The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 21, No 49
Articles in this issue
- Representatives of leading hub and pedal manufacturers met at New York's Manhattan Hotel and approved an agreement to set minimum prices by unanimous consent of an executive committee, with the plan to be circulated to all parts makers before a final organizational meeting.
- Pope Mfg. Co. announced that the Columbia chainless would retail at $75 for 1899, confirming earlier Cycle Age reports, alongside chain models at $50, Hartfords at $35, and Vedettes at $25, with 15 branch stores serving as distribution hubs across the country.
- Burglars broke into the Paris establishment of Peugeot freres on the Avenue de la Grande-Armee, cracking the safe and removing over 100,000 francs including a professional racing cyclist's cash deposit, with police finding no leads on the perpetrators.
- The Elyria Tree Co. was incorporated to manufacture patented wooden saddle trees under license from Brown Saddle Co., turning out 5,000 trees per day and supplying virtually all major saddle makers with hardwood blanks coated in lead and waterproof covering.
- The issue examined the outlook for medium-grade bicycles in the coming season, arguing that buyers who could not afford premium machines but had learned to distrust the cheapest grades represented a large and underserved market at the $35 to $50 price point.
- The Cycle Age rebutted a Toledo Blade report claiming eastern manufacturers had agreed to make the 30-inch wheel the standard 1899 feature, naming Toledo makers Lozier, Kirk, Gendron, Toledo Metal Wheel and others and calling the story 'absolutely unwarranted and false,' warning that daily papers pushing such single-feature fads only cost the trade advertising revenue.
- American manufacturers were urged to employ sales representatives fluent in the languages of target export markets, with examples from European and Latin American trade showing that language barriers were costing American firms business that German and French competitors captured through their multilingual agents.
- Warned that the unusually large number of small local bicycle builders announcing expanded operations for 1899 based on modest earlier success were repeating the same errors as their predecessors, proceeding with new machinery and larger facilities before the major manufacturers had even announced their 1899 prices.
- Published a series of letters from W. W. Stall, secretary of the National Wood Rim Association, defending the organization's grading rules against criticism, explaining why only elm and maple rims were covered by official standards and not ash and hickory, and detailing the problem of weight adulteration in rock elm stock.
- Proponents of lever-driven chain transmission systems defended the design against critics who preferred the conventional circular sprocket, presenting test data on mechanical efficiency and component wear under sustained load.
- Argued that the roller skating revival offered cycle dealers a profitable sideline business, citing recollections from dealer James Wilson of the high margins earned by rink promoters during the earlier skating craze and noting the demand for repair shops that would accompany a renewed skating fashion.
- Described recent cycle patent grants including a sprocket attachment for multiplet bicycles designed by Conrad Clothier and Thomas Burrows of Philadelphia, an improved saddle pommel, and the editors' assessment that several recently granted patents were based on fallacious mechanical principles.
- Described Stanley's 400-pound steam wagon from Newton, Massachusetts and the Mason automotor, both of which addressed the challenges of lightweight boiler construction for steam-powered road vehicles, noting that Stanley declined to reveal details of his highly successful condensing arrangement.
- Duryea Mfg. Co. of Peoria showed its 1899 gasoline motor trap, a three-wheeled, 700-pound carriage with a six-horsepower triple-cylinder motor carrying four passengers, featuring storm curtains, electric lights, heated foot mats, and a single central control lever operable from either side of the vehicle.
- Argued that motor delivery wagons were displacing horse-drawn ones, citing a Chicago electric-wagon driver of seven years' experience who reported doubled delivery capacity and no accidents in six months, cost comparisons of about $18 a month to board a horse versus $160 a year to run a motor vehicle, and adoption by B. Altman & Co. of New York and Chicago's The Hub clothing house.
- Madison Square Garden manager Sanger announced a combined bicycle-and-automobile exhibition for Jan. 21-28, 1899, proceeding without National Board of Trade sanction, with Sanger predicting the automobile displays, informed by his recent visit to the Paris auto show, would be a major draw.
- Described the Sylvan bicycle designed by D. T. Demarest of Alexandria, Virginia, whose frame and forks were built almost entirely from wood in a design where a single wood blank was shaped into the complete frame structure using the manufacturer's patented jointing method.
- S. G. Barker & Son of Scranton, Pa. announced it would stop manufacturing bicycles after two years in the business, citing rising demand for its other product lines and its need for the factory space the cycle department had occupied.
- A follow-up report on the October 19 fire at Indiana Chain Co.'s Indianapolis plant revealed the damage was worse than first announced, destroying about one-third of the plant, though the firm said adjustments were complete, new machinery ordered, and normal operation would resume within about a week.
- A roundup of trade items including E. C. Palmer's death at Standard Tool Co. of Cleveland, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.'s purchase of the Akron Woolen and Felt Co. plant to produce 100,000 pairs of tires for jobbers next season, and inventor Thomas J. Lindsay's suit against Justus Goebel of Cincinnati for $1,400 in unpaid salary tied to the Lindsay-geared bicycle.
- Surveyed the rapid rise of the acetylene bicycle-lamp trade, with carbide now mass-produced using power drawn from Niagara Falls and upward of a hundred lamp patterns on the market, illustrated by a tour of Badger Brass Mfg. Co.'s Kenosha, Wis. plant, maker of the Solar lamp, detailing its two-story factory, carbide storage tanks, and manufacturing processes.
- Twentieth Century Mfg. Co. of New York, founded in 1895 as the Belts Patent Headlight Co., sent representative F. E. Castle to show jobbers its new acetylene gas headlight ahead of a December delivery, alongside an updated, lower-profile 1899 kerosene headlight, building on the brand recognition won by its earlier six-color advertising campaigns and touring 'Twentieth Century girls.'
- U.S. Consul Halstead of Birmingham reported that English seamless-tube makers, combined as the Federal Steel Company trust, had raised tube prices about 40 percent and were using cable offers to hold off American buyers who had traveled to England to secure next season's tubing supply.
- Reported Chairman Mott's suspension of racing manager Thomas Eck and reviewed recent racing circuit developments including Sunday meets, the average attendance of 5,500 at racing events, and proposals from the riders' union for a grand circuit of fifteen weeks for the following season with standardized point counting.
- French stayer Constant Huret, paced by three petroleum-motor tandems fitted with wind shields at the Parc des Princes track in Paris, smashes the world one-hour record (52 km 333m, extending it to a two-hour mark of 104 km 767m) and, days later, the 100-mile record in 3:11:01 4-5, beating England's Gould by thirteen minutes.
- The Illinois Supreme Court upholds a permanent injunction won by ex-Judge Lorin C. Collins and 373 other Chicago taxpayers against the city's vehicle license ordinance, which charged $1 per bicycle and more for horse-drawn vehicles, ruling the city council had no legal power to levy such a tax.