The Redheaded Stepchild

Cyclists have always been society’s “Redheaded Stepchild;” unloved and abused throughout history. The above picture is titled, "The Unrestrained Demon of the Wheel,” published in “The Judge,” Sept. 23, 1893, reflects the attitude of the day.

Since the invention of the ordinary, or high-wheeler in the late 1800s, when horse drawn carriages were the transport of the day. It was the wealthy classes who owned carriages, and bicycles scared the horses.

It was not uncommon for a coach driver to lash out at a passing cyclist with his horsewhip, and pedestrians were not above putting a walking stick through a rider’s wheel.

Bicycles were expensive and initially cycling was a sport of the wealthy, but it was a young man’s pastime and even wealthy young men were viewed with disdain by the older generation.

Cycling was initially banned in places in England as being too dangerous. However, being a “rich man’s sport,” the ban was short lived. By 1880 there were 213 established cycling clubs in the UK. Remember, this was before the invention of the “Safety Bicycle” in 1885, and the pneumatic tire in 1888.

With the invention of the “safety” bicycle, and mass production that followed, it really changed the face of the sport, and people’s attitude to it. Cycling became affordable to the working classes and it quickly became both a pastime and a mode of transport of the masses.

In England the wealthy who lived on large country estates, suddenly found their space invaded on the weekends by the working classes on their bicycles as they ventured outside the cities for the first time to explore the countryside.

 Cycling was no longer a pastime for the wealthy, in fact to ride a bicycle was now a definite sign of being lower class.

The privileged upper classes looked for new ways to reclaim the highways again; of course, they found it in the form of the automobile.

However, the resentment towards cyclists, by the upper classes, was already established long before the automobile arrived.

The invention of the pneumatic tire meant there was an explosion in the sport of cycle racing. And nothing will disrupt a quiet Sunday drive to church by the local gentry, like a bike race. This led to a ban in England of mass start road racing in 1894; a ban that would last until the 1950s.

The result was road racing never developed in the UK as it did in the rest of Europe. In countries like France, Holland, Belgium, and Italy cyclists receive respect and toleration because of the popularity of cycle road racing in those countries. The general public on the continent of Europe has become used to seeing cyclists racing and training on the highways.

The only competitive events open to British cyclists were track racing, of course limited to those close to a track. A few mass start circuit races in private parks, and individual time trials, which would become the mainstay of British cycling competition.

It is interesting to note that in 1894, as road racing was banned in England as being too dangerous; the first motor race was held on public roads in France. This led to almost ten years of absolute carnage as racecars quickly developed to reach speeds of 100 mph (Without the brakes, steering and road surfaces to match these speeds.) and there was wholesale slaughter of both spectators and drivers.

The attitude of the wealthy was no doubt one of, what were the deaths of a few of the peasant class, as long as they could enjoy their sport? Much the same state of affairs existed in the United States; it was the privileged who initially drove cars. They set the rules of accepted behavior and attitudes, which still exist today.

Is this not still the attitude now? “What is the death or injury of a few, as long as I can drive as fast as I like, and in a manner that suits me?” Of course, no one intends for people to die, but behave in a certain way and the inevitable will happen. And if a cyclist or pedestrian gets hit, no real concern, just the question, “What were they doing on the road anyway?”

When Henry Ford made cars available to the masses, naturally they expected to drive to the same standards set by their wealthy predecessors. All road safety legislation since has been aimed at protecting the person inside the car, with little thought going into the protection of other road users, namely pedestrians and cyclists.

Those of us today exercising our rights by riding our bike on the public highways should not despair. However, we should be realistic and recognize that current attitudes of the general public have been formed over a 100 years, or more; change will continue, but slowly.

In the mean time we will remain the redheaded stepchild, and should expect the abuse to last a little longer.

