NAHBS - handmade bicycle show

On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:

On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.

what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?

RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link

http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet

Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!

It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.

These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.

On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.

- Frank Krygowski

Dear Frank,

Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...

A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:

http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html

A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .

The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg

The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4

The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e

CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy

Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN

Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Whippet:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.


The best is yet to come.

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:

On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.

what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?

RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link

http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet

Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!

It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.

These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.

On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.

- Frank Krygowski

Dear Frank,

Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...

A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:

http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html

A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .

The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg

The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4

The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e

CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy

Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN

Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Whippet:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.


The best is yet to come.

Dear Frank & Dan,

The basic double-diamond rear-drive dwarf safety bicycle hasn't
changed that much since the 1890s and isn't likely to change much in
the future.

Here's the kind of bike that millions of riders used during the U.S.
bike boom of the 1890s:

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/white/ima...catalogue8.jpg

It's hard to convince a non-enthusiast that a modern bicycle is
enormously different than the basic bike that our great-grandfathers
rode. The tires look fatter, the frame looks taller, and the handlebar
looks quaint, but it's still the basic modern bicycle--most people who
don't make the fuss we at RBT make about bicycles could ride it around
quite happily.

We do enjoy improvements like aluminum rims (now carbon-fiber),
threadless headsets, carbon-fiber frames, stainless-steel spokes, 20+
speeds, wonderful tires and tubes, exotic chain lubes, brifters, disc
brakes, and so on.

But most of those refinements bounce right off ordinary people, who
wouldn't know a presta from a schrader and might ask us embarrassing
questions about how much faster we actually go or how much easier it
is to just ride around.

Historically, it took only a few years after the first production
rear-drive dwarf safeties appeared in late 1884 for the basic modern
bicycle to appear--any bike catalogue from 1894 will show a close
approximation of the modern fixie.

Frankly, the catalogues of the 1890s soon become boring because the
basic modern bicycle produced by literally hundreds of companies
quickly wipes out all the strange and curious designs. The freakish
bicycles that occasionally appeared still catch our eyes, but they
never caught on after the basic modern bicycle appeared--the fate of
anything that doesn't look like a modern bicycle is easily predictable
after 1900.

The literature may illustrate the lack of fundamental change. Sharp
published "Bicycles & Tricycles" in 1896, with charming woodcuts (not
photos, of course) of all sorts of safeties, examples of the moribund
highwheelers, and oodles of physics and mathematics of little interest
to the ordinary rider.

It's hard to think of anything since then quite like Sharp's
book--perhaps "Bicycling Science"? I'm curious if anyone has other
suggestions.

Berto's "Dancing Chain" history of derailleurs may be our modern
equivalent of Sharp. It's a nice but rather narrow history of
increasingly tiny differences in how to move a bicycle chain from one
sprocket to the next.

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:
On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.
what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?
RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link
http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet
Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!
It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.
These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.
On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.
- Frank Krygowski
Dear Frank,
Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...
A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html
A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .
The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg
The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4
The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e
CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy
Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN
Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Whippet:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.

The best is yet to come.

Dear Frank & Dan,

The basic double-diamond rear-drive dwarf safety bicycle hasn't
changed that much since the 1890s and isn't likely to change much in
the future.

Here's the kind of bike that millions of riders used during the U.S.
bike boom of the 1890s:

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/white/ima...catalogue8.jpg

It's hard to convince a non-enthusiast that a modern bicycle is
enormously different than the basic bike that our great-grandfathers
rode. The tires look fatter, the frame looks taller, and the handlebar
looks quaint, but it's still the basic modern bicycle--most people who
don't make the fuss we at RBT make about bicycles could ride it around
quite happily.

We do enjoy improvements like aluminum rims (now carbon-fiber),
threadless headsets, carbon-fiber frames, stainless-steel spokes, 20+
speeds, wonderful tires and tubes, exotic chain lubes, brifters, disc
brakes, and so on.

But most of those refinements bounce right off ordinary people, who
wouldn't know a presta from a schrader and might ask us embarrassing
questions about how much faster we actually go or how much easier it
is to just ride around.

