue to boost 'Frisco's bid for the 1915 F. A. M. meet; A. Sharkey of Oakland won the 14 mile club race on an Excelsior twin in 18:49, and Mrs. F. E. Karslake was the only woman riding alone.
- Members of the Maryland M. C. of Baltimore, led by Captain Gault, ran into the Green Spring Valley where Duke Richardson pointed out the trees and they stripped them bare.
- Rain on the closing day of the Michigan State Fair at Detroit, the 27th ult., forced the calling off of the already-postponed motorcycle races.
- DeRosier, Balke, Hasha and Mitchel toured to the Alabama State Fair at Birmingham, home ground of Robert Stubbs; Hasha won the five mile final on the 7th, and after the racing DeRosier and Stubbs came to blows over remarks by Mrs. Stubbs, with talk of an assault and battery suit.
- A new 24-page vest-pocket F. A. M. booklet issued by the chairman of the membership committee sets out the objects of the organization with chapters on racing, touring, good roads, clubs and official repair shops, and is free on request to Bangor, Me.
- F. A. M. Competition Committee chairman Thornley denounces promoters who program events or time trials restricted to single cylinder machines under 50 cubic inches as unfair discrimination in favor of one make, and warns he will scrutinize entry blanks for such "jokers."
- Columbus, O. wants the 1912 F. A. M. meet and its motorcycle club has appointed a committee of 12 to enlist the Chamber of Commerce and circulate campaign literature to clubs throughout the State.
- The Aberdeen (S. D.) Motorcycle Club has reorganized under Oscar Olson as president, E. Oderkirk vice-president, G. E. Petrick secretary and John Harrison treasurer, and voted to affiliate with the F. A. M.
- Motorcyclists of Owego, N. Y. have formed the Owego Motorcycle Club, electing William Hallstead president, Willis Sayre vice-president, J. A. Franz secretary, William E. Strong treasurer and Willis Snyder captain.
- The Stockholm Olympic program includes a 200 mile road race around Lake Malar on July 7th, 1912, with entries closing June 7th; Harold J. Dibblee has proposed a subscription list to fund an American team at about $250 a man, the American Olympic Committee having already collected $1,000 from Colonel Robert M. Thompson and $500 from J. Pierpont Morgan toward the $50,000 needed.
- Charles Augustus Van Doren, back in the retail bicycle trade at Atlantic City, N. J., promoted a 35 mile race starting and finishing at his Atlantic avenue store; nineteen started and six won medals, Tony La Rosa leading in 1 hour 45 minutes.
- Detroit enthusiasts W. Dunfield and J. Herreschoff of the Morgan & Wright Tire Co. wheeled to Toronto on a two weeks' tour using an old C. W. A. road guide they found still practicable, while Toronto riders H. G. Martin and A. S. Bowers set out through New York State on pedal-pushed wheels.
- Waiter Arthur Venier of Newport, R. I. was caught stealing bicycles after the owners set the police on him; he pleaded guilty on three counts and was taxed $10 and costs on each, $64.50 in all, and will liquidate the debt in jail.
- A recast program at the Newark Velodrome on Sunday the 8th inst. saw Fogler and Root beat the Bedell Brothers in two straight tandem heats, A. J. Clark win the mile open professional from Goullet and Kramer, Alvin Loftes take the amateur mile handicap and the Velodrome championship, and Elmer Collins cut the motor-paced mile record to 1:12 3/5.
- A. J. Clark, Iver Lawson and Worthington L. Mitten have signed with J. D. Williams of the J. D. Williams Cinematograph Co. for six-day races at Melbourne and Sydney, sailing from Vancouver on November 1st; Alfred Goullet and Paddy Hehir will make the trip at their own expense.
- The Bicycle Jaunt Club of Greater New York held its third jaunt on Sunday, October 8th, training from Chambers street to Wanaque-Midvale, N. J. and cycling to Greenwood Lake by way of Ringwood Junction and Boardville, then home through the Ramapo Mountains and Tuxedo.
- The Scranton (Pa.) Bicycle Club opened its 1911-12 season on Saturday the 7th inst. with a lunch and social session, H. M. Simons of the entertainment committee in charge, and will serve night lunches through the winter.
- Sylvain Segal clinched the 1911 E. D. C. R. C. A. championship by 9 points in the closing one mile and ten mile races on the Merrick road at Freeport, L. I. on Sunday, October 8th, finishing with 16 points to I. Taub's 7; Taub won the ten mile handicap in 30:07 3/5.
- The Newark News printed a burlesque playbill, "We Have Nothing to Do Until To-morrow," casting Kramer as "One in a thousand," Clark as "Not dead, but missing," Goullet as "Always happy" and Macfarland as "Dingdat," staged at the Newark Velodrome by Street & Walker.