The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 25, No 138
Articles in this issue
- The American Bicycle Company reversed its earlier closure order for the Grand Rapids Clipper factory, directing it to assemble 5,000 more machines from finished parts on hand, while reports circulated that Clipper manufacture might eventually be moved to Chicago and that Frank Fowler was inspecting the plant for his own bicycle venture.
- The Iven-Brandenburg Co. bicycle fittings house reorganized as Brandenburg Bros. & Wallace, retaining major lines including the Thor parts and Morse-Keefer spokes while adding new automobile and carriage materials to its range.
- Despite generous relocation offers from Aurora, North Chicago, La Crosse, and other cities, the stockholders of the fire-damaged Wisconsin Wheel Works voted to rebuild on their existing Racine site, with new construction already underway and an August 15 delivery target set.
- Julius Andrae & Sons Co. of Milwaukee, with liabilities of $106,000 against assets of $125,000, called a creditors' meeting and placed its business in their hands, citing years of losses and exhaustion of personal capital, with principal creditors including the Milwaukee National Bank expressing confidence in the firm's integrity and agreeing to continue banking arrangements.
- Dealers from Scranton, Pennsylvania and other cities reported that bicycle sales had fallen somewhat in 1900 but with more cash transactions and less trading of old machines, with Scranton's Bittenbender & Co. finding particular success manufacturing its own Scranton brand of 800 machines rather than handling trust lines.
- Brief trade news from across the country, including Martin Nelson's retirement from the cycle business in Dwight, Illinois; R.L. Francis opening a bicycle repair shop and livery in Marquette, Michigan; and the Minneapolis Cycle Trade Association's upcoming meeting.
- A new Akron company was being incorporated to manufacture Kelley vehicle and bicycle tires for the Consolidated Rubber Co. in a purpose-built factory, with S.S. Miller installed as manager and the arrangement ending earlier plans for Consolidated to construct its own manufacturing facility.
- The paper argued that bicycle industry terminology had grown haphazardly — like Topsy it 'jest growed up' — with mechanical parts inconsistently and inaccurately named across the trade, and called for greater precision in applying established mechanical terms to bicycle components.
- The weekly patent column examined new bicycle inventions including a handle bar binder that locked parts through positional change rather than screw-thread action, and a wooden rim design with adjacent annular strips of opposing grain held together by interlocking tongues and grooves with overlapping nipple washers.
- A travel feature described the hundred-plus miles of fine cycle paths around Minneapolis and St. Paul, tracing their history from early wheelmen's agitation through the city council ordinance licensing cyclists to fund path maintenance, and encouraging touring cyclists to plan a vacation in the Twin Cities.
- An old-time New York cycle dealer wrote enthusiastically recommending the George N. Pierce Co.'s new cushion-frame chainless bicycle after a thorough personal trial, calling it his most comfortable riding experience and praising the responsiveness and refinement of its design.
- An editorial drew on the adage that 'you can't fill a bucket with one stroke of the pump handle' to argue against businessmen who place a single small advertisement and then wait passively for results, maintaining that consistent, sustained advertising was the only way to build lasting customer relationships and real trade value.
- The sport section opened with a discussion of automobilists joining Chicago wheelmen in fighting excessive street sprinkling, then covered racing at Vailsburg and Paterson including Kramer's defeat of McFarland and Stevens's mile-open victory, with plans for Sunday racing at Guttenburg beginning July 15.
- Sunday professional bicycle racing was expanding rapidly around New York, with successful events at Paterson and Vailsburg drawing large crowds and new tracks at Guttenburg about to inaugurate Sunday meetings, as promoters in New Jersey and New York recognized the commercial potential of weekend racing.
- Before fifteen thousand spectators at the Grand Prix de Paris, French champion Jacquelin defeated Mourot in an almost dead heat to claim the title, while American Harry Elkes provided the crowd's most dramatic moment by holding off his tandem pacers for four laps after being lapped three times in the hour race.