The Bicycling World, Vol 64, No 6
Articles in this issue
- The Hendee Manufacturing Co. relieves its Chicago branch of retail local sales, turning Indian motorcycle retailing in Cook County over to the Edwards-Crist Mfg. Co. from November 1; Edwards-Crist has cancelled its contracts for all other makes and works from five stores in the city.
- E. C. Kicherer, former American manager of the N. S. U. Motor Co., and John Lentz incorporate the Sun Motor and Supply Co. with $10,000 capital at 206 West Seventy-sixth street, New York, to handle Flanders and N. S. U. machines in Greater New York, Long Island and seven New Jersey counties.
- Ignaz Schwinn of the Arnold, Schwinn Co. practically consummates the purchase of the name, good will and plant of the Excelsior Supply Co., Chicago, for $147,500, contingent on securing a new factory lease; creditors holding $897,000 of claims expect about 40 cents on the dollar.
- At its 25 October meeting at Turn Hall, 917 Eighth avenue, the Motorcycle Dealers' Association of Greater New York unanimously adopts a resolution denouncing the open muffler, reports about 25 sales made under its instalment plan and appoints a committee for a show-week dinner with the manufacturers.
- Ferdinand Mercier, who has had charge of the repair department at F. A. Baker & Co.'s uptown New York store, is going into business for himself in Brooklyn, specializing on repair work exclusively and taking no agency.
- The Motor Finance Co. of New York City is running small advertisements in the local papers to publicize the "so much down and so much per week" arrangement it has with the city's motorcycle dealers.
- The Standard Welding Co. of Cleveland, O., maker of tubing, steel rims and cycle parts, discontinues its agency with L. F. McClernon & Co. and opens its own branch office in Chicago.
- Ray E. Day of Tacoma buys out the interest of his former associate Ray Packard and will handle the "Flying Merkel" alone from show rooms at 944 South D street.
- The Lewis Specialty Co., capital $3,000, files incorporation papers at Lansing, Mich. to handle automobile, bicycle and motor boat specialties; stockholders include James M. Haynes, Richard Shoemaker, R. H. Shoemaker and C. E. Lewis.
- The Franklin Cycle and Supply Co. has outgrown its quarters and moves to a new building erected for it on East Gay street just west of Fourth, Columbus, O., with Phil Vogel in charge.
- Charles and Bert Camplejohn, trading as Camplejohn Brothers, open a bicycle and motorcycle repairing business at 22 East Beaver street, Jacksonville, Fla.
- F. A. Baker & Co., metropolitan distributers for Indian motorcycles, may drop its branch at 2142 Broadway; manager H. F. Bidwell holds an option until November 1 and is trying to form a stock company to take the store over.
- A jointless, rivetless bicycle rim of a patented "chrome aluminum" alloy has appeared on the English market, its makers guaranteeing it rustless and as strong and stiff as a steel rim after two years of service tests.
- The Pierce Cycle Co., Buffalo, N. Y., announces four 1912 models — three five-horsepower singles at $225, $250 and $265 and the four-cylinder seven-horsepower machine at $400 — the singles gaining a quarter-inch longer stroke, larger valves, direct cam lifts and a magneto moved outside the gear case.
- The Hendee Manufacturing Co., Springfield, Mass., issues a pamphlet, "Indian Motorcycles for Commercial Purposes," showing police, municipal, rural free delivery and telephone uses, plus a separate catalog for the 2 3/4-horsepower single "runabout."
- Leader attacking the District of Columbia's new penal-code amendment forbidding a second person on a motorcycle without special permit, arguing that it will kill tandem sales while the real danger lies in improvised seats on tanks, frame tubes and handlebars.
- Leader on the shortage of skilled motorcycle repair men in Greater New York and other large cities, urging dealers to send themselves or an employe to the factory they represent for a few weeks during the winter slack season.
- Fixture calendar from late October to January, including the North Jersey Motorcycle Club's 170-mile reliability run at Paterson on 29 October, the Great Neck Cycle Club's bicycle carnival on 7 November, the Olympia show in London on 20-25 November and the Century Road Club Association's fourteenth annual ball on 20 January.
- Ray Seymour beats Collins and Albright for a reported $500 purse over five miles at the annexation jubilee meet at Agricultural Park, Sacramento, on the 20th; Harry Alzina wins three amateur events and G. Shunner of Stockton takes the inter-city championship and Weinstock-Nichols cup.