Footnote: This article was first posted on October 19th, 2007, I thought it was worth repeating, with the addition of the picture at the top

Talking of Bicycle Evolution

My recent talk here in Charleston (Part of a bicycle lecture series.) was well received, with about 80 people present.

The subject of my Power Point presentation was The Evolution of the Bicycle over the years.

In preparing for my talk it occurred to me that it was 1950 when I got my first lightweight bike, in other words, 60 years ago; I started racing two years later.

The first chain driven “Safety” bicycle, the Rover was built in 1886; this was 124 years ago. I realized my involvement with bicycles was for almost half the time the bicycle as we know it has existed.

Furthermore, people who influenced me early on were around at the beginning of the bicycle’s history.

A.J. “Pop” Hodge, (Picture above from 1952.) the man who was my mentor was born in 1877 and at the time he first showed me how to build frames was older than I am now. He began building frames in 1905; Pop died in 1966 at age 89.

The bicycle has no clear single inventor; no Thomas Edison or Alexander Graham Bell. Rather a number of people simply improved on an idea that had been around probably for centuries in the form of a child’s toy; a pretend horse on wheels that the child sat on and pushed themselves along with their feet.

It wasn’t until this child’s toy became an adult toy around 1820 that people no doubt discovered when coasting downhill, one could lift their feet from the ground, and actually balance and stay upright on two wheels.

What does surprise me is that it took another 30 or 40 years before someone added a simple crank to the front wheel, thus turning a toy into a viable form of transport.

One has to realize the only other practical form of personal transport up until that time was the horse.

The bicycle was a machine that would take you where you needed to go, and you didn’t need to feed it, or even saddle it up or hitch it to a cart.

From that point on the evolution speeded up over the next ten years as the front drive wheel became ever increasing in size.

People realized the larger the wheel, the more distance traveled per wheel revolution, resulting in more speed. The only limitation was the length of the rider’s legs.

The high wheeler was the first enthusiast’s bike; cycling became an athletic sport. In fact a person had to be an athlete, and have a certain amount of bravado to even mount and ride one of these somewhat dangerous machines.

Some of these high wheelers weighed as little as 19 lb. Comparable to a lightweight bike today. Bicycle racing became a sport, and speeds well in excess of 20 mph were achieved. The one hour record was over 20 miles.

When the Rover “Safety” bicycle came along (Right.) it opened up cycling to those less brave, or athletic; including older people and women.

However, it was heavier and no faster than the Ordinary, and was not immediately accepted by the real enthusiasts.

It wasn’t until the pneumatic tire was invented that the Safety bicycle became faster, and the high wheeler gradually died out.

Its influence on bicycle design however, would remain for the next 60 years or more.

Because the steering was near vertical on the Ordinary the only place a rider could sit was some distance back behind the pedals. About 70 or 71 degrees to be exact, and seat angles on racing bikes would remain there up until the 1950s when I started racing.

There was no rhyme or reason for a person to sit that far back behind the pedals, other than enthusiasts who really thought they knew what they were talking about, said it was so.

Saddles were set low by today’s standard and “Ankling” was preached.

Old style Ankling which is what I speak of here, is a style of pedaling where the heel goes down at the start of the downward pedal stroke, and up on the up stroke. (Picture left.)

This is a direct throw-back to the High-wheeler. Cranks then were relatively short in order to make the wheel diameter as large as possible; the pedaling motion was mostly an ankle movement. Riders of the old Ordinary did develop huge calf muscles.

By the 1950s cranks had become longer and although Ankling was still taught and practiced, when pedaling at high revs, it became impossible to maintain. Not only that, at maximum effort the rider found himself slipping forward on the saddle because the seat angle was so shallow.

I remember phrases like “You have to sit back to pedal,” and “Good climbers ride sitting down.” These were almost religious mantras, which at the time should not be questioned. 

In my next article I’ll explore this theme of evolution into more recent years
 

The Evolution of Frame Design, Part III: Clinging to Traditions

The final article in a 3 part series; Part I and Part II precede it.

