More questions than answers

After my last article about Cornell University’s bicycle experiment, I started thinking “What if” the bicycle had never been invented in the late 1800s, would engineers come up with a similar design today?

Even if they did, I doubt it would be taken seriously as a viable form of personal transport.

The bicycle came into being at a time when the only other form of personal transport was the horse. These animals were not only expensive to buy, they needed feeding and housing; working class people could not afford horses.

However, once the bicycle had been invented, and a few years later mass production put this new machine within reach of the poorer classes it became a revolutionary form of personal transport. Many forget that the automobile came later and eventually replaced the horse as the wealthy person’s transport of choice.

So what if the automobile had come first. The poorer working classes would have continued living in cities where they could get to work either on foot or by rail or other form of public transport.

The bicycle had less of an impact on America’s history, because there it was the automobile that became affordable due to mass production, and the luxury of plenty of space led to urban sprawl, and the suburbs.

In the UK and other smaller European countries, it was viable for a working class man to live in a rural area, and cycle 5 to 10 miles to work each day. The humble bike was the working man’s wheels all the way up to the late 1950s, early 1960s. 

Even though commuting to work by bicycle is a hard sell today for the majority, think how much harder it would be if engineers were only just developing the bicycle now. Almost everyone can at least ride a bicycle, and most households have at least one bike in their garage.

Look what happened in Japan recently after the earthquake and tsunami? People took to bicycles to get where they needed to be. How high will gas prices need to go before some people in the UK and the US start to realize their choice might be eating, or putting gas in the car, and bicycles will start to be dragged out of garages?

Would today’s engineers even think of a two-wheeled vehicle? If there were no bicycles there would be no motorcycles, only four wheel vehicles; don’t forget the first autos were “Horseless Carriages.”

Above: A German Draisine or Laufmaschine, circa 1820. I have always called this a Hobby Horse.

In my last article I referred to the Cornell experiment as a “Push Toy.” I realized later, had it not been for a push toy, the bicycle would have never come into being?

The bicycle’s predecessor, the Hobby Horse came on the scene in the early 1800s as a rich man’s whimsical plaything,

It only needed two wheels because its rider kept his feet on the ground.

No doubt it was soon discovered that its rider could lift his feet clear of the ground and remain balanced when coasting downhill. 

What has always amazed me is that it took until towards the end of the 1800s for someone to attach a simple foot crank to the front wheel and it became a bicycle.

I started out by mentioning that before the bicycle the only form of personal transport was the horse. I am sure ever since men rode horses, children pretended to ride horses with a stick between their legs.

When the wheel was invented, model horses with wheels were made as children’s toys, from this came the adult version in the 1800s, and from that the bicycle. The bicycle evolved, rather than it was invented; it was certainly not invented by any one person. 

It is one of the simplest and most efficient machines that humankind has ever made. What I find surprising is that today almost 200 years later, engineers are still asking, “How does its rider balance, and how does it steer?” The bicycle still raises more questions than answers.

I for one doubt very much that today’s engineers, even knowing about gyroscopic precession, caster action and such, would even think of building a two-wheeled vehicle for personal transport. So I am glad that the bicycle came first and then the automobile, it may not have even happened the other way round.

What do you think? Just a little food for thought for you to munch on.

                         

Bayliss-Wiley Unit Hub: Ahead of its time

My first serious lightweight bike was a modest Dawes made of Reynolds 531 tubing. It had a cottered steel crank with a single chainring, and a Simplex derailleur with 3x1/8 inch sprockets.

The rear hub was a Bayliss-Wiley “Unit” hub as it was known. (Pictured above.) Freewheels had always been a separate item that screwed to the hub, this one had the freewheel built into the hub as a single unit, hence its name.

Today we call this a cassette hub and is the standard equipment on most high end and even moderate lightweight bikes.

The Bayliss-Wiley Unit hub was introduced in 1938, and was produced until 1957. Not particularly lightweight it was never considered to be racing equipment, but was used by club cyclists, tourists, and young kids like me who were just starting out.

Looking back it was really ahead of its time and it would be 30 years later that the Japanese company Suntour introduced another, and failed. It wasn’t until the top two manufacturers, Shimano and Campagnolo introduced their cassette hubs that people took them seriously.

The freewheel was always considered an item that would wear out long before the hub, therefore at one time it made sense to have it be a separate component that could be unscrewed from the hub and replaced.

It wasn’t until freewheels went beyond six sprockets to 7, 8, 9, and 10, that an all in one unit or cassette hub was considered practical.

The Bayliss-Wiley Company was located in Tyseley, Birmingham, England and was founded by Cecil Bayliss and Arthur Wiley in 1919.

The company had what we would call today a niche marlet; they produced inexpensive but high quality bicycle components. Bayliss-Wiley kept the British working man on the road, back in the day when the bicycle was often the only form of transport for the working class.

They primarily made hubs, single speed freewheels, and bottom brackets; the parts that wore out and needed regular replacement. The company thrived through the 1920s, 30s and 40s, but not surprisingly declined in the late 1950s, when the British working man abandoned the bicycle and started buying cars for the first time. 

Taken over by Reynold Chains Ltd., the Bayliss-Wiley name finally disappeared in 1969. One of the most recognizable brand names when I started cycling in the 1950s, but not too many of today's generation will have heard of Bayliss-Wiley even in the UK.

You can read more on Ebykr.com

                   

Fine Italian Steel

On hearing the term “Fine Italian Steel,” what usually springs to mind are handcrafted steel frames, but in the early 1950s, Italy having made a quick recovery from the devastation of WWII, were producing some quite beautiful steel bicycle components.

