CHAPTER XV

FREAKS AND USELESS DEVICES.

Some one has defined a rebellion as a revolution which has not succeeded. Similarly, the freakishness or non-freakishness of an idea in cycle construction may be deemed to turn on its fate in the struggle for survival; yet there may be some exceptions to the rule of survival of the fittest, and, on the other hand, there are myriads of notions that are visionary as to possible practical results or even go counter to the most elementary of natural laws. A cycle show always brings out a few of the milder sort. For example, the Upright, devised by a non-rider who had observed with pain the “monkey-on-a-stick” position and perceived that this would be impossible if the hands must be at the sides; so this one-idea reformer devised a frame which placed the handle bar behind the rider, and the uprightness was complete. A few bicycles on this plan were made and went into use. The least that can be said is that the idea was effectually embodied; the most is that if one idea was enough in a bicycle this would have been triumphant and permanent. The last show had a freak or two in tires, a spur-gear freak in chainless driving (since remade into a form capable of operating), a device for driving the front wheel by a see-saw handlebar working straps and ratchets simultaneously with regular driving on the rear wheel—and some others we do not now recall. In the lack of a show, freaks do not come to the front as prominently this year, and yet they are still to be numbered by the thousand. They are to be found in witless, non-workable patents, besides many more by cranks who cannot raise the patent fees and are thus cruelly barred out of the Eden rightfully theirs if fate had been less unkind. Whether as much money has not been sunk in such patents and in barren experiment in the aggregate as has been made out of the bicycle is doubtful; at least, it is within bounds to say that the worthless patents in the cycle line taken out in the United States alone during the last twenty years could not be adequately described and illustrated in a month, even if this journal were entirely given up to the task. Yet we can sketch a few as samples; also indicating the lines along which barren contriving constantly runs.

SOME CONSTANT FALLACIES.

There are several fallacies which recur, year after year, and necessarily lead to wrong conclusions. One of these fallacies is that there is a large reserve power in the body which is not ordinarily afforded means for expending itself, especially that the arms do not have a chance given them. Another is the twin brother of perpetual motion by means of gravity, and it imagines that a cycle can be driven continuously by the weight of the rider. Another assumes that the coveted mile-a-minute speed can be attained by speeding up the wheel with relation to the foot action by means of gears. Another assumes that a combination of enough gears, levers, clutches, straps, cams, etc., can be trusted to go of itself; inventors along this line seem to read the term “mechanical powers” as in the singular, and as meaning that a combination of devices can create power, whereas the fact is that a man who moves a big stone by means of pulleys actually expends more energy than if he raised the load by his own muscles unassisted. There is also an endless line of cranks, utterly ignorant of or acting in defiance of the most elementary natural laws, whose propositions are as destitute of practicability as dreams in sleep, in which, as we all know, nothing seems preposterous, and to follow Alice down the rabbit’s hole or to unscrew our own legs and eat them for lunch with condiments would be in the regular order of things.

SOME EXAMPLES OF USELESS CONTRIVING.

Examples may be cited almost at random and without care for chronological order. A mild case was that of the Hunt patent, December, 1890. Mr. Hunt was aware “that a chain is often used to transmit power from the pedals to the wheel,” but he proposed “a frictional gearing connection.” His device was the same mode of chainless driving as on the Humber chainless of today—that is, by an intermediate wheel, but with a difference; his drive-wheels on the wheel axle and crank axle had toothed or corrugated edges, and his intermediate had a rubber band or tire on its rim. “It will be evident (he says) to the student of this bicycle that the corrugations on the peripheries of the drive-wheels K and M will take firm hold of the rubber band of the intermediate wheel N and thus prevent any possibility of slipping; in this way an easy, regular motion will be produced.” He also claims that this connection, while being firm enough, will also be elastic, with “yielding characteristics.” What really is evident is that if his device succeeded in driving the bicycle at all, the rubber band would retain its integrity at least fifteen minutes.