Historically, it took only a few years after the first production
rear-drive dwarf safeties appeared in late 1884 for the basic modern
bicycle to appear--any bike catalogue from 1894 will show a close
approximation of the modern fixie.

Frankly, the catalogues of the 1890s soon become boring because the
basic modern bicycle produced by literally hundreds of companies
quickly wipes out all the strange and curious designs. The freakish
bicycles that occasionally appeared still catch our eyes, but they
never caught on after the basic modern bicycle appeared--the fate of
anything that doesn't look like a modern bicycle is easily predictable
after 1900.

The literature may illustrate the lack of fundamental change. Sharp
published "Bicycles & Tricycles" in 1896, with charming woodcuts (not
photos, of course) of all sorts of safeties, examples of the moribund
highwheelers, and oodles of physics and mathematics of little interest
to the ordinary rider.

It's hard to think of anything since then quite like Sharp's
book--perhaps "Bicycling Science"? I'm curious if anyone has other
suggestions.

Berto's "Dancing Chain" history of derailleurs may be our modern
equivalent of Sharp. It's a nice but rather narrow history of
increasingly tiny differences in how to move a bicycle chain from one
sprocket to the next.

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Nice post.

We didn't have these when I was a child:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/...e9daddd1_z.jpg

Couldn't think of anything else though.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Mar 11, 12:24 am, wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:



On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:

On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.

what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?

RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link

http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet

Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!

It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.

These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.

On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.

- Frank Krygowski

Dear Frank,

Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti

http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...

A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:

http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html

A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .

The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg

The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4

The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e

CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy

Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN

Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

The Whippet:

http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.

The best is yet to come.

Dear Frank & Dan,

The basic double-diamond rear-drive dwarf safety bicycle hasn't
changed that much since the 1890s and isn't likely to change much in
the future.

Here's the kind of bike that millions of riders used during the U.S.
bike boom of the 1890s:

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/white/ima...catalogue8.jpg


snip


For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.


Can't be sold? To anybody? (That's nothing like what I meant by,
"The best is yet to come.") I do observe that the bike in the link
you provided above has no CPSC reflectors; not sure it could be sold
*legally* through regular channels in the US without some loophole,
but yeah - *I'd* ride the hell out of that bike all over creation,
with a big **** eatin' grin on my face :-)

Thinking over the things about my bike that I didn't have in the old
days, I'd have to say the SPD pedals / shoes significantly change Ride
Bike for me. But I wheelied then, as I wheelie now.

And to tie in the other thread(s), my rechargable 2xAA NiMH powered
LED headlight is a quantum leap in night riding over anything
available back then.

Me and my pantlegs imagine something will eventually replace the drive
chain.

My uncle bequeathed a game that he had as a child to my brother and
I: A lighted box that you'd slide paper sheets with offensive and
defensive football plays into, then draw the blind and advance the
ball or make the stop. I remember when my dad brought home the Pong
console. We have a Wii, now. Worlds away, but still the same.

On Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:13:35 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:
On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.
what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?
RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link
http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet
Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!
It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.
These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.
On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.
- Frank Krygowski
Dear Frank,
Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...
A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html
A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .
The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg
The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4
The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e
CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy
Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN
Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Whippet:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.

The best is yet to come.

Dear Frank & Dan,

The basic double-diamond rear-drive dwarf safety bicycle hasn't
changed that much since the 1890s and isn't likely to change much in
the future.

Here's the kind of bike that millions of riders used during the U.S.
bike boom of the 1890s:

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/white/ima...catalogue8.jpg

It's hard to convince a non-enthusiast that a modern bicycle is
enormously different than the basic bike that our great-grandfathers
rode. The tires look fatter, the frame looks taller, and the handlebar
looks quaint, but it's still the basic modern bicycle--most people who
don't make the fuss we at RBT make about bicycles could ride it around
quite happily.

We do enjoy improvements like aluminum rims (now carbon-fiber),
threadless headsets, carbon-fiber frames, stainless-steel spokes, 20+
speeds, wonderful tires and tubes, exotic chain lubes, brifters, disc
brakes, and so on.