- Letter from referee W. D. Gresham of Birmingham, Ala. disputing the paper's account of the DeRosier-Stubbs fight, which he says happened two hours after the races at the Hillman Hotel, and defending his practice of running races in heats when more than four big sevens are entered.
- A. K. of Buffalo asks the editor to settle a dispute over one-, two- and four-cycle motors and cylinder counts; the editor rules for "B" on every point, noting two-cycle motorcycle motors are built in one and two cylinders and four-cycle in one, two and four.
- D. L. Tullis on a lively Thor takes four wins from Erwin Baker and Thurman Constable at the joint Piqua and Troy (O.) club meet on the 14th, with local rider William McClain scoring twice; Walter Shute fractures a collar bone hitting the fence in practice.
- Paul Warner wins the F. A. M. central district mile championship and claims a State record for ten miles at the Short Grass Motorcycle Club's meet at Oakdale Park, Salina, Kan., while Wells Bennett takes the five-mile trade rider State championship and the pursuit.
- Allen Lake of South Bend, Ind. is fined $11 in the City Court for carrying a friend to the depot on his motorcycle, the court telling him to learn the ordinances before attempting to ride.
- The West Virginia Rural Letter Carriers' Association resolves in favor of a State motor vehicle tax for road improvement, recommending 50 cents per horsepower on motorcycles.
- Gayle Joyce wins ten firsts and Porter Chambless three during the week of 16-22 October at the Montgomery (Ala.) Fair, until Ed Hasha arrives late in the week, wins three and loses two to Joyce and rides five miles in 4:24, announced as a "world's record."
- Hand-lettered cartoon panel signed Merrick, ironically advising the rider who stops for a roadside rest on a sultry day to leave his machine out in the sun, since it may start better with the frame, saddle and tires hot.
- "Joe" Wolters chops six seconds off the local ten-mile track record and takes three victories over Armstrong, Schwartz and Fleckenstein at the Tuileries track, Denver, Colo., on the 8th.
- With Mayor B. C. Sonn as scorekeeper, races at the Van Wert, Ohio, fair grounds on the 12th see Don Klark disqualified in the novelty race for failing to stop and drink his soda, letting E. G. Baker win, though Klark spots Baker 20 seconds in the pursuit and catches him in 12 laps.
- The first motorcycle race meet for women held in the country is staged at the Columbus (O.) Driving Park on Saturday the 21st under Frank Lawwell; Dolly and Lucile Adelman take three events, Viola Culp of Elwood, Ind. beats Dolly by under a second in the three-mile match, and the second day is rained out.
- The proposed Ashtabula (O.) ordinance banning passengers in front of the operator stalls on second reading after a councilman doubts the council's power, though the city solicitor rules such an ordinance would be valid as a public safety measure.
- Days of rain force off Howard A. French's races at the Frederick (Md.) fair and the Belair meet, sending Baltimore riders including J. Boyd Anderson, Billy Fleurstein and the Blakeneys home disgusted; the Belair promoters, the Sandruck Brothers, had also failed to get an F. A. M. sanction.
- DeRosier and Balke clean up the whole card at the Alabama State Fair during the week of 9-14 October; Robert Stubbs is badly cut under the eye when a rear tire blows on the Monday, and Hasha's protest sees both Excelsior machines measured and found under size.
- Henry James and Robert Thomas of Washington, D. C. deliberately ride double in front of police headquarters to make a test case of the new regulation, passed after a girl's death and effective from the 13th; a bicycle policeman arrests them at the end of the first block.
- A midnight club-house poker player threatens to sell his machine and quit riding, complaining he has paid $15.50 in a few days to men who could not take a "skip" out of his motor and that there is not a good motorcycle repair man in the whole of Greater New York.
- After years of heavy spending on automobiles, the civic authorities at Toronto decide motorcycles suit their inspectors better; the city engineer orders two for his department.
- W. Griswell reports hooking a motorcycle while fishing — a Harley-Davidson, No. 2402, little rusted, its tires properly inflated and its tank full of gasoline.
- Threatening weather and bad roads cut the South Bend (Ind.) Motorcycle Club's last run of the season on the 8th to seven riders; the 115-mile Valparaiso round trip is downgraded from a reliability run to a pleasure spin with no prizes.
- Rain washes out the Newark (O.) Motorcycle Club's meet at Moundbuilders' Park on Sunday the 22nd; the club will try again on the 29th.
