The Cycle Age and Trade Review, Vol 25, No 140
Articles in this issue
- The 175 creditors of Julius Andrae & Sons Co. of Milwaukee nearly unanimously accepted a settlement of fifty cents on the dollar payable in three installments over four months, with the Milwaukee National Bank's George Strohmeyer appointed as treasurer to oversee the firm's assets and ensure orderly payment, and major creditors characterizing the firm's management as honest and meritorious.
- The American Bicycle Company announced the closure of the Sterling bicycle plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the twentieth trust factory to shut down, throwing approximately 200 workers out of employment and shipping machinery to the Western Wheel Works in Chicago — a factory the city had helped lure from Chicago only a few years earlier.
- Negotiations between Frank Fowler and the Grand Rapids Board of Trade collapsed when local businessmen declined to subscribe $50,000 for half the capital stock of a proposed new independent bicycle company, counter-offering only a few months' rent and relocation costs — terms the Chicago group rejected, while Muskegon separately approached Fowler with its own proposal.
- The Cleveland Cycle Board of Trade, after consulting a patent attorney, concluded that Edward Calkins' design patent on bicycle racks was so narrowly drawn that it did not cover most rack designs in common use, and voted to defend any local business sued by Calkins while awaiting the patent's early expiration.
- In the Manson Cycle Co. receivership case, the creditors' attorneys finally filed the required $25,000 bond and the court ordered the receiver to continue operations by making up and selling the bicycle stock on hand, while Manson's legal representatives consented to a continuance pending the bankruptcy hearing outcome.
- The editorial identified mail order houses as one of the most potent evils in the bicycle trade, arguing that their systematic price-cutting had directly depressed country retailers' profits and in some cases ruined manufacturers who had relied on maintaining consistent wholesale price structures to sustain the trade.
- Dealers from Rockford, Iowa and other Midwestern cities reported that bicycle trade in 1900 had been slightly lighter than 1899, while those who had diversified into jobbing sundries, assembling frames for independent labels, or taking on motor bicycle agency lines found their income supplemented through the slower summer weeks.
- Washington cyclists recently completed a one-and-a-half mile cycle path to the Great Falls of the Potomac at a total cost of $1,800, combining sturdy construction with outstanding scenic beauty through natural landscape, providing wheelmen with a new destination equal to the finest paths anywhere in the country.
- The paper described Burton C. Lund of Oakland, California's specially outfitted bicycle for a planned transcontinental trip along railroad tracks, featuring a simple outrigger attachment with a guiding wheel that ran in the rail groove alongside a folding trackside support standard for rest stops.
- A technical review of magnalium described the new aluminum alloy's combination of low weight and improved mechanical properties over pure aluminum, explaining how the metal was being produced and characterized and how its advance was reviving the trade interest in aluminum that had subsided after the bicycle industry standardized on steel.
- The patent column covered Fred B. Parks's curved plugging pliers for inserting single tube tire plugs, two independently-patented rear hub designs, a folding cycle support, and experiments measuring the energy cost of back-pedaling under different load conditions.
- The sport section discussed the imminent departure of Cooper, Stevens, and McFarland for Paris to compete in the world championship events, cautioning that the Americans might find European conditions and competition more difficult than they expected, and included results from recent meetings at Vailsburg.
- At a rain-delayed motor-paced match in Philadelphia, Jimmy Michael won the deciding third twenty-mile race against McFarland with the assistance of superior pacing arrangements, though the Californian nearly took the sprint finish in a close and tactical final lap despite being outpaced for most of the distance.
- Johnny Nelson confirmed his earlier victories over McEachern and Stinson by defeating both rivals again in a hard-fought twenty-mile paced race in Boston, setting fast times on a difficult track and demonstrating that his previous wins had been earned by genuine superiority rather than fortunate circumstances.