Odd spokes

Look at the weird spoke bend at the hub, third picture down, on the
1890s Overman Victor:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

The caption is mistaken--it's the rear hub, not the front. You can see
the chain on the far side, along with the open shell of the far
flange.

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

And look at the crank in the second and fifth pictures--no BB shell
here!

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Dec 8, 5:06 pm, wrote:
Look at the weird spoke bend at the hub, third picture down, on the
1890s Overman Victor:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

The caption is mistaken--it's the rear hub, not the front. You can see
the chain on the far side, along with the open shell of the far
flange.

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

And look at the crank in the second and fifth pictures--no BB shell
here!

Are the tubes that replace the seat-tube's function bolted in place?
Does this bike disassemble?

On Sat, 8 Dec 2007 14:37:33 -0800 (PST), Brian Huntley
wrote:

On Dec 8, 5:06 pm, wrote:
Look at the weird spoke bend at the hub, third picture down, on the
1890s Overman Victor:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

The caption is mistaken--it's the rear hub, not the front. You can see
the chain on the far side, along with the open shell of the far
flange.

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

And look at the crank in the second and fifth pictures--no BB shell
here!

Are the tubes that replace the seat-tube's function bolted in place?
Does this bike disassemble?

Dear Brian,

I don't remember anything about disassembly in Lenz's letters to
Outing magazine, but it does look as if there's a bolt head in the
second picture, securing the far "seat" tube to the far down tube.

You can see it sticking out in the fifth picture, too.

It's painted green, but if it isn't a bolt head, it's hard to think of
what else it might be.

There's a clear hex nut painted green in the second picture, holding
the brake-control pivot shaft in place.

The Pedersen bicycle came in a folding model to be carried by
soldiers, but off-hand I don't recall any other 1890s bicycles made to
be folded or disassembled for easy transport--back then, you had a
large railroad car or trolley or wagon instead of a cramped modern car
or overcrowded mass-transit railroad.

Here's the 1901 folding Pedersen:

http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/orig...s/folding.html

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

In article ,
wrote:

The Pedersen bicycle came in a folding model to be carried by
soldiers, but off-hand I don't recall any other 1890s bicycles made
to be folded or disassembled for easy transport--back then, you had a
large railroad car or trolley or wagon instead of a cramped modern
car or overcrowded mass-transit railroad.

Here's the 1901 folding Pedersen:

http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/orig...s/folding.html

The claimed weight of 15 pounds is rather remarkable. And I am not sure
that the claims that the bike was used in the Boer War have actually
been substantiated.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:26:02 -0600, Tim McNamara
wrote:

In article ,
wrote:

The Pedersen bicycle came in a folding model to be carried by
soldiers, but off-hand I don't recall any other 1890s bicycles made
to be folded or disassembled for easy transport--back then, you had a
large railroad car or trolley or wagon instead of a cramped modern
car or overcrowded mass-transit railroad.

Here's the 1901 folding Pedersen:

http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/orig...s/folding.html

The claimed weight of 15 pounds is rather remarkable. And I am not sure
that the claims that the bike was used in the Boer War have actually
been substantiated.

Dear Tim,

Digging around in historical trivia often leads to uncertainties.

One page about bicycles and the Boer wars flatly says that the
Pedersen was not used by the British Army:

"In 1900, Dursley Pedersen produced a folding bicycle for use by the
British Army but it was not accepted."


http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0...craze-AIF.html

On the other hand, Martin Caidin wrote in "Bicycles & War" in 1974:

"The key was modifying the standard assembly of the bicycle, and the
new hero of the day was an English manufacturer, Dursley Pedersen,
whose folding bicycle was a vast improvement over the bulky machines
with which most soldiers had been burdened. . . . The success of the
Pedersen bicycle in the Boer War galvanized other countries to conduct
renewed tests."
--p.20-21

"During its initial use in South Africa, the bicycle faced many of the
problems other military forces had encountered in the field. The
machines were heavy, required excessive maintenance and, unless
surface conditions were reasonable, they often had to be abandoned by
troops who were forced to keep moving in field operations."

