THE WOOD BAR.
DETACHABLE
REAR BRAKE.
The wood bar is still in market. Louis Rastetter & Son of Fort Wayne make as their specialty a ferrule of steel tubing shrunk on the bar at the centre, the fastening being by a screw in a U-shaped clamp. The Wood Manufacturing Company of Toledo offer the La Fave bar, adjustable by means of serrations on one edge of the slip on the stem, the serrations engaging a fixed pin and fastened by a lock-nut. Yet the wood bar shows no distinct progress in use, and makers do not as generally as in 1897 include it among their options. It is not so easily marred as the steel bar; it is less disagreeable to the touch in cold weather, and it undeniably has the power of considerably absorbing vibration. Yet the last-named service is largely lost by the habit of not keeping the hands on the grips, and thus losing the leverage of the full length of the bar; even the writer, who still cleaves to the wood, has fallen, with the rest, into the habit of never touching the grips. Probably this very quality of springiness, which gives the wood its distinctive value, gives riders an unfounded suspicion of weakness in the wood bar, especially if of fashionable length and if held by its ends; thus held, it springs in a degree which possibly impairs certainty of steering control and makes it unfit for a heavy pull for driving power. Hence it must be admitted ill-suited for such pull; yet this should not be counted against the wood bar under ordinary road service, where the use of a bar is really rather more for its share in supporting the body than for actual pull. Justly or unjustly, however, the wood bar seems at present likely to go out.
STEWART ROLLER BRAKE.
Internal fastenings, usually on the principle of slightly expanding the stem of the bar, which is sawn open a short distance for the purpose, are much in vogue. The Ideal Plating Company of Boston has one which by one operation tightens the stem in its place and also tightens upon the bar itself the split ring which holds it. The Wolff-American has a peculiar one which works in connection with a slot to keep the bar in proper line and a serrated edge on the adjusting cone to hold the head adjustment. Others work on the expansion principle, sometimes by turning a nut under the fork crown, sometimes by a nut on top of the bar itself; others by a nut on top of the head; the tendency is thus quite general to do away with the split lug and pinch-bolt, and there can be no practical difficulty in so doing if the devices are constructed in a mechanical manner in detail.