Pictures of Rochester and Monroe County, NY

Peerless Bicycle

Rochester Cycle Manufacturing Company started manufacturing the "Peerless" bicycle (pictured above) in 1891. A detailed description of the company was found in the book, Illustrated History of the Rochester Trades Assembly and the Building Trades, dated 1897 (below.

An announcement in the Feb. 20, 1901 issue of The Horseless Age said that the company was starting to make a "light steam carriage." Only about 20 of the steam autos were built and the company was in court on Oct. 11, 1901 for a voluntary dissolution.

Illustrated History of the Rochester Trades Assembly and the Building Trades

The first company organized to manufacture bicycles in Rochester was the Rochester Cycle Manufacturing Company, incorporated in 1889. The incorporators were W. W. Kenfield, F. F. Wells, and H. K. White. It was started with a capital stock of $20,000, which has been increased from time to time since. The company occupies a large six-story building on Exchange street, near the centre of the city, with about 50,000 square feet of floor surface. It has found a market for the most of its wheels at home, sufficient to take up its output from year to year, and has not made much of an effort to extend the trade until the last few years, when it has, with greater producing facilities, been able to build wheels for more than local demands. The company now has an annual output of 15,000 wheels a year.

Automatic machinery, in the sense of gangs of machines which require the attention of but one man, is not used. Each machine requires the constant attendance of a machinist, the aim being not to see how much work can he produced, but rather to produce good work.

The top floor of the factory is occupied by the nickelling room and buffing and polishing rooms. All the nickelling is done on a heavy deposit of copper. Each frame is carefully buffed and polished both before and after the operation.

The brassing room, filing and tube cutting, enamelling and striping rooms occupy the next floor. The frames are carefully washed in a solution of acid, to remove all grease and foreign substances before going to the enamelling room. Here they are dipped in large tanks of enamelling fluid, ensuring a full, even coat of enamel, and are then hung up to drip. Five coats of enamel are given, each being finished off by hand and baked before another is applied. In one corner of this floor is the striping room, tightly enclosed, to permit of as little dust getting in as possible, where all the striping is done by hand. The same precautions are observed in the enamelling room in regard to dust; the utmost care is used, and the result is that the frames come out with a clean, smooth coat of enamel, with not a speck or mark to mar it. The assembling room ad the stock room occupy the floor below. One piece of machinery of interest in the assembling room is the machine for truing rims, by which one man does the work which formerly took six. A number of iron arms, which are movable, project from a shaft in the centre. These are all of the same length, and, fitting on the inside of the rim, are tightened and hold it rigid in a perfect circle. A man with an automatic screw-driver then goes around the periphery of the rim, tightening up each spoke as far as it will go. About 75 per cent of the wheels coming from this machine are then ready for use, the remaining 25 per cent. having to be further adjusted by hand

In the stock room is kept both the rough and finished parts for the wheel. Everything is received here, and when the foreman of a department needs material he has to make a requisition on the stock­keeper. He is charged with it when he receives it, and when the finished parts are returned he is credited. Thus accurate tally is kept on everything that is used, and waste is reduced to a minimum.

The machine room is on the next floor below. It presents an almost bewildering array of belts and machines, each with an experienced machinist in charge. The two largest machines in this room are those for cutting the teeth on the sprocket and the lathe for turning out the hub. The sprocket machine weighs something over four tons and cuts the teeth on a twenty-four-tooth sprocket in a fraction of a minute. The milling machine to mill out the teeth of the sprockets takes twenty large sprockets or ninety small ones at one operation. The hubs are turned out of the solid bar steel, being formed ready for finishing at one operation. Forty-five hubs are turned out in an hour. Oil in enormous quantities is used in all the operations and, becoming mixed with the steel chips from the different operations, has always been a source of annoyance. At first the steel chips were sold with the oil clinging to them, but a machine is now used to separate it. A mass of chips is put in a large receptacle, which revolves on a pivot at a high speed, an the oil is separated from the steel by centrifugal action, the steel coming out almost dry. By this method several hundred dollars are saved yearly.

The next floor is occupied with the sale-rooms and offices, while on the floor beneath is the shipping room and the room where the stock of steel in bar is kept. For shipping to points in the United States the wheels are crated in the ordinary manner. For foreign shipment much greater care is exercised. All the nickeled parts are heavily coated with vaseline as a rust preventive and then wrapped.

It is needless to add that the president of this company, Mr. W. W. Kenfield, and the secretary and treasurer, Mr. A. E. Benjamin, are men of wide experience, both local and abroad, They have, by their careful attention to every detail of the business, placed the Rochester Cycle in the front rank of leading high grade wheels. They employ a large number of skilled mechanics, and the firm is one of the most enterprising of our many commercial industries.

The wheel turned out by this enterprising company has a world-wide reputation for being a high grade wheel, while the workmanship and material used therein cannot be excelled by any similar institution in the country. Rochester is proud of this Cycle Company, and it is to be regretted that we have not more such enterprising institutions.