EXTREME TYPE OF 1898 MODEL COMBINING ALL LATE FEATURES.
CHAPTER II.
THE CHAINLESS WHEEL.
“Sans Chaine sans Gêne,” literally “without Chains without Care,” or even “Chainless and Careless,” is the happy motto chosen by an English maker of chainless bicycles; some thirty American makers are offering or promising to offer a chainless bicycle of some kind this year, although whether they will all realize the declaration of the motto time alone will show.
There are a number of methods for transmitting power from the crank axle of a bicycle to the driven wheel—possible theoretically, but the number practically available is very small. The possession of the field by the chain is now contested, mainly by the bevel-gear or its equivalent; the chain has the field, but changes are sometimes so rapid that this fact alone will not effectually bar out a really better driving method. The elements of bevel-gear construction will readily be seen from the cuts following. The usual front sprocket has teeth, which mesh into a pinion on a shaft that carries power to the wheel through a pair of pinions at the rear.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE BEVEL-GEAR CHAINLESS.
In April, 1885, a patent for the application of bevel-gears to the bicycle was taken out. Before 1897 more than one hundred such patents had been issued in the United States and England, in addition to those granted in France and Germany, and there had been much experimental construction, in which the difficulty and expense of gear cutting was great, and the springy frames and inaccurate workmanship almost invariably encountered were additional sources of trouble.