The same notion reappeared, a year ago, in the patent of Mr. Langbridge, an Englishman, who proposed chainless driving by two spur gear wheels carried on the seat-post tube and meshing with one on the pedal axle; “a pneumatic-tired friction wheel,” borne on stays in the triangle below the saddle, was to work on the tire of the rear wheel near its top, and this frictional contact would impart “the same, or practically the same, velocity” as that of the friction wheel itself. This was a conservative way of stating it, for “practically” is a rather flexible term.

In 1893 a Hartford man patented a bicycle fitted with a large cylinder, borne on either side below the wheel centre, for compressed air. Having previously filled these, either by a foot pump, which takes the place of the usual pedals, or by a curious rotary hand pump carried under the upper tube, the rider climbed to his place, opened a convenient throttle valve and sped along gayly. On a down grade he could use the momentum to repump air, getting brake effect by so doing, or he could use the air pressure to work a brake direct; as the gas tanks carried two little wheels on spiral springs underneath them, the rider could step off and leave the whole construction upright, leaning down on one of these stop-wheels.

Five years ago Mr. Gundelach of this city patented “a convenient gear mechanism by which the machine may be speeded high on a good road and may be changed to a low speed for hill climbing.” He placed a series of spur gears with pinions thereon in a frame, the last of them working on the rear wheel by sprocket and chain; when the rider came to a tough hill or a piece of bad road he had only to get off and carefully loosen the shaft so as to make a shift for power on the familiar method of the coned pulley in machine shops and he was all right; a flywheel on the shaft, for equalizing motion and for using the reservoir of power which some imagine is contained in flywheels, was not omitted. The public seem to have respected Mr. Gundelach’s patent rights.

In 1890 Mr. Toense of Cleveland patented a man-power combined with a pair of hydraulic cylinders. The rider began by climbing to a high seat, which sank under him and thus thrust back the piston of a horizontal pump, which gave the wheel a forward impulse by a rack and pinion. As the seat sank, it moved L-shaped levers, and thus lifted the piston in a vertical hydraulic cylinder; then the rider pushed down on the treadles, “at the same time raising himself in the seat,” and the piston just raised was pushed down, giving the wheel another impulse. “The driving wheel is thus acted upon alternately by the two driving cylinders, one acting when the seat descends and the other when the treadles are forced down.” This may seem a little obscure, but we have never had opportunity to see the device.

Mr. Hansel, of Zeitz, in Germany, only recently rediscovered and patented the idea of driving by the rider’s weight. There are two saddles, each on its post, arranged to slide up and down see-saw fashion, and geared, no matter precisely how, to a very big pulley belted to a very small one on the rear wheel, the gear ratio being evidently enormous. The rider gets up on the seat which is at the top, slides down with it, thus starting the wheel; then he is to hop off that to the other seat (which has meanwhile gone up) and so on. Expressive silence may be left to “muse the praise” of this invention.

Mr. Osborne of Brooklyn recently offered a carpet sweeper belted to the front wheel, which “will thrust aside small objects, such as nails, tacks, glass, sharp stones and the like, and leave a free path for the passage of the wheels of the bicycle.” This we respectfully refer to the Department of Street Cleaning.

Mr. Livingston of St. Louis takes the locomotive double-rod chainless driving of the 1896 Twentieth Century and the Dayton of this year, and improves on it in his own way. Instead of driving his pinion by a chain and so running it forward, he makes a spur gear of it, so that the motion is reversed from that of the pedals. As the two connecting-rods to the wheel are worked by this pinion, he is compelled to pedal backward, or else run the bicycle itself backward. Presumably, he intends the former, and is not disturbed by the prospect; but as this mode of pedalling would involve an excessively vertical action it is not probable that this particular chainless will ever be seen on the road.

Going back sixteen years, we find Mr. Amess, a Canadian, turning the first Columbia model into a lever-driving wheel, as shown in the cut. His patent claims only speeding up and vertical position, and does not allege safety from headers, very properly. For not only was his contrivance clumsy and subject to great friction on the sliding fulcrum, but added weight where weight would be dangerous; moreover, as a careful examination will show, the mode of driving had no tendency to hold down the back wheel.

