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.
GRIPS.
In grips, the corkaline composition still holds place as against the grip of actual cork in sections, and the composition tip, in colors to suit, retains place as against the metal tip. A new thing is a thin wood shell, covered with a narrow strip of leather, wound on spirally, and tipped in the usual manner. There is no apparent objection to this, unless it becomes unpleasant under perspiration from the hand. Spring grips can still be had, but do not seem to take. Rubber grips, having a slot along their length so as to be capable of opening, and similar to the clasps to be put on the top bar as buffers when the grip whirls about and bumps it, are made for the centre or other part of the bar, and can be shifted at pleasure. A very neat grip for this purpose is made of celluloid, slotted along part of its length, after the manner of a barrel, with thin openings between its staves, the object of the slotting being to allow some elasticity. The Rambler fits on one style of bar a grip of “unbreakable fibre,” made detachable on one side only, the other grip being cemented on. By pulling out a soft rubber plug from the end of the bar a tapered screw can be reached; this screw presses outwardly on three triangular flaps made by partly sawing through the bar in three cuts, and thus holds the grip by expansion.
The expansion principle is similarly applied to seat-posts, the L-top being also in some cases made to take out and reverse, for either forward or backward position, and in others being made to slide through the end of the stem of the post, where it can be locked at any point. One of the most peculiar adjusting posts is the Watson; the L-top of this is hinged to the lower part, which lower part is split in half and tapered. A tap of the hand underneath the saddle releases the “bite” of the tapered halves against the tube, and the saddle can be withdrawn; on replacing the saddle, a downward push slides the tapered halves outward again, gripping the tube on the inside by expansion.
EVOLUTION OF THE BRAKE.
The earliest form of brake was probably applied to the back wheel, and consisted of either a “spoon” or a roller, to be drawn against the tire and operated by a cord running back from the handlebar, which was in such cases not fixed in the head lugs, but capable of being rotated to wind up the cord. Other forms, semi-automatic in operation, soon followed. In one, two short arms carrying a roller between them were pivoted on the back fork just above the wheel axle; this brake was brought into contact with the tire by drawing upward with a cord, and in case the cord broke the brake dropped down by its own weight, and as the arms bearing the roller were shorter than the radius of the back wheel, the forward movement of the wheel immediately drew the roller into wedging contact with the tire, and the wheel dragged, thus producing maximum efficiency.