TINKHAM CARRIER.
CHAPTER XVII.
MOTOR VEHICLES.
To conclude this series of articles without reference to the long-continued efforts of inventors to create a successful [motor bicycle] would be to omit what will doubtless prove a most interesting chapter to many readers. Public interest is keen not only in the direction of motor power as applied to the cycle and multicycle, but to all other styles of vehicles used for pleasure, convenience or commercial purposes. The present chapter will therefore treat of the motor as applied to all vehicles—the bicycle, the tricycle, and the heavier structures now worked by horse-power.
EVOLUTION OF THE MOTOR VEHICLE.
The term “motor cycle” must finally become broad enough to be motor vehicle, and in five possible forms—the bicycle, single or tandem; the [tricycle], single or double; the four-wheeled carriage, with seats for two, four, or six; the cab or ’bus for public hire; the truck for hauling loads.
The first form cannot be thought likely to assume importance, for notwithstanding the fact that to the practiced and regular rider the bicycle becomes so far like the lower part of the centaur that steering is almost unconscious and the balancing a matter of instinctive bodily sway, it is also true that the constant call for equipoise does somewhat “take it out of” the system, even if the demand is not thought of. To state it in another way, it must be admitted that, if various resistances were not greater on the tricycle and if one could put aside all “feeling” and could regard only physical comfort according to that supposition, the three-tracker would fatigue less. Of course, the supposition can never be real, and as the bicycle must remain the easiest to drive it will hold its place as the vehicle for self-propulsion; but when the question comes up as to the vehicle to supply its own power and to ride upon, not to drive by one’s muscles, its stability, comfort in sitting, strength, and luggage-carrying capacity, will give the tricycle overwhelming advantages, since light weight will cease to be of consequence.
The motor-driven pleasure carriage and the passenger vehicle for hire will come together; indeed, they are already here. The postal van and the delivery wagon for light goods are running in London and Paris. The heavy truck for conveying general merchandise and doing general “carting” is not yet distinctly in sight, but its coming seems to be manifest destiny.
The accompanying illustration of a [bicycle with gasoline motor], from the exhibit of a Coventry firm at the Stanley Show of 1896, is interesting as a stone on the path of development rather than a permanent type. The lengthened wheel base suggests the desirability of the tricycle form, and the level gear from the pedals shows that they are intended only as auxiliary for starting; the same appears in the tricycle shown, which was also very long and was level geared. The cut of a tricycle of present shape and having a gasoline motor is also given because this is now advertised as a market article, by the same firm, but the bicycle has probably dropped out.