Only a year ago, Mr. Harrison, an Englishman, patented a lever contrivance with oscillating fulcrum, in combination with planet gearing. Every disadvantage of lever-driving attached to this, and he also took up again our old acquaintance the much-heralded elliptical sprocket, which had its trial in this country some years before. Substantially this device was at the National Show, November, 1896.

At that Show was the Alert, a chainless using substantially the “chain disk or cam,” just patented by a Swede and said to have been sold (a few countries excepted) for $600,000. It is an L-lever pivoted at the crank bracket, the forward arm carrying the pedals, and the upper arm drawing by a cord upon a sort of snail cam or scroll on the rear axle; the driving is on each side necessarily, and there is no back pedalling. The leverage is changeable by shifting up or down the place of attachment of the cord to the upright lever arm.

A year before this, another Englishman patented a device for chainless driving by a lever with sliding fulcrum at the rear of the wheel; the lever was to be pivoted to a wheel with internal spur teeth meshing with a pinion on the axle, and the device was on both sides.

Five years ago Mr. Mahoney of this city patented a contrivance as shown in the cut. He overlooked such considerations as enormous width of tread and the fact that his driving wheel was not central in the frame. He premised that, “as a general thing, a bicycle rider has a reserve supply of strength which he cannot use to advantage in running the ordinary bicycle, from the fact that he cannot make his feet go fast enough to get a speed from the bicycle proportionate to his strength.” Having thus announced the discovery that twice two are five, Mr. Mahoney described his invention by which “a person may drive the machine very rapidly without making his feet move very fast.” If Mr. Mahoney had not been bent on inventing something, he might have perceived that speeding up ad libitum could be had by omitting his gears and using a front sprocket large enough. Later inventors have seen more clearly. For instance, only a few months ago, Mr. Papperdykes of New Haven “patented” a bicycle warranted to carry a rider a mile in seven and a half revolutions of the pedals, thus giving outlet to the reserve supply of strength mentioned by Mr. Mahoney. There is a train of gears, combined with sprockets and chain, making a gear ratio of 8,448 inches. This is as the story was told, since we have not seen the patent; but there was an error in expression The equivalent circumference of wheel is 8,448 inches and the diameter 2,680 inches, or 224 feet, as nearly as can be figured, making an equivalent wheel only forty feet smaller than the great Ferris wheel of the World’s Fair. Here is a little object lesson in gear ratio as heretofore explained; the actual wheel was to be 28 inches, while it was to run per each pedal revolution as far as a directly connected wheel of 224 feet would run. Such a construction might be a little heavy, but there would be a difficulty with it in practice; it would probably require ten or twelve horse-power to drive, while a bicycle rider has only one man-power. A like difficulty prevents our flying with the birds, for wings could be easily made and attached.

What could anybody expect to accomplish by carrying a long chain from the usual front sprocket to an extra sprocket below the saddle, from which a second chain ran down to the rear sprocket? Yet the writer encountered precisely this fixed-up contrivance in the street, and surveyed it with feelings which forbore utterance. Or consider the very recent patent of Mr. Scott of Philadelphia, as shown in the cut. He knew that an electric motor for driving the wheel would be delightful for a lazy rider; so he put one on behind, in what is evidently a good place for it. A motor must have current; so he put a small dynamo on the diagonal tube to supply it. Then, to make that go, he had only to put a large band wheel in place of the front sprocket and belt it on, and the deed was done. Granting that there would be no electrical difficulty in transmitting energy from one point to the other, this contrivance would simply waste a considerable power which might be carried directly to the wheel; but Mr. Scott does not know this, and he felt he had a call to invent something.