But most of those refinements bounce right off ordinary people, who
wouldn't know a presta from a schrader and might ask us embarrassing
questions about how much faster we actually go or how much easier it
is to just ride around.

Historically, it took only a few years after the first production
rear-drive dwarf safeties appeared in late 1884 for the basic modern
bicycle to appear--any bike catalogue from 1894 will show a close
approximation of the modern fixie.

Frankly, the catalogues of the 1890s soon become boring because the
basic modern bicycle produced by literally hundreds of companies
quickly wipes out all the strange and curious designs. The freakish
bicycles that occasionally appeared still catch our eyes, but they
never caught on after the basic modern bicycle appeared--the fate of
anything that doesn't look like a modern bicycle is easily predictable
after 1900.

The literature may illustrate the lack of fundamental change. Sharp
published "Bicycles & Tricycles" in 1896, with charming woodcuts (not
photos, of course) of all sorts of safeties, examples of the moribund
highwheelers, and oodles of physics and mathematics of little interest
to the ordinary rider.

It's hard to think of anything since then quite like Sharp's
book--perhaps "Bicycling Science"? I'm curious if anyone has other
suggestions.

Berto's "Dancing Chain" history of derailleurs may be our modern
equivalent of Sharp. It's a nice but rather narrow history of
increasingly tiny differences in how to move a bicycle chain from one
sprocket to the next.

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Nice post.

We didn't have these when I was a child:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/...e9daddd1_z.jpg

Couldn't think of anything else though.

Dear Andrew,

"The antique Barum caps on my Raleigh tip the digital scale
at 0.060 grams. They are too cute to sell."
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...f97b8e2a570d28

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

wrote:
On Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:13:35 -0500, AMuzi wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

On Mar 10, 9:46 am, Frank Krygowski
wrote:
wrote:
On Fri, 9 Mar 2012 19:56:34 -0800 (PST), Frank Krygowski
wrote:
On Mar 9, 8:33 pm, Jay wrote:
On Mar 9, 3:50 pm, wrote:
On Friday, March 9, 2012 10:20:09 AM UTC-8, AMuzi wrote:
kolldata wrote:
LOCAL NOISE SEZ THE ODDITY design deviation is a personal statement.
what happened to Barone's post oin the incredible replica ? where izzit ?
RBT 8:06 am on 8 March. Here is his link
http://www.cycleexif.com/paul-brodie-and-the-whippet
Yeah, saw that at the show last week. Too weird. I think its an exercise in trying to figure how complex they can make a bike! Good Luck!
It is a wonderful display piece if you are selling machining and
fabrication services. As an actual bike, it is a waste of time. Just
go buy a double suspended 29er and throw on some skinny tires.
These days, that's true. But I believe the original Whippet predated
pneumatic tires. With solid tires, they were trying almost anything
to reduce the energy cost and discomfort of bouncing over bumps.
On this replica, I'm impressed by the craftsmanship, and yes, it is
good advertising. Beyond that, even if they're not the most
effective, I think replicas of old designs can be kind of neat, in a
steampunk way.
- Frank Krygowski
Dear Frank,
Yes, the Whippet appeared in 1885, several years before Dunlop's
pneumatic ti
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/r...217772&wwwflag...
A few details about the Whippet patent, with a typo dating pneumatics
from 1881:
http://objectwiki.sciencemuseum.org....y_Bicycle.html
A few similar solid-tire suspension bikes . . .
The Victor half-heart front suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/6o773e
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/...29411184_o.jpg
The G&J rear-suspension:
http://tinyurl.com/y7p2eq4
The Columbia front coil-spring suspension, with enormous seat-springs
and a charming early chain:
http://tinyurl.com/7z9xw2e
CMC tricycle front suspension (the date is a typo, it's circa 1888,
not 1898), with impressive seat-springs:
http://tinyurl.com/5l4qzy
Possibly the weirdest solid-tire suspension scheme:
http://www.sterba-bike.cz/album/366/...allery?lang=EN
Some anti-vibration gear from Sturmey's 1887 catalogue:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Special version of Starley's Rover had a strange front suspension:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
The Whippet:
http://books.google.com/books?id=cbd...v=onepage&q&f=...
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
That's an interesting catalog of design attempts.