There were no Campagnolo Groupos in the early 1950s, Campagnolo made quick release hubs and derailleur gears, and that was it. Pedals and cranksets were introduced in the late 50s.

The two main brands I remember were Gnutti and Magistroni, between them they made cranksets, bottom bracket bearings, hubs and headsets.

Gnutti made a really elegant cotterless crankset, (Pictured above.) that fitted onto a tapered and splined BB spindle, and was held in place with recessed Alen screws.

They also made a less expensive cottered crank, which was the one I used, pictured left.

Both Gnutti and Magistroni cranks were a three arm pattern with the same standard bolt circle diameter.

They were often used in conjunction with the French made Simplex chainrings.

Simplex had these three simple bolt-on adapter arms. (Picture below.)

Gnutti’s quick release hubs were a copy of Tulio Campagnolo’s original idea, I’m not sure if the patent had run out, or they were made under license. The hubs had a chromed steel barrel with aluminum flanges pressed and swaged into place. (Pictures below.)

Finally this Magistroni headset (Pictured below right.) intrigues me; it is quite an engineering masterpiece. How did they get the “Magistroni” name around its circumference?

It would not have been cast; a casting would not work as a bearing surface.

Stamping not possible around the complete circle. It would not have been engraved or pantographed, too costly.

Knowing a little about engineering practices of that era, I believe the lettering was rolled on.

Probably done while the bar stock was in a solid piece, before the headset cup was shaped in a lathe. The bar would be turned slowly and a rotating die with the lettering in reverse pressed into it under great pressure. If anyone else has any alternative theories let me know.

Also note the teeth machined into the top of the bearing cup, with a lock ring with matching teeth. After loosening the top nut, this would allow adjustment by hand, one notch at a time. The lock ring being keyed to the steering tube would prevent the bearing cup from turning as the top nut was re-tightened.

                         

Cotter Pins

The racing bicycle developed through the 1920s and 1930s, becoming increasingly sleek and lightweight.

However, aluminum alloy was not widely used for bicycle components as it was considered unreliable at that time.

All this changed in the 1940s due to WWII and aircraft production; huge strides were made in metallurgy and improvements made in aluminum alloys.

However, there was reluctance immediately after the war, both by manufacturers and consumers to use these new alloys for high stress bicycle components like cranksets.

My first race bike that I bought in the early 1950s had steel cranks, held to the bottom bracket axel with cotter pins; a somewhat crude method of attachment that had been around since the early days of the bicycle.

Never-the-less the cotter pin was cheap, simple and reliable, providing they were fitted correctly. I used to buy my cotter pins “Plain,” and file my own flats on them.

The procedure was to file a flat, tap it into the hole in the crank arm using a hammer; the relatively soft cotter pin would butt up against the hardened surface of the flat on the bottom bracket spindle.

This would create a shiny spot on the flat of the cotter pin; the pin would be removed and the shiny spot would then be filed off, and the pin refitted.

This was repeated until there was perfect contact along the entire flat portion of the cotter pin.

Periodically, usually before an important race the cotter pins were driven out, making sure there was a block of wood under the crank arm, (Right.)

This was so the frame or the BB bearings would not be damaged by hammering on the cotter pin unsupported.

The cotter pin was touched up with a file again and refitted. After several refits it was necessary to buy new cotter pins and start over.

The rule I was always taught was that “When the pedal goes down, the cotter goes up.” On the downward stroke of the crank, the nut on the cotter pin was on the top.

The idea is, when the left crank is driving the tendency is for the cotter pin to be pulled in tighter. However, the cotter pins have to be installed in opposite directions; otherwise the cranks will not be in the exact same plane.

With the BB spindle now driving the chainwheel from the left, the right cotter pin is tending to be pushed out and the only thing stopping it is the nut. So one could argue that it doesn’t matter which direction the cotters go, one of them is bound to be in the wrong direction. 

All I know is I always fitted them the way I was taught, I checked them regularly and I never had a cotter come loose while I was riding.

Most people reading this will probably never have to concern themselves with a cotter pin; unless you are into collecting vintage bicycles.

But you never know you might find yourself working on an old roadster bike, and now instead of staring at a cotter pin and asking, “What do I do with this?” You at least have the basics. 

                         

We owe a lot to the bicycle

Modern road and air transport owes a great deal to the bicycle and to those who experimented on perfecting it.

Some thirty years before the first automobile was built, innovations appeared on bicycles, many of which are built into the design of powered transport today. A few of them are:

• Pneumatic tires
• Cable control brakes and other units
• Ball Bearings
• Free wheels
• Differential gears
• Chain drives
• Shaft drives
• Variable gears – the foundation of the transmission

Equally important contributions were improvements in the specifications of metals, also changes came about in machine tools, engineering techniques, and in production methods.

Many of the people who designed and manufactured bicycles went on the design and build the first automobiles. American aviation pioneers Orville and Wilber Wright designed bicycles in their Dayton, Ohio factory that subsequently became a proving ground for airplane components.

Today, bicycle advocates have to lobby government to maintain the cyclist’s rights to be on the road. Many forget it was similar bicycle advocates who were instrumental in getting roads paved in the first place at the turn of the last century. Paved roads that were suitable for the introduction of the automobile.

The bicycle came into being as a viable form of transport and for many years was recognized and accepted as such. Somehow over the years the bicycle became relegated to the status of a recreational toy.

The next time you are sitting on an airplane, or you see an eighteen-wheeler truck hauling the nation’s supplies along our highways; you might do well to remember it all began with the humble bicycle