Yet Mr. Scott is put in the shade by Mr. Turner, out in Indian Territory, who has patented a contrivance for making a head wind drive instead of retard. He proposes to mount a small windmill with four vanes on a horizontal shaft in line with the top tube, and this, by a pair of bevel pinions, is to run a shaft leading straight to a crown wheel on the rear wheel, which is to be driven by another bevel pinion. The usual driving is prudently retained for emergencies, and the relative size of these pinions indicates that the windmill will need to whirl with great velocity. He somehow omits to claim the windmill and asks protection for a peculiar brake on its shaft. As the shaft is rigidly fixed in line, he must intend to run dead into the wind. The school text books used to tell of a man who put a large bellows in the stern of his pleasure boat, so that he could always have wind for his sail, and a contributor relates in the _Youth’s Companion_ how he once saw an attempt made to work a wood scow by a windmill carried on it. Yet, if the winds that blow in the far West are not peculiar, and if Mr. Turner is not ignorant of what most children think they know, navigators have been wasting time for a thousand years in trying to sail by tacking instead of making the wind drive against itself.

THE LURE OF THE PATENT.

These are examples enough of folly which shows no signs of abatement. The Government offers a patent to inventors of “any new and useful” improvement. There is a notion that invention is an easy road to fortune; on the contrary, there is no harder and more unpromising one. The foolish inventor constantly overlooks the words “and useful,” and the Patent Office, in order that no risk be incurred of smothering improvement by any official dictum that the thing proposed is worthless, has also waived the qualifying words and has thrown the door open so wide that anything may get a patent—not even novelty is strictly enough required. An elaborate muzzle to keep sheep from biting might therefore not be debarred from patent right by the fact that a sheep was never known to bite anything but its own vegetable food; and so long as any combination, although obviously impracticable or even going counter to natural laws, is “novel,” and therefore can obtain the right to litigate which is called a patent, it must be expected that dreamers and persons of misfit intellects will continue the line of applicants. The bicycle is so much in the public eye that it especially draws these persons as the light draws the moth. They will not consult practical men, or, if they do, they will not accept the advice given. They will not even look to see what has already been done in the same line. One of this class came to the writer more than a year ago with some complicated contraption of levers, ratchets, cams, and the like—just the usual thing. Had he been to any bicycle makers? Yes, and none would give him encouragement. Nor could we and we tried to show him how useless his labor was; but he gathered up his drawings and shuffled away. He did not want expert opinion, unless it was of a pleasant nature; he wanted aid to build his contrivance. Like all of his class, he could see nothing beyond his idea, successful on paper, and if he could only get his patent and get a sample made success was sure.

Apropos of this is the classification of cycle patents for 1897 made by the _Iron Age_. For pneumatic tires there were 110; 106 on handlebars and grips; 105 on driving gears, 70 of these being for chainless; 85 for saddles; 69 for brakes; 51 for frame construction; 50 for cranks and pedals; 17 for spring frames; 124 for stands and racks and for devices for dropping down some sort of prop or leg by which the bicycle might stand alone. The last-named is absolutely valueless and has been so proved; the spring frame has also been tried and virtually rejected; and if a hundred patents on the bicycle and accessories are issued in a year it is almost certain, without examination, that ninety-nine are commercially useless, if not mechanically preposterous. This is so because the practical conditions are narrow and rigid, and because the field has been so repeatedly and minutely gone over.

The crank cycle inventors, of course, are only one class. They are non-riders usually, and not prejudiced by any practical knowledge of the subject; one device (one of the best of the year) has been invented by a man who has not yet mounted a bicycle, but he is a mechanic, not a dreamer. It is sad to see so much waste of time and energy in planning, so much illy-spared money spent in patent fees, and so many disappointed hopes, and if this rapid sketch happen to deter some would-be improver of the cycle and send him to the Klondike for a fortune instead it will not have been without direct advantage to somebody.

BUILDING “TO ORDER.”

In course of the development of the bicycle, the “component parts maker” has come upon the scene, in this country as he had previously done in England. In a general way, all bicycles are constructed alike; that is, all have hubs, ball bearings, spokes, crank brackets, joints constructed by forging from the solid or by working up sheet steel, and so on. Production of these parts by quantities, as a specialty, is in line with the custom of subdivision of labor, and is in the direction of economy in product, and yet this has its undesirable side as well, for it tends to encourage the practice of “building to order.”

