When tricycles first appeared in which the power was transmitted through sprocket-wheels and chain, there was quite a cry for “high-geared” machines; but the mistake was soon discovered, and buyers eventually found that moderate gearing was best, and in fact many adopted a level gearing (equal-sized sprocket-wheels) with thirty-six- to forty-two-inch drivers. Notwithstanding this experience, when the geared bicycles came in there was still a great cry for fancied high speed. An English maker in 1885 complained to the writer that it was the bane of his existence,—this howl for high gears,—when it was well known to him that buyers would eventually be dissatisfied. It was of no use to make, said he, what is really needed; customers will not even try the machines, so sure are they that by their scheme “they can fly through the air with the greatest of ease,” which expression, when used by the ordinary man, means something like pulling a ten-horse load with one mule.
In the early days of gearing, few riders could be more easily offended than by intimating that they wanted a low-geared machine, say fifty to fifty-two; no less than sixty or seventy would satisfy their cravings for great speed, and in fact the writer has been asked seriously, “Why not gear her up to about a hundred?” But now that the idol of so many riders has been shattered, they will too complacently accept the word of the maker as to what they need, and hence there is a real substantial reason for investigating this matter. The advent of the gearing process has developed a new point, as a result of conditions spoken of, which is to make the machine suit the rider’s strength and physical peculiarities as well as to fit him in the length of leg,—a point to which insufficient attention has been paid. If one man wants a machine geared to fifty-six or sixty, there is no conceivable reason why another who happens to have the same length of inseam of his trousers should want the same; nor is it a matter simply of strength: if two men can make the same number of miles in a day, it is fair to presume that they are of nearly equal riding capacity, yet each may accomplish the work most easily on machines geared quite differently. An instance of this kind has occurred to the writer, in riding day after day on a machine geared to about forty-eight, with a man who preferred and could do his best work on a sixty. This difference held good on smooth or rough roads, and as a matter of my own experience it is a pleasure to ride a low gear, and distressing toil to use a higher. There are others whose experience is just the reverse, and it is useless to try to guess at what is wanted; it is best not to go to either extreme in buying unless you have proved the necessity by extended experience on the road. It would be well for all riders to avail themselves of any good opportunity to make a thorough trial of machines geared differently from each other, for it is possible to be unsuited and never know it. Even if you have been able to lead the van when you have been out on a run, you do not know but that you could have led it much easier on something else than that which you rode. The physical system in man may easily become adapted to a wheel which at first was not suitable, but there are those to whom certain gearing will always be wrong. It is safe to say that the prevailing mistake in the past has been the use of too high gears, though this has been much improved of late by the use of long cranks.
There is one subject which should be touched upon with great caution, since the prospects of some very worthy inventors might be unjustly interfered with; it is that of multiple or two speed-gears. I have tried to impress upon the reader the importance of gearing to suit his strength, yet when once suited it is extremely doubtful if he should ever change it; at least it is doubtful if he should do so on the same trip or even during the same season. When a rider transfers his base of operations from a level to a hilly country permanently, a change in his gear may not be out of the way; but to fix the machine for more or less power alternately as hills and levels are met with is, in the light of my experience, more tiresome than the necessary variation in the effort of the man.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MODERN ROVER, OR REAR-DRIVING SAFETY.
As machines of this general type bid fair to engage the attention of cyclists to a marked degree, it seems in place to give them more than a passing notice in the general discussion. It is fair to presume that more than one-half of all the machines sold in the immediate future will be more or less after this general pattern.
The introduction of the Rover has afforded us one of the most amusing incidents in cycling history. The writer of these pages happened to be in Coventry during the summer of ’85, and he had a fortuitous opportunity, fondly accepted, of inventing fun at the expense of the “Crocodile” and of joining in the general laugh at the (alleged) ridiculous attempt of a Coventry firm to “foist” (sic) this most extraordinary freak of cycling inventive genius, under a new name, upon the market.
In the fall of the same year a notable Washington agent, allured by the attractive notices of a great prize for a hundred-mile race, imported one of these self-same incongruous specimens into this country. After a few weeks of hilarious humor, followed by a sullen contempt for the thing, this Washingtonian shipped it to a great American manufacturer, who made sport over it for a year or two before we all began to scramble around and make ready to prove that each one of us individually “saw it all the time.” It has been a hard pull, however, and it is still uncertain on whom it did first begin to dawn that somebody had been guilty of colossal stupidity.
One thing the Rover accomplishes, previously touched upon, is the location of the rider as nearly over the work as he chooses to be; which has been the end and aim of all our efforts in that direction. Had this machine been offered to the public, in good shape, at the end of the old bone-shaker régime, it is questionable if the Ordinary would ever have acquired the prominence it did. In early times, when learning to ride a tall machine was considered quite a feat of gymnastic exercise, such as only the young and sprightly could ever perform, many, who afterwards by force of circumstances did accomplish the feat, would never have tried it if there had been anything else, such as the present Safety, to learn upon. Every accident on the Ordinary would have told heavily against it in the market, and every severe casualty would have made a new Safety rider; as it was, however, there was only one of three things to do,—take to a three-track machine, stop riding, or try the old mount again. It is needless to say that, almost to a man, the last condition was accepted, and the result is that now we have a class of men who can handle an Ordinary with such dexterity that many of them conscientiously aver that there can be nothing safer. However, among those most devoted to it at the present time there are few, if any, of the close observers who would have stood sponsor for their favorite machine had the rear-driver made its appearance in its present form prior to the advent of the Ordinary. To say that the latter would ever have obtained a footing above the level of a fad or a curiosity, would be equal to denying that the Safety will now ever hold an enviable place among us.
In the minds of many the sprocket-wheels and chain stood much against the introduction of the rear-driver; true, many good tricycles were implanted firmly on the market with such devices for conveying power to its necessary locality, but there was always such a vast chasm lying between the single- and double-track machines that riders did not care to get down to minute details of differences. To an Ordinary rider the idea of sprocket-wheels was, and is yet, for that matter, an abomination, only second to that of being dropped down from his elevated position to the humble plane in which his fellow on the Safety is wont to revel; but nothing in the way of change in the cycle art is unbearable after we become accustomed to it.