GENERAL IMPROVEMENT IN BEARINGS.
Yet it should be said that there is betterment in bearings generally—in accuracy and temper of balls, in fitting and grinding of cones and cups, and also in the means of adjustment. But excellence in details may also have some effect to conceal errors in plan, and it should be clearly noted that easy spinning of a bearing may even mislead. The parts being hard and smooth, and oil being present also, the balls will get around with slight resistance, whether rolling or sliding; but the test comes only under load, especially under the heavy strains which tend to cross-twist frames. The two-point bearing, provided it is really designed and made in the best manner as such—and the proviso means a good deal—will work satisfactorily; the three-point also can be so designed and made as to allow rolling of the balls, although it is less facile and manageable than the others; the four-point is the best theoretically and seems easiest to construct. The “corner” pattern we have felt obliged to condemn will “go” after a fashion, as above admitted; but bicycle evolution is toward uniformity and simplicity, and as it has been proved just as economical to construct right as to construct wrong, after the preparations are once made, there ought to be positive insistence on one thing always, and that thing “the best.”
“THREE-POINT” BEARING: COMMON FORM AT LEFT—
POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENT AT RIGHT.