The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 21, No 38
Articles in this issue
- Denver's bicycle trade faced severe demoralization as one dealer sold purchased competitors' high-grade stock at below list price and a long-established branch house accumulated $2,000 in losses by allowing excessive trade-in values on old machines.
- The Denver Bicycle Repairers' Association, after two years of struggles with supply houses and recalcitrant shops, had brought every significant repair shop in the city into membership and successfully enforced its schedule of minimum repair charges.
- New York trade circles expressed confidence that the successful conclusion of the Spanish-American War would stimulate both home demand and export trade, with businessmen anticipating an expansion of the merchant marine and new American banking presence abroad.
- A conference of Pope Manufacturing Company chainless licensees in Hartford agreed to set the 1899 retail price of bevel-gear chainless bicycles at $75, a reduction intended to bring the technology within reach of a much wider buying public.
- Shelby Steel Tube Co.'s new price list established discounts of 75-10-5 on standard bicycle tubing sizes, providing manufacturers with a clearer basis for cost planning than the erratic quotations that had prevailed during the season.
- A Washington dealer had established a bicycle express messenger service alongside his retail business, finding it a reliable source of year-round income that also kept employed riders in contact with the shop for parts and service.
- Consul-General Frank H. Mason's report from Frankfurt describes how demand for calcium carbide — used in acetylene bicycle lamps — has outpaced supply in both America and Europe; Germany's sole manufacturer moved its plant from Bitterfeld to Neuhausen, Switzerland, for water-power generation, while America's supply at Niagara Falls has been consolidated under the Union Carbide Company.
- A new Massachusetts law banning trading stamps has been welcomed by cycle dealers who found themselves paying the stamp company five percent of gross receipts without any measurable benefit to sales, while Connecticut dealers remain saddled with the same demoralizing obligation.
- After years of depression, malleable-casting foundries are being enlarged and new ones built to meet a surge in orders that has overwhelmed existing capacity, with the article treating the foundry revival as an early indicator of the broader industrial reawakening expected to follow the end of the war.
- Five Diesel gas motors built by four leading German engineering firms — including Krupp and the Augsburg Machinery Company — are on display at the Munich machinery exposition in outputs from 20 to 40 horsepower; all American patent rights have been acquired by a New York company, and the display is recognised as the most interesting feature of the exhibition.
- The editorial cautions bicycle manufacturers against underestimating overhead expenses: data from well-managed firms producing between 5,000 and 30,000 machines annually consistently show overhead exceeding five dollars per machine at season end, a figure that contradicts the lower estimates often accepted under pressure from job-lot buyers, and one that explains many of the year's business failures.
- Government crop reports show unexpectedly strong harvests and improved collections across the Midwest, pointing to a revival of rural buying power that should sustain a healthy fall trade in bicycles; the article urges cycle dealers and credit managers to monitor crop conditions as a leading indicator of demand in the countryside.
- Atlantic Rubber Co. has developed a tire-curing machine that replaces the hundreds of individual molds previously required in tire manufacture; a cheap rubber compound cures in as little as two and a half minutes, and 100,000 sets of tires already in service demonstrate the process, with a hydraulic collapsible-head mold also available for wired detachable tire production.
- The Electrical Vehicle Company has placed the first of 100 new electric cabs — 50 hansoms and 50 broughams — on New York streets under chief engineer G. Herbert Condict, who previously installed the Englewood storage-battery streetcar line; the five-inch pneumatic tires at 60 psi give a smooth ride but are vulnerable to side-slip on wet asphalt.
- A Pennsylvania gang of swindlers has been offering country merchants a fraudulent scheme to secure a $10,000 commercial credit rating for a $500 fee, exploiting dishonest merchants' desire for an inflated reputation — only for the scheme to rebound on those who tried to use it.
- The issue presented comparative export statistics for bicycle and parts shipments over a two-year period alongside a guide to bookkeeping practices suited to small retail cycle dealers, helping them track true profitability by product line.
- A step-by-step guide to double-entry bookkeeping adapted for small cycle dealers explains how to record credit sales, purchases, cash receipts, and goods returned through a cross-entry journal system that enables the ledger to balance at month end and reveals true profitability across all lines of trade.
- Describes the 'kite frame' tandem design developed by Renouf for the Fleet company, named after the angular kite shape of the frame geometry; as reproduced from Cycle Referee of London, the article explains how Renouf's converging-tube arrangement with a machined solid ball-head stiffens drop-frame and combination tandems without appreciable added weight.
- Repairmen are urged to maintain neat, well-presented workshops because lady cyclists — among the best repair customers — will not patronise a dirty or disorderly shop if a tidy alternative exists; the article moves on to the comparative economics of crank-hanger repairs and the remedies for worn or stripped key seats on axles.
- Originators of disk adjustment argue that the mechanical advantages of disk-adjusted fittings are only realised when workmanship meets strict tolerances, while the article also covers a revival of spring-frame designs in England where a curved-tube model with resilient forks is attracting attention for comfort over rough roads.
- New patents include a non-creeping detachable tire using a diagonally woven wire band in each bead to counteract the tendency of opposite-edge wires to creep in opposing directions; a resilient saddle pommel built on a rubber-cushion shell; a shock-reducing rear-axle suspension device; and a cammed cotter-pin substitute for cranks by E.V. Gauthier of Westborough, Mass.
- Trade notes include the reorganisation of Keller Machinery Co. of Erie into a new Ohio corporation, Iver Johnson's construction of a 14,000-square-foot addition to its Fitchburg plant for the enameling department, and various insolvencies, receiverships, and corporate changes from around the cycle industry.
- Harry Elkes rehabilitates himself in middle-distance championship ranks by defeating one of the reigning big four and then setting a new one-hour record by more than a mile, while the section surveys the week's professional racing controversy over Michael's disqualification at Philadelphia and the ongoing championship competition.
- The Nineteenth Annual Meet of the League of American Wheelmen opens in Indianapolis with great fanfare as the Buffalo '99 Meet Club arrives with a band and an escort of 500 supporters to bid for the 1900 convention; the article covers the opening ceremonies and first trial heats of the professional racing programme.
- On "ladies' night" at Washington's Park track, veteran racer Fred Sims sets a new world half-mile professional handicap record of :56 3-5 from scratch, beating Bob Walthour by half a wheel, and also wins the one-mile open professional final after pacemakers Counselman and French drop out.
- Minneapolis city attorney Healy rules that raised cycle paths on public streets are illegal unless level with the roadway, prompting L.A.W. roads-and-highways committee member A. B. Choate to rebut him at length, citing a state supreme court ruling that riding a bicycle on a public highway is neither unlawful nor an ancient right reserved to horse-drawn traffic.