The Future: Imagined

Watching old episodes of “The Twilight Zone” on Hulu, it recently struck me that so many of the stories were of the future. Tales of space travel, and encounters with aliens from Mars and even from other galaxies   

These old black and white made for TV episodes were first shown around the late 1950s and early 1960s. The story lines are pretty lame by today’s standards, but I found them interesting from a nostalgic viewpoint, remembering seeing them back when they were first aired.

Also interesting is recognizing young actors like William Shatner, Dennis Hopper, and Charles Bronson. at the beginning of their careers. Someone born after the sixties would probably not find The Twilight Zone interesting at all.

Many of the stories were of a world annihilated by nuclear war, reflecting how people felt back in the “Cold War” era. One such story was set in the then future date of 1974, with most of the world’s population dead, and a handful of survivors living a primitive lifestyle. 1974 was not that far in the future, and yet at the time the story line was morbidly believable.

Most of the stories of the future depicted the world’s population under a totalitarian government, all dressed the same, in some kind of uniform. Looking back at the 1950s – 1960s era, when men wore a suit and tie, and women wore dresses and high heels, the dress code was more uniform than it is now, where just about anything goes.

One recently watched episode that set the story in the year 2,000 was hilarious in that it had men and women dressed in tights with their undershorts on the outside, Superman style.

All these old stories depicting the future so inaccurately, reminded me I had an old “Cycling” magazine with story of the future. I searched and found it and re-read it. It was both interesting and amusing in parts.

The magazine is dated January 22nd. 1936. (About 3 weeks before my birth.) The fictional story tells of a cyclist who has a dream where he meets a cyclist many years in the future. The author does not specify what year exactly.

The future bike was made of a material named “Chromolithium.” It weighed 4 lbs. (1.81 kg.) The frame tubes were only ½ inch diameter. (12. 7 mm.)

The gearing is interesting in that the bike has a disc in place of a chainwheel with a series of teeth machined on the inside from the outer circumference to the center. It has a driveshaft rather than a chain. The drive shaft moves to engage with the disc, operated by a handlebar twist grip.

I find this interesting as a similar idea is now in production, (Left.) except the disc is at the rear wheel.

This idea was around in 1936, at least in this author’s mind.

The author calls these gears “Infinite.” The range is 98 inch top gear, with a low of 36 inch. Todays bikes have gears well outside this range.

The bike had drum brakes at the hub. (Not disc brakes.) Operated by a twist grip on the opposite side of the handlebar. All cables were hidden inside the frame.

The roads in this story are black during the day and turn white at night as the sun sets. No cars are allowed on the roads, in this author’s mind, the death toll for cyclists got so bad at some point in the future that underground tunnels were built for cars.  The main form of transport are bicycles and airplanes that fly silently across the sky.

The article said that cycling was the future's main sport in England but only mentioned Time-Trialing, as of course that was the only racing option in the UK in 1936. (With the exception of track racing.) An interesting quote from the story, word for word:

“Joe Smith put up the fastest “25” ever, 41 minutes and 6 seconds. All the competitors take some sort of tablet before they race. They’re quite harmless and give them tremendous energy and staying power.”

The article talks of a British Time-Trial 24 hour Record of 590 miles. The current UK record is 541.214 miles.

I find it strange the author had a vision of roads only open to cyclists but could not see the ban lifted on massed-start road racing. In reality, that ban wasn’t lifted until 1956, and had it not been lifted at that time it probably would not have happened at all, because during the 1960s and 1970s motor traffic in the UK increased at an alarming rate.

The author was not named, just his initials. R.H.W.

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Comments

[Richard Core]

Fascinating! Seems like two goals of cycling haven’t changed—make the bike easier and more enjoyable to ride and put distance between cars and bikes.

[SteveP]

Neat! It is interesting how sometimes the more you know about a subject, the harder it is to think "outside the box"

[Steve]

I cannot image riding a bike with “infinite” gears. That would be like an electric car: It goes from zero to top speed without any gear changes. Thus, I question anyone thinking that would be a good idea on a bike.

Yes, we have the expression “You are the motor” when referring to riding a bicycle. But humans are nothing like motors. We control our cadence, we decide how much “spinning” or “pushing” we will be doing while riding. We dispense with our “watts”, or power with measured control, most obviously the most efficiently when we are well-trained and experienced.

Remember Greg LeMond: “It doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.”

There is also the problem of how would you choose your gear if there is limitless possibilities, with the proposed “infinite gearing” theory? Would you the rider choose? How? Would a computer choose a “gear” for you? And what would be the metrics to determine that, in other words, what data would a computer use (and what sensors used and where) to “shift” for you? I can’t see anything short of a complete bio-mechanical interconnected arrangement, turning the rider into a cyborg.

In short, endless gears work with a motor that can supply any amount of energy (up to its designed limit) on demand, but I cannot see how a cyclist would want gears like that on their bicycle. When mountain bikes have gotten rid of double chainrings, and cassettes go from 11-tooth to 52-teeth using 12 sprockets, that tells you something: We have more range but not more gears inside that range.

I believe there is a limit of how many gears we really need or humans can actually use. And I know for a fact I would not like a cassette that had only one tooth difference on back.