Scientific American "A Twenty Five Cent Bicycle" and "An Electric Bicycle Lamp" 1896
carl...@comcast.net
the Fury Roadmaster, somewhat prematurely, in "A Twenty Five Cent
Bicycle," page 72:
http://i15.tinypic.com/6jyivz4.jpg
On the upper right of the same page, an amazing new bicycle lamp is
described, which produced a "remarkably powerful beam" of two
candlepower by means of a miniature electrical magneto turned by the
front tire.
Frank Krygowski is said to be pursuing the invention. :-)
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Elmo
It'll never work!
Elmo
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Elmo,
Since the 25-cent bicycle was tested in the hallways of "Scientific
American," your doubts must concern the lilliputian magneto driven by
the bicycle tire.
I agree that the belt and two pulleys may need a little tinkering, but
we _have_ to find an alternative to carbide lamps:
http://www.nostalgic.net/index.asp?S=arc/ScannedLit/1919%20black%20beauty/Black+Beauty+pg+26%2Ejpg
St. Elmo's fire, generated by the magneto, is the wave of the future!
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Elmo
Carl I don't know where you get off on this new fangled device called
the "magneto". Elektricity has been firstly and most reliably produced
by static elektricity, change for the sake of change will get you
nowhere. I propose using your india rubber tyres, rubbing on cat fur to
generate sufficient elektricty to energize your lights. Ideally the cat
should be dead and wired with the correct polarity to the filament.
Oh and don't forget to discharge yourself before you dismount from your
bicycle.
Elmo
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Elmo,
It was ever thus, the constant tension between longing for improvement
and clinging to the comfortable past.
The movie opens with Butch Cassidy unhappily eying the newfangled
security installed at the bank, but his motto is that he has vision
while the rest of the world wears bifocals.
Later, Butch is delighted at first by the bicycle that's the wave of
the future, but he finally throws it away in disgust with the modern
world in which bicycles are replacing horses and in which posses are
starting to use trains to chase robbers. Unable to cope with the end
of the wild days of the West, Butch heads off to backward Bolivia.
So you just keep thinking, Butch, that's what you're good at.
Me, I'm with Frank on this one. Dead cats aren't much better than
batteries, and neither is a match for the glorious power of the pedal
turning a tire to whirl the magneto.
I mean, who's going to pay to see "X-Men: The Return of the Dead Cat"
when they can watch a mutant named Magneto firing up two candle-power
bicycle lights with a wave of his hand?
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Elmo
Two candlepower? The average cyclist will never need that much power.
Elmo
Andre Jute
> >>> The February 1, 1896, "Scientific American" revealed the prototype of
> >>> the Fury Roadmaster, somewhat prematurely, in "A Twenty Five Cent
> >>> Bicycle," page 72:
>
> >>>http://i15.tinypic.com/6jyivz4.jpg
>
> >>> On the upper right of the same page, an amazing new bicycle lamp is
> >>> described, which produced a "remarkably powerful beam" of two
> >>> candlepower by means of a miniature electrical magneto turned by the
> >>> front tire.
>
> >>> Frank Krygowski is said to be pursuing the invention. :-)
>
> >>> Cheers,
>
> >>> Carl Fogel
> >> It'll never work!
>
> >> Elmo
>
> > Dear Elmo,
>
> > Since the 25-cent bicycle was tested in the hallways of "Scientific
> > American," your doubts must concern the lilliputian magneto driven by
> > the bicycle tire.
>
> > I agree that the belt and two pulleys may need a little tinkering, but
> > we _have_ to find an alternative to carbide lamps:
>
>
> > St. Elmo's fire, generated by the magneto, is the wave of the future!
>
> > Cheers,
>
> > Carl Fogel
>
> Carl I don't know where you get off on this new fangled device called
> the "magneto". Elektricity has been firstly and most reliably produced
> by static elektricity, change for the sake of change will get you
> nowhere. I propose using your india rubber tyres, rubbing on cat fur to
> generate sufficient elektricty to energize your lights. Ideally the cat
> should be dead and wired with the correct polarity to the filament.
> Oh and don't forget to discharge yourself before you dismount from your
> bicycle.
>
> Elmo
Dear Mr Elmo:
My cat and I are taking time out from recording our Christmas Message
to the Commonwealth to tell you how disgusted we are with you apologia
for cat-haters.
Yours condescendingly,
Elizabeth II
by the Grace of God, Queen of England, etc
Windsor
PS There goes your knighthood, Elmo. And ditto to your mangy cat.
Cleopatra Midnight Champion III
Senior Lap Cat to Her Majesty
Top Castle Ratter three years in succession
Andre Jute
> The February 1, 1896, "Scientific American" revealed the prototype of
> the Fury Roadmaster, somewhat prematurely, in "A Twenty Five Cent
> Bicycle," page 72:
>
> http://i15.tinypic.com/6jyivz4.jpg
>
> On the upper right of the same page, an amazing new bicycle lamp is
> described, which produced a "remarkably powerful beam" of two
> candlepower by means of a miniature electrical magneto turned by the
> front tire.
