Winter Ride, 1893

Our great-grandfathers rode fixies with enamel and nickel-plating, tin
chain-cases, rear-facing drop-outs, and master-links with nuts instead
of clips. They used files instead of chain-breakers.

They rode on mud roads in winter and glumly adjusted their chains when
the worn chains began to skip.



Winter riding has one drawback, which may account for the small number
of those who indulge in it. The hard work and rough usage wears a
machine out fast. Of course a racing or light machine will not do at
all for winter work, but a safety over forty pounds [fairly normal
weight in 1893], well guarded [mud-guards] and gear-cased, will
scarcely last a winter of regular riding decently.

The constant wettings make the nickelling rusty; the wiping off of mud
from frames often brings off chips of enamel as well, and the strain
of heavy work wrenches anything but the most sturdy machine.

My own has suffered over a lot of bad roads and endured plenty of
drenchings, to the sad deterioration of its natural outside beauty
already, and this winter is not half over yet; but I cannot smash it
up.

It has a high gear and long crank, and it is strained on a muddy
[precious little pavement in 1893] hill pretty severely, even so that
the chain has stretched abominably, but I can't break anything.

The adjusting screws of the hind wheel have crumpled up, and the chain
has stretched so that its lower half lies along the gear-case and
clatters all the time, except when the rare exercise of back-pedalling
is being carried on.

A chain ought to stretch inside a gear case. It is annoying to find it
so stretched that when you have used all the adjustment you think
safe, it is impossible to ride up a slight rise without the slipping
of several cogs [meaning teeth].

The feeling is awful. As you press, you suddenly pedal with spurting
rapidity, and are pulled up short suddenly and painfully with a jerk,
and try again with the same success. Then you decide to open your box
of mystery, and take a link out.

You discover that the chain-pin has no nut on it [no master-link
clip]; you feel astonished to find that the chain is a long linked
roller one, in a gear-case, and has yet stretched more than a link's
length.

Then you find that if you were to file a link out you couldn't fasten
the chain up, so you must file two [no chain-breaker].

Then you notice that if you do this the chain ends won't meet.

Then you say "Dear me, how vexing!" or words to that effect, and slip
the chainpin in again, and trust to luck that it will stay there
[remember, the nut was missing from the pin!].

You can only make the chain tight by carrying the wheel so far back in
the fork end that it looks likely to drop out at the end of them.

You can only fix it there by jamming the axle-nuts on so hard that the
wheel won't spin half a revolution by itself when started with a
vicious kick on the pedal [the bearings are binding].

It is far beyond the tether of the adjusting screws.

Then, after an hour's tinkering wiih the machine in a northeaster, you
are so benumbed that you can hardly hold a spanner to fix up the
gear-case cap again. Oil has run out on your coat, thick spanners
won't fit in between the gear-case and the wheel, and that is where
they fix the nuts for you to try and turn them.

On the other side a screw is used. You drop it, and hunt for many
minutes in the mud. When you find it, it won't go in, eh? Oh, yes, it
goes in all right, but it won't bite; there's no thread on the tin of
the gear-case, and the little washer which ought to bite it has
disappeared into the black gulf.

So you fix the case up with one screw instead of four; your hind-wheel
hangs on to the last fibre of the fork ends; your chain is held by a
nutless pin with stripped thread.

Yes, winter cycling wears out your machine with a vengeance; but get
aboard it, grind up that rise, you are warm at once. Fly the other
side where the water has drained off, and no traffic has been along to
churn the just-thawed surfaces into a muck heap, let her go, the pin
may come out, the fork-ends break, the gear-case rattle, no matter, a
run can't be spoiled through fear of such possibilities.

Your insurance policy covers cycling accidents; you can't miss a spin.
Then your triumph comes. Your battle with petty nuisances is won. You
wander forty miles and meet one solitary item of traffic. You return
to town and pass over a few odd miles of tram cars, with pitying,
wondering passengers, hut you have the victory; you can say: "I have
ridden to-day, the joy is mine; no one can rob me of this delight."

--Sporting Life, Jan. 7th, 1893

http://la84foundation.org/SportsLibr.../SL2015007.pdf

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

what did that bike cost ?

On Feb 3, 9:01 pm, kolldata wrote:
what did that bike cost ?


For a bike purchased in 1892 or earlier, probably about 150-200$. The
modern equivalent would be what? $5000 or so?.

when reading material Carl dredges from the net, remember the riders,
among them the Wright Bro, were riding an advanced technology, and so
viewed by society as a whole who, not all aware here off course, had
horsehit in everything, up their noses, into the grave with
infections, TB....
the electric car doesn't have that impact, immediacy.

On Feb 4, 10:31 am, kolldata wrote:
when reading material Carl dredges from the net, remember the riders,
among them the Wright Bro, were riding an advanced technology, and so
viewed by society as a whole who, not all aware here off course, had
horsehit in everything, up their noses, into the grave with
infections, TB....
the electric car doesn't have that impact, immediacy.


I wonder about the basic viability of electric cars (as they are
currently imagined and built) with the whole Rare Earth situation.

And I am not talking about that embarassing incident which occurred
backstage in '72.

The entire personal motor vehicle idea is under serious attack in ways
that people are just beginning to understand..