After more than a decade of hard times from the late 1950s through the early 1970s the lightweight bicycle business finally came out of the slump, helped to a large extent by a bike boom in America.

By the end of the 1960s the 73 degree parallel frame was now the standard road geometry. Although it had been born out of necessity to build something that was easier to construct, it was still far better than the 71 degree seat angle, 73 degree head of the 1950s and before.

However, tradition dies hard, especially when those who had survived the hard times were the old established framebuilders that were around in the 1940s and 1950s, or new ones schooled in the belief systems of the old builders.

If you remember from the first article I wrote in this series, how the 2 degree difference between the head and seat angles suited the framebuilder, because the head and seat tubes diverged away from each other, and as the frame got taller the top tube got longer.

No one wanted to go back to 71 degree seat angles, so by the early 1970s the standard racing frame geometry became 73 seat angle and 75 degree head. Both Italian and British framebuilders followed this trend.

Typical are the head and seat angles on the 1973 Italian DeRosa shown at the top of this article. Picture from The Racing Bicycle Collection.

It was necessary to shorten the fork rake, otherwise, with the steeper head angle the point of the wheel’s contact with the road would actually be in front of the steering axis, making the bike just about impossible to ride.

Many of these traditionalists still held the firm belief that a bike should have zero trail; so by steepening the head and shortening the fork rake, (Offset.) they maintained the status quo.

See the picture (Left.) from the same DeRosa with the steering axis superimposed in green. Note there is little or no trail.

Now the head angle was steeper, steering was much more sensitive; less forgiving towards rider error.

Over the years road surfaces had greatly improved in Europe, bicycle tires had become narrower; as a result rear chainstays could be made shorter, therefore stiffer. Couple this with the steeper head and less fork rake, and bike wheelbases became a lot shorter.

Riders noticed with the new steeper head and short wheelbase, the bikes felt much more lively and faster when sprinting or climbing out of the saddle. Both riders and framebuilders attributed these ride qualities to the shorter steeper frame.

However, if you remember from the first article, “The Wheelbarrow Effect,” the livelier feel came from the fact that the rider’s weight was now directly over the front wheel, not behind the front wheel’s point of contact as it had been in the pre 1950s.

During the period from the late 1950s and through the 1960s, I had been building frames mostly for my own use; trying to find something that suited me. Because I never had any real notion to build frames as a business, I was not restricted to what was fashionable or what everyone else was doing.

In the early 1950s I found the shallow seat angle and long top tube totally unsuitable, I would always end up sitting on the nose of the saddle. Because of this I experimented with a frame that had a steeper seat angle and shorter top tube; my reasoning was, if this is where my body wants to be, I will build a frame to accommodate it.

I was also aware of the wheelbarrow effect. I experimented a little with different head angles but accepted early on that 73 degrees was the ideal head angle for a road bike, although a degree either way is okay. (72 to 74.) However, I did shorten the fork rake considerably to get the front wheel under the handlebars.

The resulting trail made the bike handle better, and go round corners faster, especially on fast descents. By the early 1970s I had established my design. The top tube was even shorter, seat angle steeper, and by using a longer handlebar stem, the handlebars were directly over the front wheel’s point of contact.

I was now building frames for other people and by 1974 had a full time business. The formula I used was simple; as the frame got taller, (Larger.) the handle bar stem had to become gradually longer to keep the handlebars directly over the front wheel.

This set up had the same desired feel when sprinting of climbing, but without the over sensitiveness of the steep head angle and less trail. Trail was a good thing; it helped keep the bike on a straight line, and gave certain self-steering qualities when cornering at speed.

The top tube became longer as the frame got taller, but at a lesser amount than the seat tube, because the handlebar stem was also lengthening.

With other people riding the bikes, some of them International class riders, my reputation grew as a framebuilder; the reason was the way the bike handled. 