I once drove a veteran car (British usage is that veteran cars are
only the pre-1914 ones, those that came later being "vintage") with a
solitary glass casing in what sat a solitary candle. Even that was an
optional extra...
A hub dynamo on the Continental town bike pattern is a real boon. My
current bike has a 2.4W headlamp run off the Shimano hub dynamo, the
other 0.6W operating the computer for the automatic gearbox and the
active suspension, and apparently also, at the same time, being in
reserve for running a rear light; both my rear lights are battery
operated. Even pedalling slowly uphill, say 10km an hour, there is
substantial light available, enough to make a bright spot in the wide
cast of my 15W touring lights, and to fill in some falloff in the
touring lights.
> Frank Krygowski is said to be pursuing the invention. :-)
LOL. But those small beginnings are definitely paying off big now.
Today I can actually ride my bike after dark, and when a driver is
stupid, flash my lights right into his eyes to get his attention -- it
is noticeable on some lanes I ride where one can count on most of the
traffic to be local residents who know how narrow they are, that cars
see my lights half a mile away and slow until they pass me. On the
miserable sidewall dynamos and poor little glimmer-globes of only 15
years ago, I never dared go on the road after dark.
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel
Andre Jute
http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/BICYCLE%20%26%20CYCLING.html
Dan Burkhart
sprocket on the 25 cent bike is on the outside of the frame. This
obviously means that the bearings are in the frame rather than in the
hub. Maybe we should be persuing this design for super strong wheels.
and axles. :D
--
Dan Burkhart
(PeteCresswell)
>The February 1, 1896, ..."A Twenty Five Cent Bicycle,"
Anybody know if there are inflation adjustment figures that go
back that far?
http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/
only goes back to 1913 but it comes up with basically a
five-dollar bike in 2007 dollars.
--
PeteCresswell
carl...@comcast.net
wrote:
Dear Pete,
This one shows that a quarter in 1896 was worth $5.84 in 2006:
http://www.westegg.com/inflation
Such estimates depend on what you're actually trying to figure out.
You can use this British link to explore such details:
http://www.measuringworth.com/ppowerus/
It calculates that a quarter in 1896 would be worth anywhere from
$6.19 to $212.91 in 2006, depending on what you have in mind. They do
the same thing for the pound, too.
Of course, the whole idea is shaky, since value is relative to what's
available. There were no practical automobiles available in 1896 in
the U.S., just as there are no practical horses for getting around
U.S. cities in 2007.
Consider that a copier can make a perfect copy of a sheet of paper for
a dime (or less) in 2006. Feed that into the same calculator, and it
just says $0.00, not that there was any practical machine to make an
exact copy of a sheet of paper in a few seconds.
The "poor" today in the U.S. typically have indoor plumbing,
electricity, refrigerators, telephones, televisions, and even cars,
which makes comparisons with 1896 misleading.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
>hub. Maybe we should be pursuing this design for super strong wheels.
>and axles. :D
Dear Dan,
I suspect that the outboard chain arrangement was dictated by the
square nature of the frame material, as received from the sawmill.
The 25-cent bike's bearings may have been little more than grease in
wooden holes.
Even grease was considered sissified by some riders. Real men rode on
rawhide! Karl Kron described the use of leather for bearings in his
1887 "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle":
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/d29b31b6b6af841d
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
carl...@comcast.net
Dear Andre,
Well, Frank has been daring to go on the road after dark for some
time, using nothing but a generator, despite literally gloom and doom
predictions from the proponents of voltaic piles.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
Andre Jute
Heroic? Nuts? In possession of information not vouchsafed to common
mortals? I hope he has at least a standlight for when he stops
rolling. I went out a couple of times with only the hub dynamo light
and felt exposed when I stopped at junctions. I shouldn't pontificate
about it though; I work at home, ride in the lanes around my village,
and have no bike-commuting experience, never mind on city streets. It
does however seem significant that over a hundred years ago the need
for lights on a bike was seen as so important that someone
miniaturized a generator to bike-scale to power them.
>despite literally gloom and doom
> predictions from the proponents of voltaic piles.
Are voltaic piles the haemorrhoids one gets from narrow and pointed
"racing" saddles?
> Cheers,
>
> Carl Fogel
Andre Jute
Occasional daily cyclist
Werehatrack
said:
>Even grease was considered sissified by some riders. Real men rode on
>rawhide! Karl Kron described the use of leather for bearings in his
>1887 "Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle":
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.tech/msg/d29b31b6b6af841d
Rawhide often contains considerable fat. Perhaps it was one of the
earliest self-lubricating bearing materials.
--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.
Hank Wirtz
> Two candlepower? The average cyclist will never need that much power.
Pshaw. No refinement will ever render such a device use-able. Just ask
Steve Scharf. Bi-cycle lights must have their own supply of lamp oil.
Any oil-fired lamp will be superior to electric, regardless of optical
tricks of focus and reflection. Oil is what will lead the way as we
all go into town in our own private zeppelins.
...Sorry, I was channelling the T. Herman Zweibel, Publisher emeritus
of The Onion there for a second.
http://www.theonion.com/content/columnists/view/zweibel