Your cyclometer dreams of this

Santa finally brought me Pryor Dodge's coffee-table "The Bicycle" (the
first attempt fell off the sleigh).

The photos illustrate the difference between dry, dull patent diagrams
and the real thing.

Here's the patent for Larkin's 1886 Standard Cyclometer, for measuring
how far your highwheeler has rolled:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=gSh...=PA2&dq=348851

The patent diagram is boring, even though it shows the big balancing
ball that holds the instrument steady down inside the spokes as the
axle of the huge front wheel revolves.

Here's Pryor Dodge's photo of the real thing:
http://i31.tinypic.com/2dgiz2d.jpg

I think that it goes up to 2500 miles before restarting (hey, it's a
highwheeler) and is indicating just a touch over 217 & 11/64ths miles.

Now you know what your digital cyclocomputer dreams about when it
shuts itself down into power-saving mode.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Jan 27, 4:26*pm, wrote:
Here's the patent for Larkin's 1886 Standard Cyclometer, for measuring
how far your highwheeler has rolled:
*http://www.google.com/patents?id=gSh...=PA2&dq=348851

Perhaps what I find most interesting is that the term "cyclometer" and
the corresponding device dates back so far. I doubt that I ever gave
it very much thought but I would have just assumed that the term was
a conveniently shortened version of "cycle computer." Of course now it
will undoubtedly be demonstrated that even "cycle computer" predates
the electronic/digital era.

DR