As a young rider in the 1950s if I mentioned that my bike felt sluggish on the climb, I was told, “Good climbers, climb sitting down.” In the 1970s if an inexperienced rider crashed because the steering was over sensitive, he was told he didn’t know how to handle the bike.

My thinking was, put a novice on a good handling bike and he is an adequate bike handler; put an expert bike rider on the same bike and he becomes a brilliant bike handler.

Several readers of these articles have mentioned that they find this history interesting. What the reader sees as history is just a memory to me. However, I have found it interesting to reflect on the way the racing bicycle has evolved over the years, in many ways accidentally.

By the 1980s most of the world’s framebuilders had dropped the steep head angle thinking and gone back the old standard 73 degree head angle. They kept the shorter fork rake and found the resulting increase in trail was a good thing.

This was something I had discovered ten or fifteen years before. Did I influence anyone? I very much doubt it; I imagine most of the world’s framebuilders had never even heard of me in the early 1980s.

The saying, “Thinking outside the box” wasn’t even around when I was playing with different frame design ideas back in the 1960s.

Tradition is one thing that will always keep you firmly inside the box

The Evolution of Frame Design, Part II: How Economics Changed Design

This is Part II of a 3 part series. Part I precedes it.

In the 1960s the bicycle business in Europe went through a huge slump, at a time when the general economy boomed. In fact it was because of this boom that bicycle sales suffered.

Up until that period the bicycle was the way the working man got to work each day. In the early 1950s, I remember the factory where I worked as an engineering apprentice did not allow cars onto the premises, with the exception of a few top executives.

The factory, part of which was 100 years old, had no provision for the workers to park their cars. However, there were few workers who owned cars, those who did parked on the surrounding streets.

But I do remember there were vast areas of covered bicycle racks inside the factory gates, with provision for hundreds of bikes. Workers arrived each day on foot, by public transport, or mostly by bicycle.

In the 1960s as the economy boomed working people all over Europe started owning cars for the first time.

The adverse effect this had on the bicycle industry trickled all the way down to the lightweight racing bicycle. After all, bicycle racing was traditionally a working class sport.

Lightweight racing frames had always been supplied by small to mid size framebuilders.

In the 1960s many small builders disappeared, and the midsized companies struggled to keep going. They had to look for ways to increase production with fewer workers, and cut costs.

One of the British companies that survived through the 1960s was Viking, a midsized builder from Wolverhampton, in the UK. Viking employed some new production methods to remain competitive. (See picture at the top of this article.)

Up until the 1960s, frames were assembled one at a time, or in very small batches. No jigs were used; frames were assembled, angles measured, and the frame set on a crude template to check geometry. Often the template was nothing more than marks on a brick floor, and alignment was by the trained eye of the framebuilder.

I mentioned in the last article, the standard racing frame angles were 71 seat and 73 head angle. In the 1960s the 72 degree parallel frame became the standard. By making the seat and head tube parallel, the builder could make a smaller or larger frame simply by raising or lowering the top tube.

Simple fixed assembly jigs could be made, and top tubes were usually 22 ½ inches long, over a large range of sizes, making tubes the same size that could be pre cut. Hardly ideal for all riders, but they had to make do with a different length handlebar stem.

  (Above.) The Viking Severn Valley frame is typical of the 1960s. The spec sheet that can be viewed here, lists the angles as 72 degrees parallel. 22 ½ inch (57cm.) top tube for all sizes from 22” to 25” (56 to 64cm.) The fork rake was 2 ½ inches (6.3cm.)    

The reason 72 parallel was chosen first was because riders had been used to 71 degrees for such a long time, a 73 degree seat angle would have been a hard sell. However, by the end of the 1960s, the 73 degree parallel frame had become standard, and head angles were once again back to the ideal 73 degrees.

