The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 22, No 75
Articles in this issue
- Report on a legal action brought against the M&W company alleging it made false and damaging statements about a competitor.
- Alarm from Philadelphia dealers unable to find enough skilled bicycle mechanics to meet peak-season repair demand.
- Report on unexpectedly high consumer interest in factory-produced tandem bicycles built for two riders.
- Breaking news that R.L. Coleman has withdrawn his factory option from the Spalding bicycle combine negotiations.
- Report on English bicycles being detained at customs or in storage, disrupting the supply of imported machines to American dealers.
- Correspondence from Iowa dealers reporting a strong opening to the spring bicycle selling season.
- Advice on effective showroom layout and merchandising techniques for bicycle dealers.
- Workshop tips covering how to restore tarnished nickel plate by buffing, the unpopularity of tied spokes among mechanics, and an ingenious method for drawing temper from metal parts during repair.
- Technical discussion of how front and rear wheel diameter proportions affect bicycle handling and performance.
- Detailed schedule of standardized bicycle repair charges agreed upon by the Philadelphia dealers' association.
- Report on the growing influence of American bicycle design on English manufacturers, shown in Rover's adoption of narrower treads and half-inch chain, alongside notes on the extent of New Zealand's cycle trade.
- Text of Attorney General Griggs's letter clarifying the limits of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, explaining that manufacturing combinations not involving interstate commerce fall outside federal jurisdiction.
- Comparative repair price schedules from Massachusetts, Oregon, California, and Texas, showing wide regional variation in charges for frame work, tire repairs, nickel plating, and general overhaul.
- Description of an early two-wheeled motor vehicle design, an ancestor of the modern motorcycle.
- Account of French engineers testing alcohol-fuelled motors as alternatives to gasoline engines, including results of a race organised by Le Velo, with discussion of heavy French taxation on alcohol as the chief obstacle to adoption.
- Wheelmen in twenty-one New York counties move to form side-path commissions under the new Ellsworth bill while Pennsylvania pushes similar work under the Parshall bill; Connecticut cyclists oppose a compulsory-lamp bill; and Michigan wheelmen react angrily to a state supreme court ruling (Leslie v. City of Grand Rapids) holding that municipalities owe no duty to keep roads safe for bicyclists.
- At Sydney's closing electric-light meet of the season, Walne defeats both Jackson and Megson in a triangular match series to claim the Australian middle-distance championship, while McDonald beats A. C. Forbes in a run-off for the Orient plate.
- Boston's '99 Meet Club unveils an ambitious program for the L.A.W.'s National Meet built around a three-event, points-scored series (a fifteen-mile paced race, a five-mile pursuit, and a one-mile sprint) to crown the best all-around rider, backed by roughly $15,000 in prizes, alongside century runs, tours, and a mammoth bicycle parade.
- Professional racers training at Louisville's Fountain Ferry Park under Tom Eck — including McFarland, Stevens, Cooper, Kimble, and Kiser — pile on layers of training clothes to sweat off pounds ahead of the season, with Kimble down twenty pounds to 163, before the whole party heads to Washington in May to join Bald, Zimmerman, and Fournier.
- The compromise good-roads bill, having passed the Pennsylvania senate, is voted down 78 to 71 in the house after farmers help block it, leaving the state under its inadequate road system for at least two more years since the legislature meets only biennially; Williamsport wheelmen prepare to be first to use the state's newly passed side-path law instead.
- French and English middle-distance champions Bouhours and Walters, riding as teammates behind eight electric pacing tandems at the Parc des Princes track in Paris, overtake Champion and Digeon after two pacing-machine mishaps to win the fifty-kilometer paced tandem race by 1,000 meters over the Fossier brothers.
- The National Cycling Association, organized to run races in competition with the L.A.W., is incorporated in Trenton, New Jersey with $2,000 in capital by Charles P. Blomecke, Nate Salisbury, Frederick B. House, John D. Lasley, and Amos Batchelder.
- A state-by-state roundup of dealer and repair-shop news from around the country, opening with J. A. Bell & Co.'s new repair shop in Huntsville, Alabama.
- A. G. Spalding & Bros. plans a $250,000, 700-acre manufacturing complex at West Harvey, near Chicago, to consolidate its scattered bicycle and sporting-goods factories from New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts into one site; saddle maker H. A. Christy & Co. of Jackson, Mich. has already begun shipping equipment there ahead of a rumored bicycle-trade consolidation.