The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 24, No 127
Articles in this issue
- German bicycle trade journals were conducting a vigorous campaign against American machines, with legitimate grievances about low-quality mail-order bicycles exported from the U.S. damaging the reputation of all American manufacturers, while German makers admitted they feared American factories could undersell them on equal-quality machines.
- The A.B.C. abruptly shut down the Buffalo Cycle Mfg. Co. plant, formally dismissing its two local managers without warning or prior notice, in what was alleged to be a breach of a verbal promise made to one of them when the plant was originally sold to the trust.
- Retail bicycle dealers across the country reported the most encouraging trade in years as the 1900 season opened, with Troy, New York dealers staging a joint exhibition of nearly 200 machines and communities from Winona, Minnesota to Massachusetts reporting strong business and new shop openings.
- A survey of smaller New York State towns found that spring 1900 buyers were choosing light road bicycles priced at $35 to $50 rather than heavier machines, with strong trade-in activity in old mounts and a parallel boom in tire sales both new and second-hand.
- Waltham Manufacturing Co. announced plans to open a new automobile accessories depot in Cambridge, Massachusetts to supply and service the Aster motors it held the exclusive American agency for, extending its Orient bicycle and motor-cycle business into the rapidly growing automobile accessories trade.
- Bicycle repairers in Utica, New York described how organizing to maintain uniform repair prices had proved far more profitable than competitive price-cutting, which had brought no increase in the volume of work while steadily reducing earnings, a lesson they urged repairers in other cities to learn.
- Two recent bottom bracket inventions were analyzed as attempts to circumvent the Smith-Owen patent valued by the A.B.C. at $1.25 million, including a novel Eagle Bicycle Co. design using cap screws in place of the patented tube connection and a second independent approach achieving the same engineering goal by different means.
- Edouard Taylor set a new world hour record of 36 miles 1695 yards in a paced race at the Prince track in Paris, defeating Bouhours and wiping out the previous mark, though Taylor was himself later beaten by American Harry Elkes in a return paced match race reported the same week.