A rider—usually not one of the very experienced class and seldom one of mechanical study—has observed the axle of one make, the hub of another, the saddle fastening of another, and so on; more or less justly, he approves, or fancies, these devices, and it seems to him that if he could only combine them in one bicycle he would indeed have the “topnotcher” of the year. The fallible side in his human nature is also flattered by thinking that to be able to say that his mount was “built to order” suggests that his superior discernment saw beyond what the regular market offered and was not satisfied without something better than others have, and something distinctive and “special.” Accordingly he applies to the small assembler who announces himself as builder of specially designed wheels, and this assembler, wise enough to cater to a “want” which he can turn to account, puts together the parts desired, or with accepted modifications suggested by himself, and the rider gets his “to order” mount, at a price proportioned to its specialty.

While he thinks himself fortunate and happy, let it be admitted that he is and that nobody else has a right to disturb his peace. And yet it does not necessarily follow that a combination of good things makes a good total. For he has no guaranty, although he may have written stipulation, for the real guaranty is the maker’s reputation, and in that sense he has no maker. The second consideration is that if the assembler who has made up his wheel dies or goes out of business he probably has no clue to the source from which the particular parts came and is thus liable to be put to expense and trouble if replacing any becomes necessary; it is always a good rule to deal, whenever possible, with parties who are likely to last and to be easily found should occasion arise to call on them. A nameless bicycle—that is, one without definite and responsible origin, for the mere nameplate is only a bit of stamped metal or a transfer, and is nothing in itself—may run well for a time, but is liable to plague its owner before he is through with it. The third consideration is that, even if purchased parts are of good quality (and there is always a temptation to increase the present profit by using the lowest priced), the assembler, with his few tools and comparatively small experience, cannot possibly do the work as well as the large maker, with his ample facilities. The one man, who perhaps brazes and files up and puts frames together for fastening, and makes up wheels, and performs other operations, may get a diversified practical training in mechanics for himself, but the work cannot have the certainty and accuracy obtainable, according to all rules of production, by subdivision of labor. Nor is this all. The frame shape and its angles are originally “set out” in the draughting shop with mathematical precision, and the large maker puts the parts together by means of “jigs,” all this involving a heavy outlay, but securing exactness. The “to order” workman conforms to the angles called for as well as he can; if the connections on band are not quite right, he files them or bends them, getting as nearly accurate line as he can by his eye and the rule of thumb. His work being on individual cases, it is impossible for him to have jigs and gauges for each, and quite out of his power to attain the correctness obtained by machine work and making in quantities. Hence, even if the material used is of the very highest quality, it is reasonably inferable that the “to order” bicycle, supposed by its owner to be better than regular market stock, is really somewhat inferior.

“OLD WHEELS CUT DOWN.”

Market prices, as everybody knows, are greatly below those of the last two years, and this favors buying new mounts. On the other hand, and for that very reason, such allowances as used to be made for wheels a year or more old are now impossible. Apparently one consideration might fairly offset the other, yet there are signs thus far that a larger proportion of riders than heretofore will furbish up their present mounts for another season. But as the most decided change for 1898 is shortening of head, lowering of frame, and increased drop of the hanger, this change being so marked that a 25 or 26 inch frame is now rated as quite antiquated and unfashionable, there is a tendency to make over present mounts into the more stylish cut. How far this is likely to go we cannot foresee, but as some cases of cutting down frames and advertisements of “old wheels cut down” have already come under our observation, we must condemn it in the most emphatic terms. The “to order” shop is very likely to count this change an opportunity and to stimulate the practice by offering its services; but we must warn riders that meddling with bicycle frames involves hazards. When the bicycle hater declares that to mount one of those things is to take one’s life in one’s hands, he states what is literally true, of course. The possibilities are always against us. If we step out of doors, we take chances; if we go to bed for safety, people have died in bed. Reasonable care having been used, we must trust the chances, which always expose to mishap and always give the weight of probability to the side of immunity. The most dangerous break on a bicycle is a break of frame—for example, while fracture of one side of the front fork will probably permit escape, a complete snap of fork crown or stem will almost certainly cause the rider to dive for the ground. Now, tubing has been made from the solid ingot by a series of processes and it is almost surprising that after the time the metal has survived all this torture and has been shaped and fixed into a bicycle frame, having endured the final heat of brazing, there is any “life” left in it. When the cutting down process is undertaken, there are two bad consequences probable: one is that the operation will fail to get accurate alignment, in which case the driving will be harder and the durability of wearing parts less than before; the other is that the further heating will “burn” the metal (literally) and the chances of fracture will be much increased. The tube may also be softened in one place, as well as burned in another. The original finish cannot be well restored, and the operation of smoothing up, especially for nickeling, involves further hazard to the tube. Advice as to making over frames is covered in one word—don’t do it, and don’t trust yourself, knowingly, on one which has been thus treated.