"All that changed when Dursley Pederson [sic] applied common sense and
skilled engineering to the problem, and produced a folding bicycle
that weighed only fifteen pounds. Soldiers who were issued the new
machines quickly devised carrying straps and slings for the folded
bicycles, and overnight the problems of moving through terrain
impassable to any wheeled vehicle disappeared. On good terrain the
troops could travel from forty to sixty miles a day with full
equipment. When they encountered uncharted and rough surfaces, the men
folded their bicycles into a compact and manageable size, lashed them
to their backs, and kept moving on foot."
--p. 66

But there are no pictures of folding Pedersens in the book, and Caidin
might have confused the widespread use of non-folding normal bicycles
with some mistaken claim about the Pedersen. He listed about 50
sources in a bibliography, but scorned footnotes.

"Riding High" has two photos on p. 149 of a bearded soldier with rifle
and bandolier posing next to his Pedersen and carrying it folded, but
it's not clear if it's a real picture in South Africa or a staged
picture in England.

From some writing on the photo, I suspect that the pictures appeared
in the Scientific American, which Caidin lists in his bibliography: "A
New Military Folding Bicycle," Scientific American, Vol 83, Oct. 20
1900. He also lists "Riding High" as a source and echoes its passage
about the Pedersen.

The bearded soldier in the photos looks suspiciously like Pedersen
himself. The photo at the Pedersen site shows the same fellow, hat,
beard, bandolier, and even fence in the background:

http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/orig...s/folding.html

As for the 15-lb weight, it is indeed remarkably light, but Marten has
mentioned a 4.1 kg version.

Unfortunately, the miserable Scientific American is not digitized, so
I'll have to go back to the library and grovel in the microfiche.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

wrote:

Here's the 1901 folding Pedersen:

http://www.dursley-pedersen.net/orig...s/folding.html
The claimed weight of 15 pounds is rather remarkable. And I am not sure
that the claims that the bike was used in the Boer War have actually
been substantiated.

Dear Tim,

Digging around in historical trivia often leads to uncertainties.

One page about bicycles and the Boer wars flatly says that the
Pedersen was not used by the British Army:

"In 1900, Dursley Pedersen produced a folding bicycle for use by the
British Army but it was not accepted."



According to 'the ingenious Mr Pedersen' Pedersen had no luck selling
oil separators, improved machineguns or bicycles to either the Danish or
British army

"Riding High" has two photos on p. 149 of a bearded soldier with rifle
and bandolier posing next to his Pedersen and carrying it folded, but
it's not clear if it's a real picture in South Africa or a staged
picture in England.


The bearded soldier in the photos looks suspiciously like Pedersen
himself. The photo at the Pedersen site shows the same fellow, hat,
beard, bandolier, and even fence in the background:


Pedersen enjoyed playing soldiers appearently, the biograpy shows a
series of six staged photo's (1898?)


As for the 15-lb weight, it is indeed remarkably light, but Marten has
mentioned a 4.1 kg version.

Later versions grew heavier



--
/Marten

info(apestaartje)m-gineering(punt)nl

On Dec 8, 11:06 pm, wrote:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

Are you sure that's what it is for? How would it have been used?

Joseph

On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 02:21:13 -0800 (PST),
" wrote:

On Dec 8, 11:06 pm, wrote:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

Are you sure that's what it is for? How would it have been used?

Joseph

Dear Joseph,

Rear mounting pegs on the axle were commonplace from the beginning of
safeties:

http://i13.tinypic.com/4v67a5z.jpg

We're puzzled by antique mounting pegs for several reasons.

First, we've forgotten our roots. An ordinary bicycle came equipped
with a mounting peg--"ordinary" is another term for a highwheeler,
which confuses the hell out of casual readers, who mistakenly consider
newfangled safety bicycles to be ordinary. The bottom picture on this
page shows a highwheeler's mounting step:

http://collection.rydjor.com/bikecol.../1886hiwhl.htm

So it seemed perfectly ordinary to push off from behind, step up up
onto the seat using a rear mounting peg, and _then_ take care of
putting your feet onto the whirling fixed-gear pedals as you coasted.

Mounting a highwheeler and getting going actually happens faster than
the description makes it sound. Page down to the mount and pedal
dismount by Martin Krieg, who explains where he likes to have his
pedals when he starts and watch the short video as he uses the
mounting peg:

http://www.bikeroute.com/HiWheelers/

The sunglasses, cargo rack, and toe straps are modern.

