File:Wheels and wheeling; an indispensable handbook for cyclists, with over two hundred illustrations (1892) (14592035960).jpg

Identifier: wheelswheelingin00port (find matches)
Title: Wheels and wheeling; an indispensable handbook for cyclists, with over two hundred illustrations
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Porter, Luther Henry
Subjects: Cycling Bicycles
Publisher: Boston, Wheelman Company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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, at the start were in a moreor less crude form, being clumsy and heavy as com-pared with themselves a few years later. The effortto produce a practicable machine had been too greatto admit of paying much attention to such a questionas that of weight, and a 54-inch ordinary, in 1875,is said to have weighed full sixty-five pounds. Infact, nearly ten years later, many a full roadster ofthe same size weighed fifty pounds, and in 1886, whenthe ordinary had been practically perfected, many aso-called light roadster weighed forty-five pounds, HISTORY OF THE BICYCLE. H though this was too heavy by several pounds to reallydeserve the name. As in weight, so in fittings, finish, and all mattersof detail connected with the machine, modificationsand improvements were slight but constant up toabout 1886, when the final form was reached. Plainand roller bearings had been superseded by balls, andin 1879 by adjustable ball bearings. These wereapplied first to the front wheel, then: to the rear; later
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Ordinary Bicycle—i£ to the pedals; and last (by some makers only), to thehead. The early nippled and nutted spokes werereplaced by the direct and the various forms oftangent. The tubing used for backbone, forks,and bar was changed in shape, gauge, and diameter.Twenty-inch straight handle bars yielded to 28-inch curved ones; small, uncomfortable, grips todelightful T and spade handles, and hard little pig 64 WHEELS AND WHEELING. skins to easy hammock saddles. While the machinesof 1876 and 1886 were of one kind, those of 1886 wereof a far finer breed than their predecessors. Almost contemporaneously with the perfecting ofthe ordinary came the successful advent of the rear-driving chain safety, and the newcomer soon sup-planted the but recently perfected high wheel. In thecourse of two or three years, the ordinary almost dis-appeared, though attempts were made to preserve itspopularity by building it in a safer and, so-called,rational form. The rational ordinary differedfrom the regul

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