Читать книгу The Modern Bicycle and Its Accessories - Julius Wilcox - Страница 28

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In April, 1885, a patent for the application of bevel-gears to the bicycle was taken out. Before 1897 more than one hundred such patents had been issued in the United States and England, in addition to those granted in France and Germany, and there had been much experimental construction, in which the difficulty and expense of gear cutting was great, and the springy frames and inaccurate workmanship almost invariably encountered were additional sources of trouble.

Of the foreign-made chainless bicycles the Acatene, built in France, is the only one that has been brought to anything like perfection. The Acatene is a bevel-gear, and in many features is quite equal to the best American workmanship. In this country a number of bevel-gear cycles have been put forward, and some of them are still in use. The difficulties they have encountered have been mostly due to lack of capital and the practical impossibility of getting accurate gears cut except very slowly and at a very great cost.

In 1892 the League Cycle Company of Hartford, Conn., began making a bevel-gear bicycle, and at the New York Show of 1897 a number of their models were shown as curios. They were chiefly interesting from a historical point of view. An 1892 model shown was a lady’s single-loop drop frame, fitted with one-inch cushion tires. It weighed about 75 pounds and had an eight-inch tread. An 1893 model was a diamond frame, having double tubes from the lower part of the head to the crank-hanger, and having also double diagonal stays. It was fitted with pneumatic tires, had a 7¾ inch tread and weighed 45 pounds. An 1894 model shown was of the same construction, but having a high frame. The tread was reduced to 7 inches and the weight to about 32 pounds.

COLUMBIA CHAINLESS.

An 1895 model was of the regulation high frame diamond pattern, single-tube style, excepting double diagonal stays from seat pillar to crank-hanger. It had a 5-inch tread and weighed about thirty pounds. The 1896 models were a lady’s frame, double-loop, full nickeled, and a man’s diamond frame, each having 5⅛ inch tread and weighing about twenty-four pounds. All these models carried the large front driving gear on the centre of the crank axle between the bearings, the teeth facing outwardly instead of inwardly, as on the earlier samples. This company failed early in 1896, and there were some spasmodic attempts by Howard & Nichols of Newark, N. J., and the Bayvelgere Cycle Company to introduce bevel-gear bicycles. The Pope Manufacturing Company saw this object lesson, and all the old patents went into the hands of the makers of the Columbia. They began experimenting forthwith, and for two years they have built and tried, and made model after model, more than a dozen distinct variations having been tested, besides gathering the costly equipment to cut bevel-gears and produce them in quantities.

(It will be observed that the following descriptions of chainless cycles are from the respective makers, not necessarily in their own language, in every instance, but substantially so. For these descriptions, and still more for any statements regarding the merits of any and the comparative value of chainless driving. The Commercial Advertiser is not responsible, nor does anything in this article preclude the writers from any criticism or any expression of opinion hereafter. It has seemed fairest and best to allow the several makers to present their own side freely, and this paragraph is a disclaimer upon the part of the compilers, rather than a notice of dissent. The Bayvelgere, the English, the Quadrant, the Hildick, the Monarch and the Bantam, however, are described by our own representatives.)