Here are the steps isolated in snapshots:

http://www.eriding.net/media/vintage...les.shtml#nine

Notice that like the drawing of the Rover safety rider, the
highwheelers start from directly behind the bike, not to one side as
we do when we stand on the left, step on the left pedal, and push off.

The highwheelers were just too high to stand off to the side.

Second, we've forgotten just how high those old safety bikes were. The
early safeties had wheels up to 34 inches tall, huge to us, but
awfully small to people who considered a 48-inch safety a low-rider.

Getting up on some old safeties was more like the Lone Ranger hopping
up onto Silver than swinging a leg over a modern bike--and it's easy
to forget that the average height back then was several inches less
than it is today, which made things even worse.

Look at the height of the stems and handlebars in this 1893 pictu

http://woment.mur.at/images/GrazerDamenBicycleClub.jpg

Note the coasting pegs on the three left-hand bikes--another thing
that we've lost. Modern fixie riders treat bicycling as an athletic
matter, not a convenience, so coasting pegs on the fork have vanished.
Our ancestors weren't messengers or showoffs (or sensible LBS types
enjoying a little retro fun):


http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...+on+bike%2Ejpg

Anyway, here are a few more mounting pegs on some safeties. They
tended to move over to the left side, away from the chain and rear
sprocket:

1890s Shelby Ideal
http://www.nostalgic.net/pictures/1659.htm

1893 Elliot Hickory
http://www.nostalgic.net/pictures/1648.htm
http://www.nostalgic.net/pictures/1650.htm

1897 Humber with Clement 1904 engine:

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...Engine+3%2Ejpg

Gratuitous pictures of the same gorgeous contraption:

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...Engine+1%2Ejpg

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...Engine+2%2Ejpg

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...Engine+4%2Ejpg

Stop looking at the girl and notice the mounting peg on the rear axle
and the coasting pegs on the fork:

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...ike+phto%2Ejpg

Even this dilapidated 1900s child's bike has a mounting peg:

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...s+bike+7%2Ejpg

This shaft-drive 1902 Columbia monster frame . . .
http://www.nostalgic.net/pictures/1628.htm

.. . . has a hard-to-see mounting peg:
http://www.nostalgic.net/pictures/1630.htm

A really elaborate hanging mounting peg:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/...rdtired13v.jpg

A more modest mounting peg:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/...ardtired3v.jpg

Mounting peg and owner showing height of seat, which reaches his
elbow:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/...eumatic12v.jpg

No pegs visible, but another elbow on seat:

http://www.thewheelmen.org/sections/...eumatic15v.jpg

Many hubs lacked the mounting peg, which gives me an excuse to show
this cutaway 1907 Musselman display model:

http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...an%5FCut%2Ejpg

But here's a 1901 EZ hub with the mounting peg, just a knurled
extension of the axle:
http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S...EZ+hub+2%2Ejpg

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 02:21:13 -0800 (PST),
" wrote:

On Dec 8, 11:06 pm, wrote:

http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm

What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.

Are you sure that's what it is for? How would it have been used?

Joseph

Dear Joseph,

By coincidence, Sheldon just lamented the getting-started problem that
the mounting peg solved:

Personally, I despise coaster brakes. Here's my canned rant on the
subject:

RANT

I strongly dislike coaster brakes.

They make it hard to get started from a stop, because there's no easy
way to rotate the pedals to a good starting position.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...d3ceca962dc4c8

It's just as hard to rotate the pedals to a good starting position on
a heavy 1890s fixie.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

wrote:
Look at the weird spoke bend at the hub, third picture down, on the
1890s Overman Victor:
http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm
The caption is mistaken--it's the rear hub, not the front. You can see
the chain on the far side, along with the open shell of the far
flange.
What looks like a massive quick-release lever is just a solid mounting
peg, useful for getting going again on a heavily-laden fixie when the
pedals stopped at an awkward angle.
And look at the crank in the second and fifth pictures--no BB shell
here!

Brian Huntley wrote:
Are the tubes that replace the seat-tube's function bolted in place?
Does this bike disassemble?

It appears the frame has brazed joints. The elaborate linkage shows the
rear braking mechanism.
--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971