scans from bike book

An older book arrived yesterday, Arthur Judson Palmer's "Riding High."
Published in 1956, it has over 250 photos and can be found used at
www.bookfinder.com.

***

A smaller wheel needed gearing, so highwheelers usually turned to
weird gearing because the inventors wanted to minimize the dangerous
height of the huge front wheel.

But this highwheeler went the other way:

http://i12.tinypic.com/72udph1.jpg

Despite the series of mounting pegs running up the backbone, I can't
see how anyone except an exceptional acrobat could get up and rolling
on the thing without helpers or a high starting step.

***

Weight weenies, eat your hearts out:

http://i10.tinypic.com/87m2g3t.jpg

Eight pounds fourteen ounces is 4.034 kg. I've seen another reference
to this lightweight wonder, but can't find it.

***

Speaking of lightweight racing bikes . . .

http://i7.tinypic.com/6xv3j4g.jpg

Two-and-a-half minutes for a mile works out to 24.0 mph. I can't tell
if the tiny black marks are tied-and-soldered spoke crossings, but
that's what they look like.

***

This nice page shows the original remote-steering 1884 Starley safety,
the much more popular 1885 "modern" version, and Starley's later
inexplicable shift in 1887 to a wire-truss cross-frame that shows how
erratic a genius can be:

http://i5.tinypic.com/7331vlh.jpg

Yes, it was called the Psycho. No, Starley didn't have the Hitchcock
film and modern meaning in mind. Probably he had the innocent meaning
of "mind" that would have clearer as "Psyche."

But the dark posters for the Psycho might have pleased Hitchcock:

http://www.wonderfulitems.com/brasil623.jpg

***

Speaking of weird frames . . .

http://i19.tinypic.com/8gjdvsz.jpg

The 1890s marketing department probably claimed that the racquette had
a large sweet spot. The 1890s RBT probably pointed out that the sweet
spot was located in thin air.

***

That leads us to weird fairings . . .

http://i6.tinypic.com/6tepwyt.jpg

Look closely because the contrast is faint. What look like two
umbrella sections on either side of the front wheel are reducing wind
drag, protecting the rider's modesty, and making the Batmobile's heart
beat faster.

***

Time for more highwheeler antics, specifically a how-to-mount and
(more importantly) how-to-fall manual.

The how-to-fall directions are at the lower right and continue to the
next page, where the picture is worth a thousand words:

http://i6.tinypic.com/6k8za84.jpg

http://i6.tinypic.com/6kqj3f6.jpg

As he toppled over sideways, the rider whipped one leg around the
steering rod (what we'd call the steering tube) and wrestled his
dangerous mount to the ground. It probably didn't work at any
reasonable speed, but it may have appealed to cowboys used to
bull-dogging steers in rodeos.

***

Multiple-use paths?

Bah! In 1900, Pasadena and Los Angles were to be connected by an
elevated wooden track dedicated to bicycles (and the handful of
pitiful motorcycles then available):

http://i13.tinypic.com/6jg2654.jpg

http://i8.tinypic.com/8ebkz8k.jpg

Alas, what actually happened wasn't quite as grand as the book claims:

"Pasadena Cycleway: The world's first elevated cycleway, which was
slated to run nine miles between Pasadena and downtown Los Angeles.
The wooden construction was to have two six foot wide lanes, and a
maximum grade of 3%, made possible with elevations of three to 50 feet
off the ground. Incandescent lighting was going to be placed every 50
feet. For a ten cent toll, riders were to be permitted to stay on the
cycleway all day, and have access to a 100 acre park."

"The economics looked very good at the time of planning, and by 1900,
a single lane was built that went two miles out of Pasadena. At that
time, however, the Southern Pacific Railroad, fearing competition, got
an injunction issued against construction of a bridge over their
railroad. In the meantime, interest in cycling began to wind down with
the growing popularity of the automobile, and the cycleway eventually
failed and was torn down by the city of Pasadena."

http://oklahomabicyclesociety.com/thisthat.htm

***

Two portraits caught my eye.

I'd never seen this picture that shows Mile-a-Minute Murphy's solution
to the choking dust and train cinders as he pedaled behind the train:

http://i7.tinypic.com/8a30k6g.jpg

And here's what the Bill Gates of 1900 rode, the best bicycle that
money could buy:

http://i17.tinypic.com/6ujx4pv.jpg

That's John D. Rockefeller, smiling and posing next to his shaft-drive
bicycle, presumably confident that the silly contraption would never
cut into Standard Oil's profits.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel