STERLING HUB.
The Raleigh cycle, an English production, and which came into prominence in this country because it was Arthur Zimmerman’s great mount, had wheels in which two-thirds of the spokes were direct from hub to rim, and the remaining third were crossed at a tangent. It was, however, a sort of a compromise between the direct and tangent spokes, and ultimately led the makers to use tangent spokes only.
THE WOOD WHEEL.
A number of attempts were made a few years ago to introduce hickory wheels in place of the wire suspension wheels, among the most notable being a bicycle built by Sterling Elliott, and called the “Hickory.” The frame was built of tubing as was usual, but the wheels—hubs, spokes and rims—were made of hickory, the spokes being known as radial spokes. In order to maintain its rigidness and to carry the pneumatic tire the rim was surrounded by a metallic band in which the tire was placed. The public did not take to this style of bicycle wheel, and their manufacture was discontinued, not however before Mr. Elliott placed a pair of these ball bearing hickory wheels with pneumatic tires on a high wheel sulky, which had been converted to carry these wheels. The result was astonishing, and today no other wheels are used on sulkies but 28 and 30-inch bicycle wheels with ball bearings and pneumatic tires, and the result of their use had been that the times of the trotting horses have been reduced six to ten seconds per mile. Of course the present type of sulky is built specially with arched axles and frames to carry these wheels, and the old high wooden wheel is as rarely seen on the trotting track as the good old “[ordinary]” is seen on the bicycle track.
WOLFF-AMERICAN HUB.
Hubs using a spoke having a hooked end with a rivet head on the end thereof, which are drawn through the holes in the flanges of the hubs are not as popular as formerly, a great many of the makers having departed from this method, now using a spoke which is straight from the hub to the nipple. They claim for this method that the absence of the bend in the spoke minimizes the liability of crystallization which is so apt to exist in spokes of the bent variety. This style of direct tangent spoke was first shown in this country in 1892 by the makers of the Liberty, and among the most prominent users of this style of hub are the makers of the Spalding, Victor, Crawford and the Iroquois, and which are almost duplicates of the [Liberty hub]. The [Keating] differs somewhat from these, inasmuch as the projections from the sides of the flanges are not opposite each other, but are placed alternatively to receive a single spoke. The [Liberty hub] may be best described as follows: It is a one-piece hub, with lateral projections from the sides, or flanges, and these projections are drilled to carry the heads of two straight spokes, each spoke running in a straight line to the opposite side of the rim. The usual style of hub has a plain circular flange with holes drilled in it to receive the spokes; this makes it necessary to bend the spokes at a right angle at the end, where they are inserted over the face of the hub. This sometimes rendered them liable to break, and, therefore, what is known as the direct tangent spoke was invented.