Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1895-10-04
MILLIONS IN WHEELS.
bicycling IL Much More Than q
Passing Fad.
Estimates on tho Amount of Money EN-
ployed In Their Manufacture In
This Country-Great Army
of Workmen.

People who call bicycling passing
fad have probably never stopped to
consider what an enormous amount
OF capital is employed in the business
of making wheels In this country.
and probably have no idea OF the
number Of people dependent upon
the business, says the Chicago Her
aid. The figures are astonishing.
There are in the country to-day
about 100 good-sized bicycle manu.
factories. II all the smaller concerns
were counted In, concerns that turn
out from 80 to 200 bicycles year,
the number would be swelled to
about 300. The number of bicycles
these 300 factories will produce this
year will not be less than 500, 900.
At an average cost of $75 each to
the buyer this means that $37, $780,
900 will bespent in this country this
year for bicycles, providing. Of
course, the entire product is sold.
But there is little doubt Of that.
Go to bicycle store and try to buy
high-grade wheel. They will take
your order and tell you they will de-
liver the wheel in a couple of weeks.
More good wheels have been sold this
season than have been made, and it
is doubtful If some of the mapufac-
turers catch,up before the snow flies.
But the $37, 500, 900 do not cover
the entire expenditures in the bicy-
Gle way of the people of the country.
There are costumes-bloomer and
such = lamps, cytlometers, patent
mudguards aud patent this-that-
and-the-other kind Of apparatus that
will swell the sum to $50, 900, 900.
Where does all this vast sum of
money go? Well, in the first place,
some of the manufacturers who,
few years ago, were poor men, are
now immensely wealthy. But there
can be nothing, unusual or particu-
larly undesirable in that; they built
up the business from nothing and
have furnished the public with one
of the greatest sources of enjoyment
ever known. Some of the rest of the
money, after the manufacturers have
had their bit, goes for material and
the balance to the army OF working
men, women, boys and girls, whose
labor turns the raw steel, rubber,
wood and leather into the finished
product.
How many are In that army2 The
number can only be estimated In a
Chicago factory that turns out 3d.
900 bicycles a year, 800 people,
mostly full grown men, are employed
That would be an average of 375
bicycles to each employee. If there
are 500, 600 machines to be made and
each employee makes thirty-seven
and one-half machines, there would
have to be, therefore, 13, 3333 en-
ployes. But as there can't very
we'll be.a third of an employee it may
be well to drop the fraction, call the
number even 1888, and let one of
them work a little overtime
That estimate, however, includes
only the people employed in the
actual or exclusively bicycle fac
tories. 1t takes no account of the
workmen employed in machine shops
making bicycle parts" which are
sent to the bicycle factories and
handled by the employees there only
as tie bicycles are put together.
The Chicago factory mentioned
above does not manufacture more
than one-half the parts of its own
machine That fact of course makes
Il necessary to double the 10, 1913 to
find the number of people in the
bicycle army, which gives 26,666,
and still not including the country
agents and their statesmen and help
ers, who surely swell the total to
3d. Next year enough more
money will be invested, factories
started, people employed and wheels
made to increase by half all the esti-
mates above given.
A party of Lexington Ky.) pic