A New Yorker has invented a machine for ladies, which he has placed on exhibition at Pearsall Riding School. The pedals are applied to the rear wheels, and the small wheel in front is guided by a rod, passing back to the hand of the lady occupying the seat.
One or two of the novel tricycles, modeled upon new principles, have proved decided successes.
A gentleman of Ypsilanti, Mich., has invented one that he claims to have ridden from that place to Detroit, a distance of twenty-eight miles, in two hours and forty-eight minutes; and to have made a mile in Ypsilanti in two minutes and thirty seconds. The wheels of this machine are forty-two inches in diameter, and are propelled by means of a double hand crank, no treadles being used. On each side of the hub of the forward wheel, is a grooved pulley; and attached to the straight portion of the crank are two more pulleys, the four being connected by belts. At each revolution of the pulleys, the vehicle is propelled a distance of sixteen and a half feet; and when an ordinary rate of speed is attained, it runs quite easily. Its weight is forty-nine pounds, and the inventor claims that it will sustain two hundred pounds without danger of collapsing. It can be run on ordinary carriage roads, with comparative ease.
Samuel Marden of Newton Corner, Mass., has lately commenced the manufacture of a three-wheeled velocipede for which he obtained a patent in February, 1868. He calls his machine “a mechanical horse;” it is propelled by the weight of the rider, and by friction. It has neither treadles, cranks, or guiding arms. The rider rises in his stirrups as on a trotting horse. The saddle is so arranged that the pressure upon it revolves a gearing wheel, which acts upon a small one connected with the axle of the rear wheel; these wheels are thus made to turn very rapidly. It will be seen that this velocipede is constructed upon an entirely new principle. It is claimed that it can be driven upon the road, at the rate of from ten to fifteen miles an hour. This machine can be used by ladies, with a side-saddle arrangement. Its price is $125. Mr. Marden’s velocipede has been tested, and we think he has a fortune in his invention. He has more orders than he can fill, and is prepared to sell State, county, and town rights.
HEMMING’S UNICYCLE, OR “FLYING YANKEE VELOCIPEDE.”
The single-wheeled velocipede has at length received a palpable body, and “a local habitation and a name.”
Richard C. Hemming of New Haven, Conn., invented the machine herewith represented, two years ago; but has only recently brought it into the market and applied it to practical purposes. The main wheel has a double rim, or has two concentric rims, the inner face of the inner one having a projecting lip for keeping the friction rollers and the friction driver in place; each of these being correspondingly grooved on their peripheries. The frame on which the rider sits, sustains these friction wheels in double parallel arms, on the front one of which is mounted a double pulley, with belts passing to small pulleys on the axis of the driving wheel. This double wheel is driven, as seen, by cranks turned by the hands. The friction of the lower wheel on the surface of the inner rim of the main wheel, is the immediate means of propulsion. A small binding wheel, seen between the rider’s legs, serves to keep the bands or belts tight. The steering is effected either by inclining the body to one side or the other, or by the foot impinging on the ground, the stirrups being hung low for this purpose. By throwing the weight on these stirrups, the binding wheel may be brought more powerfully down on the belts. Over the rider’s head is an awning, and there is also a shield in front of his body to keep the clothes from being soiled by mud and wet. When going forward, the driving wheel is kept slightly forward of the centre of gravity by the position of the rider. By this means the power exerted is comparatively small. Every turn of the crank is equivalent to a rotation of the great wheel.
Mr. Hemming says that this machine can be manufactured for fifty dollars, of a weight of only thirty pounds; that it will ascend steep grades, and that it can be driven on the roads with but little exertion, at the rate of twenty or even twenty-five miles an hour. This wheel is of a diameter of from six to eight feet.
Mr. Hemming’s boy of thirteen has one five feet in diameter, the first manufactured, crude in construction, and heavier than necessary, which he propels at the rate of a mile in three minutes.