Another way costs were cut was by the introduction of pressed steel lugs. The old cast steel lugs, were expensive, crude, and took hours of hand filing to make them useable. The pressed steel lug is stamped from sheet steel, formed to shape and welded at the join. Lightweight, and uniform thickness, these lugs required only a minimum of work before assembling a frame.

Yet another way costs were cut in the late 1960s, was by dispensing with braze-ons, saving a tremendous amount of time and labor.

Customers were told that braze-ons weakened the frame, manufacturers who made brakes and derailleur gears supplied clamp on fittings.

Pictured on the right: A 1968 Italian Pogliaghi with everything clamp on, even derailleur cable guides.

During the 1960s it was economics that determined frame design. In Part III of this series, I will move on to the 1970s after the bicycle slump was over

The Evolution of Frame Design. Part I: The Wheelbarrow Effect

The picture above is Italian cyclist Giuseppe Martano, seen here on his ride to 2nd place in the 1934 Tour de France.

Probably the first thing most will notice is that the bike has a single fixed sprocket. Gears were available at that time; however, Tour de France riders were restricted to a single speed at the whim of Tour organizer Henri Desgrange.

Desgrange felt that multiple gears were for bicycle tourists, and they took away from the purity of the sport of cycle racing. So riders had to struggle over the same mountain climbs the Tour currently goes over, with a single gear, on roads in far worse condition than today.

The other thing you will notice about the bike is the long wheelbase, some 4 or 5 inches (10 to 13cm.) longer than a modern race bike, the shallow frame angles, and the long curved front fork blades.

One of the reasons for the long fork rake or offset, was always thought to be because roads were so bad back then; in most European countries little more than dirt roads.

The long curve of the fork would allow the fork to flex acting somewhat as a form of suspension.

However, there was another reason; a long held theory that trail made the steering sluggish on a bicycle.

If you look at the drawing (Above left.) an imaginary line through the center of the head tube, (Steering Axis.) reaches the ground at the point of contact. On a bike from this era, there was zero trail.

On a modern bike (Drawing right.) the point where the wheel contacts the road will be some 2 to 2.5 inches (5 to 6.3cm.) behind the steering axis.

Hence the term “Trail,” because the wheel trails along behind the steering axis.

Bicycle geometry did not change much from the 1930s until the 1950s when I started racing.

Standard road frame angles were 71 degree seat angle, and 73 degree head angle. This was true for any size frame.

Frame lugs were heavy steel castings, machined on the inside to accept the tubes at these standard angles. It was not cost affective to make lugs in different varying angles. It was established probably around the 1930s that 73 degrees was the ideal head angle for a road bicycle; this is still true today.

The reason for the seat angle being 2 degrees shallower was because when a framebuilder made a larger frame, the top tube became longer because the head and seat tubes were diverging away from each other.

These standard angles were not for the benefit of the rider, but for ease of construction for the framebuilder.

For a shorter rider like myself, the top tube was always too long and I was sitting back too far.

When I made maximum effort I always found myself sliding forward and sitting on the nose of the saddle. As well as being uncomfortable, it had the effect of the saddle being too low.

Because of the long top tube, I always had to use a short handlebar stem, and this lead to another problem when sprinting or climbing out of the saddle.

The rider’s weight was behind the front wheel’s contact point with the road; due to the short stem and the forward sweeping forks. Out of the saddle, the bike swung from side to side in an arc causing the front wheel to steer first one way then the other; not holding a straight line.

At the same time the gyroscopic action of the spinning wheel was trying to keep on a straight line. So the two actions were fighting each other; hence the bike felt sluggish and unstable.

To demonstrate this effect to yourself; hold a pen or ruler on a table top at 90 degrees to the surface, and move from side to side keeping the point of the pen in one spot; you are moving in one plane. Now hold the pen at an angle of 45 degrees and move from side to side and you will see that you swing in an arc.

This was something I later called the “Wheelbarrow Effect.” In Part II I will talk about how frame design evolved through the 1960s and 1970s to arrive closer to what we see today.