The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 24, No 108
Articles in this issue
- Buffalo's American Bicycle Company branch stores were assigned specific lines for 1900, with independent dealers uncertain about their own arrangements, while the advance-payment passbook system for retailing bicycles attracted renewed interest after successful trials the previous spring.
- Bicycle dealers across New Mexico territory were buying stock more liberally than in past seasons, helped by year-round riding conditions and freight costs that naturally limited the market to better-quality machines priced at $30 or more.
- The American Bicycle Company was preparing a formal notice asserting ownership of the Smith-Owen bottom bracket patent and warning non-licensees, while its representatives had already visited many independent makers proposing a one-dollar-per-bracket royalty.
- The Liberty Cycle Co. made an assignment after failing to obtain materials needed for manufacture in time, with president John Holden stating the company would likely reorganize and insisting the A.B.C. trust had actually benefited independent makers.
- St. Paul and Minneapolis bicycle jobbers were taking a more conservative approach for 1900, many dropping to a single line rather than several, focusing on well-known brands with reliable profit margins rather than expanding their ranges.
- Fred Patee of Peoria was weighing offers from St. Louis, East St. Louis, and Beaver Falls to relocate the Patee Bicycle Co. factory, though he had not yet decided to leave Peoria and found street sprinkling practices in the competing cities a significant deterrent.
- Small-scale bicycle assemblers in Sydney were struggling against imported machines while their counterparts in Melbourne were thriving, with five locally built bicycles sold for every imported one, and Sydney dealers attracting customers with generous trade-in allowances worth up to fifty pounds on old machines.
- The editors discussed pending legislation before Congress, including a bill to create a Department of Commerce and Industries to extend foreign markets for American manufactures, arguing that the bicycle and related trades had the most to gain from an improved consular service.
- Several bicycle repairmen who had built custom machines the previous season as trade advertisements reported such satisfying results that they were committing to full-scale assembling operations for 1900, driven by the ability to tailor specifications and pricing to each customer's requirements.
- Brief trade notes reported James Duckworth building a motor wagon, a 300-bicycle Pacific coast shipment by the Stearns A.B.C. branch, Julius Andrae and Sons doubling its workforce, the Warwick Cycle Company paying 12.5 percent to creditors, and the incorporation of the American Auto-Cycle Co.
- A detailed account of automatic machine shop operations revealed that over four hundred automatic lathes running almost unattended were the invisible foundation of the American bicycle industry, producing millions of hub cones, cups, and small parts at prices no other country could match.
- A survey of the Stanley and National cycle shows in London found that while free-wheel mechanisms were exhibited in large numbers, there was a notable absence of truly new inventions, and the standard of workmanship showed little advancement over previous years.
- Workshop tips covered the correct method of hardening large standard pipe taps using an oil quench rather than water, together with guidance on adjusting a drill's cutting-edge geometry for use in brass and other soft metals without the gouging that resulted from standard angles.
- A recently introduced Bricknell auxiliary hand-gear exhibited at the English cycle shows was described, along with a German combination pedal and clip device, both representing rare attempts at novel propulsion or anchorage mechanisms in an otherwise uneventful show season.
- Trials at Aubervilliers spotlighted the Minerva company's motor, which achieved cooling inside and outside the cylinder through an innovative water-jacket system, while the announcement that the Starkweather company was entering the automobile field was also noted.
- A visit to the Eclipse Bicycle Co. plant in Elmira revealed that production of the Morrow coaster brake had reached an extraordinary scale despite it being only the first season the device was commercially available, with adoption levels in new bicycle specifications exceeding even optimistic trade expectations.
- The threatened imposition of a uniform charge for carrying bicycles on eastern passenger trains was defeated when the trunk lines between Pittsburgh and New York voted against the proposal, ensuring cyclists could continue travelling with their machines free of charge.
- The 142-hour six-day team race at Madison Square Garden ended with Miller and Waller victorious after accidents eliminated leading rivals Eaton and Walthour, with 10,000 spectators at the finish and full details of the scoring through each day of the event.
- Bicycle path development in Portland, Oregon and Tacoma, Washington was described in detail, showing how cyclists voluntarily taxed themselves to build and maintain miles of dedicated side paths connecting cities to popular outlying destinations.