When I look at ancient bike designs, I'm sometimes surprised by how long
it took to come up with what now seem obvious solutions to simple
problems. I mean even seemingly trivial problems, like "How should we
attach the saddle to the frame?" let alone things like mechanical
suspension.

But of course, we're used to seeing the result of thousands of small,
evolutionary steps in design, not to mention the huge sudden mutations
like the pneumatic tire. Each of those steps required much head
scratching, with some results much more elegant than others.

The best is yet to come.
Dear Frank & Dan,

The basic double-diamond rear-drive dwarf safety bicycle hasn't
changed that much since the 1890s and isn't likely to change much in
the future.

Here's the kind of bike that millions of riders used during the U.S.
bike boom of the 1890s:

http://www.blackbirdsf.org/white/ima...catalogue8.jpg

It's hard to convince a non-enthusiast that a modern bicycle is
enormously different than the basic bike that our great-grandfathers
rode. The tires look fatter, the frame looks taller, and the handlebar
looks quaint, but it's still the basic modern bicycle--most people who
don't make the fuss we at RBT make about bicycles could ride it around
quite happily.

We do enjoy improvements like aluminum rims (now carbon-fiber),
threadless headsets, carbon-fiber frames, stainless-steel spokes, 20+
speeds, wonderful tires and tubes, exotic chain lubes, brifters, disc
brakes, and so on.

But most of those refinements bounce right off ordinary people, who
wouldn't know a presta from a schrader and might ask us embarrassing
questions about how much faster we actually go or how much easier it
is to just ride around.

Historically, it took only a few years after the first production
rear-drive dwarf safeties appeared in late 1884 for the basic modern
bicycle to appear--any bike catalogue from 1894 will show a close
approximation of the modern fixie.

Frankly, the catalogues of the 1890s soon become boring because the
basic modern bicycle produced by literally hundreds of companies
quickly wipes out all the strange and curious designs. The freakish
bicycles that occasionally appeared still catch our eyes, but they
never caught on after the basic modern bicycle appeared--the fate of
anything that doesn't look like a modern bicycle is easily predictable
after 1900.

The literature may illustrate the lack of fundamental change. Sharp
published "Bicycles & Tricycles" in 1896, with charming woodcuts (not
photos, of course) of all sorts of safeties, examples of the moribund
highwheelers, and oodles of physics and mathematics of little interest
to the ordinary rider.

It's hard to think of anything since then quite like Sharp's
book--perhaps "Bicycling Science"? I'm curious if anyone has other
suggestions.

Berto's "Dancing Chain" history of derailleurs may be our modern
equivalent of Sharp. It's a nice but rather narrow history of
increasingly tiny differences in how to move a bicycle chain from one
sprocket to the next.

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.
Nice post.

We didn't have these when I was a child:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1140/...e9daddd1_z.jpg

Couldn't think of anything else though.

Dear Andrew,

"The antique Barum caps on my Raleigh tip the digital scale
at 0.060 grams. They are too cute to sell."
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.b...f97b8e2a570d28


My Czech brass valve caps are nicely chromed with a dainty
knurl along the bottom, probably commonplace in 1895, long
before our modern Skull era!

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On Mar 11, 12:24*am, wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

snip

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Index shifting and high pressure clinchers. Anything mountain bike.
A mid-fi sport bike -- like a Raleigh International or a sportier PX10
-- had sew-ups. The spin class heroes and non-racer leg-shavers who
demand "racing bikes" would run screaming from glue on tires. We
paid our dues back in the day, and so did anyone living in the same
house who had to deal with Tubasti in the shag carpet.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Mar 11, 7:43 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
On Mar 11, 12:24 am, wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2012 21:52:04 -0800 (PST), Dan O
wrote:

snip

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Index shifting...