- L. H. Whiteman describes a four-day run from Tacoma up the Nisqually Valley on the Rainier-Tacoma road — the only road in America running to a glacier — through the park gate to Longmire Springs and the Camp of the Clouds, noting the six-mile limit on curves and "Pop" Reese's shack at Paradise.
- Ben Broderick of San Francisco, the two-mile national champion, reels off 100 miles in 1:38:48 at San Jose, Cal. on the 15th, 17 seconds ahead of Bud Northrup, while Harry Alzina blows a front tire in the 95th lap and is hurled over the handlebars unhurt.
- An epidemic of restrictive motorcycle legislation is reported, the Chicago City Council passing a muffler ordinance and Topeka, Kan. deciding to enforce one that has slept for two years.
- Franz Weigelt maps an 80-mile California round trip from San Francisco through Green Brae, San Rafael, Petaluma and Santa Rosa, then by Mendocino avenue and the Mark West road to the Petrified Forest's 300 acres of Sequoia gigantea, returning via Calistoga, St. Helena, Napa and Vallejo.
- Erwin G. Baker's proposed six-hour trial on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will test whether the new brick surface suits motorcycles; he has already ridden 75 miles in practice before a blow-out and means to take oil and gasoline on the run.
- William Krebs of the Cincinnati Motorcycle Club passes through Indianapolis on the last leg of a 1,200-mile trip through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa and Ohio, reporting that narrow steel farm-wagon tires cut ruts two to four inches wide in the clay roads of Iowa and Missouri.
- News column reporting Bobby Walthour's $12,500 European season, Octave Lapize and Leon Georget pairing for the Madison Square Garden grind, three German six-day grinds at Frankfort, Berlin and Cologne, and Judge Sheller of Everett, Wash. fining three lampless motorcyclists $5 each.
- Fred H. Caley, ex-State Registrar of Motor Vehicles of Ohio, compiles cautions for motorcyclists — stop, look and listen at every railroad crossing, keep out of the middle of the street, check the brakes before starting, and never argue the right of way with a train, street car or hay wagon.
- Dr. J. P. Thornley, chairman of the F. A. M. competition committee, argues against banning cut-outs at the factory and proposes instead an F. A. M.-drafted ordinance restricting their use; the Fulton County, Miami (Fla.), Bridgeport, Harlem, Davenport and Dubuque clubs all adopt the paper's resolutions, several with fines and expulsion.
- Full-page cartoon sequence for the paper's anti-cut-out campaign: Brown decides to buy a motorcycle, "but?" — and the open muffler then shatters a sickroom, a sermon and a quiet street, ending with the maker who gives you a cut-out but tells you not to use it.
- Club roundup covering the new Coshocton (O.) club's quarters over Thompson's clothing store, the Reading (Pa.) club's 75-machine torchlight parade, annual elections at Bridgeport (Conn.) and Columbus (O.), the Harlem club's winter ball fund of $150 and the Lockport (N. Y.) club's F. A. M. affiliation as No. 203.
- The Savannah (Ga.) police announce fines of $5 to $50 from Saturday for open mufflers, enforcing at last an ordinance drafted by the Savannah Motorcycle Club and backed by the Savannah Automobile Club.
- Harry Klebes of Philadelphia wins the half-hour feature with 23 1/2 miles and a ten-mile open at the Reading (Pa.) Motorcycle Club's fair grounds meet on the 14th; spectators rush the track at the finish and William Obenhausen and Thomas Dedge are both carried off to hospital.
- The Eclipse Machine Co. of Elmira, N. Y. offers a free "Motorcyclists' Log Book" for recording mileage and running expenses, mailed on receipt of name, address and make of machine and exchangeable when filled.
- Frank Mihlon and Newark Velodrome manager John M. Chapman consider a $10,000 six- or eight-lap winter track at New Orleans or Jacksonville, ready about 24 December; fourteen riders including Fred Hill, Pete Drobach, Clarence Carmen and Elmer Collins have signed to ride for prize money only, without bonuses.
- Flooded roads end the Minneapolis (Minn.) Motorcycle Club's 500-mile endurance contest on the first afternoon, the referee calling it off between Albany and Freeport; C. C. Gould on a Thor IV refuses to quit, makes Freeport that night and rides home over the same roads.
- F. A. M. warnings that there are no "world's" or dirt-track motorcycle records, no single-cylinder, belt-drive or class records since only piston displacement counts, that the "Tuilleries" track at Denver is short, that no woman may compete in a sanctioned contest and that records need sworn officials' affidavits.