THE CRAZE FOR “DROP.”

The one thing accomplished by the lowered frame of 1898, which is the chief change of the year, is a small further lowering of crank axle; and this lowering or drop it is not quite easy to contemplate without impatience. The natural construction of the diamond frame would put the crank axle in line with the wheel axles, or very nearly so; the drop is a concession, serving no useful end except to make the mount and dismount easier for women. Within reason, it is therefore well; carried to excess, it involves the risks already pointed out; turned into an end and a sine qua non, it becomes foolishness. As a case for illustration, a bright young fellow who has quite a taste for bicycle mechanics recently came to the writer for advice. His question was whether to buy the Blank racer (a first-class wheel by one of the best makers) or the new model of his present make, with 30-inch wheels. The advice was to leave the latter alone, and the reasons were given, to wit: that the 28-inch size was not reached arbitrarily, but as the best practical adjustment of all the conditions of the case, and after a long trial, which included both 32 and 30 wheels, separately and in combination; that enlarging the wheel means increase in weight, and lengthening of the already awkward wheel-base; that it involves special rims, tires, and spokes, together with added cost and trouble in frame-making, just when makers are trying to reach uniformity; and that bringing out this size seems to be a mistaken sop thrown to fadism and one which cannot last. But—this was the plea—a greater drop of the hanger could thus be had, and it was an aid to steadiness in balancing to get nearer the ground. More drop, yes; but what of that? Memory recalled how, in England, the smaller wheel was met by the argument that on a high wheel the rider could get a wider view of the country by being raised higher from the ground; and how, when the writer, in 1882, brought over the Facile, the first specimen of a small bicycle seen in America, so far as appears, the scorcher of the day viewed it with lofty contempt, and “wouldn’t like to be found dead on that thing.” Its wheel was 44 inches, but it was esteemed lowly; now, the scorcher is willing to forego the broadening of his horizon to be attained by being a foot or two higher above the ground and wants the aid in balancing to be had by a saddle an inch and a half nearer the ground! The young fellow in this present case went away, perhaps convinced but not satisfied, and in a few days appeared with the coveted 30-inch wheel; the 4-inch drop had had its way. Great is the sway of fashion, and if drop is to be the fetish, should it not be observed that if the wheel is only made large enough the drop can be made low to suit? Why rest satisfied with a drop of a few inches?

The foregoing would be misconstrued if any desire to decry the small maker were read into it. He has a right to live if he can, and to grow into the large maker by natural evolution. Yet it may be said against the assembler of component parts that the admitted evil of changes from year to year—changes, not improvement, but for the sake of change—may be laid in good part at his door. In the view of political economy, it cannot be deemed wise that a slight change in the height or shape of the silk hat—a change in the round of possible changes—should compel the purchase of the very latest (perhaps a return of one of the earliest) and the discarding of one not seriously worse for wear. The silk hat is not head gear for work, and the crow is no such student of fashion plates that he requires the latest curl in brim; and if it be said that new production furnishes employment to labor, why not have labor employed in adding to the stock of usable things instead of replacing needless waste? Of course, as chroniclers, we must describe what changes are in the 1898 bicycle product; yet this does not preclude the comment that these changed frame shapes are not one whit better—in mechanical design, ease of running, strength, or even in appearance, unless one chooses to believe so—than the 1897 wheel.