I don't know the history, but when I was a kid, I rode bikes with
indexed 3-speed shifting that I *think* were older than me. But yeah,
the crisp, 27-speed shifting on my new bike (even if I mostly only use
3 or 4 gears) beats the pants off the 10-speed friction shifting of
yore, which I found hopelessly fiddly, if only because I never had my
own 10-speed to get familiar with.

... and high pressure clinchers. Anything mountain bike.
A mid-fi sport bike -- like a Raleigh International or a sportier PX10
-- had sew-ups. The spin class heroes and non-racer leg-shavers who
demand "racing bikes" would run screaming from glue on tires. We
paid our dues back in the day, and so did anyone living in the same
house who had to deal with Tubasti in the shag carpet.


I was going to say I also like the tires that I use nowadays much
better, but again, don't know the history, and I was never exposed to
the good stuff when I was younger.

On Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:07:10 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

wrote:

For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Is it possible to sell a bike without index shifting? Seems that
becomes essential in the market, as soon as the number of speeds exceeds 1.

Dear Frank,

Hmmm . . . would the venerable Sturmey-Archer (whose "number of speeds
exceeds 1") be considered indexed shifting?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeres...-31289168@N03/

The handlebar-mounted Trigger Control began to replace the top-tube
mounted quadrant shifter by 1940:

"The Sturmey-Archer Handlebar Trigger Control can be used on any
machine fitted with a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed Hub . . . This control
provides an instantaneous change of gear by the flick of a finger."
--from a Sturmey-Archer 1940 ad, p. 132, "Dancing Chain"

Even if the S-A isn't considered indexed shifting, lots of
single-speed bicycles are sold today without any shifting, much less
indexed-shifting, so I'm still stumped.

"In the United States market, bicycle companies Villy Custom, Bianchi,
Cannondale, Fuji Bike, KHS, Kona, Raleigh, Giant, Specialized, Swobo,
Felt, Trek and Niner all have recently produced and marketed single
speed bicycles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-speed_bicycle

The first bike that I saw today was a nice new single-speed being
happily pedaled up the road by a teenager. I understand that swarms of
them can be seen in heavy daily use in Holland.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

On Mar 11, 9:34*pm, wrote:
On Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:07:10 -0400, Frank Krygowski

wrote:
wrote:
For fun, try to name something that appeared after you were born
without which a bicycle simply can't be sold today--not something that
you consider essential, but which the market considers essential. I
admit that I'm stumped.

Is it possible to sell a bike without index shifting? *Seems that
becomes essential in the market, as soon as the number of speeds exceeds 1.

Dear Frank,

Hmmm . . . would the venerable Sturmey-Archer (whose "number of speeds
exceeds 1") be considered indexed shifting?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeres...aves-31289168@...

The handlebar-mounted Trigger Control began to replace the top-tube
mounted quadrant shifter by 1940:

"The Sturmey-Archer Handlebar Trigger Control can be used on any
machine fitted with a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed Hub . . . This control
provides an instantaneous change of gear by the flick of a finger."
* --from a Sturmey-Archer 1940 ad, p. 132, "Dancing Chain"

Even if the S-A isn't considered indexed shifting, lots of
single-speed bicycles are sold today without any shifting, much less
indexed-shifting, so I'm still stumped.

Frank is talking about multi-speed bikes derailleur bikes. You have
to talk about the consumers of those bikes, who are the same market
segment that used to buy Varsities on up. That market segment is not
going to buy friction shifters.

Another thing that you do not see and that people apparently don't
want anymore are exposed brake cables on road bikes. All the hidden
cable stuff is new (assuming someone didn't do it in 1886). I was
riding my rehabbed '87 Cannondale T1000 yesterday with some '70s Campy
levers that seem to work better with the cantilevers, and the brake
cables were annoying. It's odd how preferences change. I also don't
think the current market likes brakes that you really have to squeeze.

OT -- I rebuilt that T1000 on a whim and replaced the old OE Scott SE
rear brake with an Avid shorty 6, and that's a really great brake --
and I don't get the complaints about the brake not being easy to open
for wheel changes.

-- Jay Beattie.