If it takes a certain pressure to hold the first brake down, and none to hold the second, why not put on two seconds and no first, and thus have a good brake power without any pressure at all?
Since penning the above I have heard further of the new brake in question, and have been tempted to cancel the paragraph, since injustice might be done to an honest inventor; but on second thought concluded to retain it as an example of careless statement, knowing that others were misled by the same. Had the inventor simply remarked that he had made use of his momentum, transmitted through the rim of the wheel, and acting to wedge one of the brakes against the head or the other brake, whereby to increase the brake, or some such explanation, everybody would have acquiesced in it as a reasonable possibility, even if they had not the slightest idea of what the inventor was talking about. It is a satisfaction to know that it is becoming a little dangerous, in the cycle art, to make a statement that savors of getting something for nothing.
A prominent American maker, whose wares now stand high in our market, must have been a hobbyist once too, when he climbed the steps into an English bicycle factory on his lever tricycle. Probably he has reformed, as I hear of no step-climbing now.
Only within a few days I have had an offer to inspect a machine that the inventor assumes will make a mile a minute. “No other machine was ever made to work by hand and foot,” says the same inventor. He also assures me that wire wheels are a mistake, and that the old wooden ones are just as good and cheaper. This machine has an ingenious device by which to lock the front wheel of a bicycle, to save the trouble of holding the handle-bars “when you don’t want to steer.” This much I believe the inventor may be right about. A machine, properly made, run by hand and foot, might make short distances very rapidly, since the entire energy of the man could be quickly used up; but whether such a machine would be of marketable value is a question.
Quite recently a new “hickory wheel” man of more formidable caliber has entered the lists, and again we are called back to bone-shaker days. Well! after the beetle (rear-driver) has been so fondly embraced, let us be prepared for anything that may come. We have dropped down from the cat to the kitten, and can now get out through a pretty small hole if hard pressed; so for the present we will hold the hickory wheel on probation.
A gentleman at Coventry, a few years ago, conceived, and spent a small fortune upon, a plan for overcoming the dead centre in crank tricycles; his method was quite simple: he only had to turn an angle on the crank at the outer extremity like a letter L, so that when the straight or radial part, represented by the stem of the L with the axle through the upper end, stood vertical, the pedal, which is supposed to be attached to the tip of the horizontal extension, would have passed some two inches beyond the dead-centre point.
This same inventor had an enormous steel spring ensconced beneath the seat of his machine, which he wound with his hands as he went along. Whenever the proprietor of the establishment where these experiments were being conducted ran short of work he invariably proposed to the inventor to “go out and try the tricycle.”
The writer was a moderate hobbyist himself once, and has perhaps not yet entirely recovered from the spell. Below find a letter written some time ago, while the delusion was still upon him.
“AN AMERICAN HOBBYIST.
“Trials and Tribulations of an American Abroad—How Pet Theories are received in the Bicycling Centre of the World.
“Editor Springfield Wheelmen’s Gazette:
“Some friend has kindly sent me a copy of the Gazette, and I make haste to remit you the amount of subscription.
“I will not assume that the bicycling papers of the country of which I am now a guest are not good. In fact, to do so would libel my host; I simply say that, being an American, I like American papers.
“In the letter I first wrote, of which this is in main a copy, I asserted that the papers here were too much taken up by race-course news, but even since then I have received a copy of an English periodical which I find is not open to the objection given; hence I will still speak cautiously, lest I do not know all yet.
“I have no penchant for the race-course; in fact, I never ran but one race, and then I was left so far behind that I have never been interested in racing news since. In one respect my race was a success, for I was loudly cheered by the crowd opposite the starting-point, for by some fortunate error they got the idea that I had been handicapped half a lap, that being about my distance in the rear at the end of the first round. Since that time I have confined myself exclusively to touring, with which object my brother and I came to England this spring.
“I have been admitted to membership in the Cyclists’ Touring Club, and must say it is a grand institution, and the official organ thereof is a valuable journal.
“If you and your readers will permit me to speak of my object in making a centre at Coventry without denouncing it as merely a scheme whereby to benefit in a free advertisement, I would say that I have taken the liberty—almost a criminal one it seems here—of having a hobby relating to an ‘ideal bicycle.’ This is from a tourist’s stand-point; not that of a racer, or it would have been all right.
“My hobby consists in the following hobbies in detail: 1. A bicycle with a large front wheel, because it rides smoother and steers easier than any other. 2. A bicycle in which you are directly over the work and do not have to reach out to do it, or lean over the handle-bar to get your centre of gravity over it. I should think the ‘Grasshopper’ good in this respect. 3. A bicycle in which the legs are at rest on all down grade, or when work is unnecessary, à la Star. 4. A bicycle with a treadle motion, as I think power is more economically applied by the same. (This is largely theory, so far.) 5. A bicycle with no dead centre at any time, as I think it is a continual impediment in up-hill or rough roads (also theory). 6. A bicycle where one foot going down lifts the other positively, as in a crank; to lift by springs I consider bad. 7. A bicycle safer from headers than the common large wheel machines, say about comparable with the ‘Grasshopper.’ I do not aspire to the security of the small wheelers, nor do I like the other known safety devices (probably prejudice). 8. (Ordinary bicyclers’ pride suggests No. 8.) A bicycle as neat and trim in appearance as the common large wheel crank-machine without octopus-clawed walking beams, gear wheels, or chains swinging through the air in full view at long range. 9. A bicycle that brakes from the hind wheel, as there is less danger of headers. 10. A bicycle with some good sort of safety handle-bar that will be open to no objections found in those now used. This is to prevent injury in case of a header, and also to store the bicycle in less space.
“You will infer, of course, that I had a plan for combining these hobbies; hence my trip to Coventry with a view to having such a machine made for my own use. When I arrived here and called on some of the bicycle manufacturers and made my purpose known, I cannot say that I was quite so well received as your correspondent C.; in fact, a Yankee inventor does not seem to be such desirable property in Coventry as a foreign agent, and yet I doubt not that a real genius of the former sort might do them much more good. Now, I think I was entitled to the reception of such a character for at least the few minutes it would have taken to expose the error, but there seems to be a sort of suspicious dread of a Yankee inventor, which is all wrong and against their interest. The greatest fault I have to find is in the manner in which they insist that I could not possibly know anything about the bicycle business, or have a right to a hobby and waste some money on it if I wanted to.
“The bad weather has detained us here much longer than we thought to stay, but we do not regret it, as it is the best centre in England from which to make short tours. The attractions of this ancient city are innumerable, and the proximity of Kenilworth, Warwick, and Stratford-on-Avon need only be mentioned to make Coventry all I assert.
“You will pardon me if I say that my new machine is all and more than I expected; but a word to all hobbyists before I close: Have you a hobby? If so, then ‘bend low and with bated breath I will a secret tale unfold.’
“Have your hobby, nourish it, talk and write about it, and make everybody believe you can fly; don’t let anybody down you, get in the last kick at every man who won’t think just as you do, but just as you are going to put it in practice, stop! slip quietly to your escritoire, get out your book, go straight to the bank, and have it accurately footed up; if there is a fat balance, and you are unmarried, with no other care on your mind, and nothing to do for seven years, then go in, and God speed to you.
“If the above conditions fail you, go straight home, kiss your wife, and baby if you have any, and thank Providence that you are saved from the lunatic asylum and your family from poverty and want.
“R. P. S.
“Coventry, England, June 11, 1885.”