Wheels and Wheeling (1892)

Another book from the Library of Congress collections, digitized by Google, is
Wheels and wheeling: an indispensible handbook for cyclists published in 1892. The modern "safety bicycle" was not dominant at that early point.

The first chapter describes the important "League of American Wheelmen" in rather great detail, followed by an entire chapter about "macadam roads." Finally the history of the bicycle is given and the "copious illustrations" described on the title page begin.

Early forerunners of the (modern) "safety bicycle" are described, such as the "Bicyclette."



The basic modern bicycle is called a "diamond safety."



One senses that the move to the basic modern bicycle had some who resisted - note this "chainless" variant of a "safety bicycle" ~



There are of course mysteries - did the chainless safety (above) have a freewheel of some sort in the front hub? Otherwise why is there a brake for the front wheel - or perhaps the illustration is in error.

And there are ads from different bicycle manufacturers in the front and back.



Amusing description of the pneumatic tires.

Velo Orange

I had to run my back wheel from my Traitor Ruben pseudo cyclo-cross but really a commuter bike over to Spokes to get a spoke replaced on the back wheel (well, I just took the wheel, actually). This is the second spoke to pop so I am thinking this wheel will require rebuilding with better spokes in the near future. Phooey. The disk brake means the rear wheel spokes are pretty stressed, even if there are 36 of them.

Woman out front of the store was loading her fancy randonnée bike onto her car rack - a Velo Orange bike. I admired it - she seemed pleased. I suspect most people don't recognize it for the stack o'cash that it represents. The leather bag she still had attached to the front handlebars sitting on its special shiney rack (that has some French name that I'm forgetting) probably cost $300 alone.

Something like this ~



Looking at the Velo Orange dealer network, there are a zillion in CA, OR, and WA but like four in VA. Oh well.

More Interbike Photos on Flickr

Searching Flickr for "Interbike 2010" brings up many nice photos of very nice bikes (and some other bikes, I suppose, that aren't so nice) at the recent Interbike expo.

Nice randonnée bike, but made by whom? Not clear ~



Drilling holes as art !!

Century Old DIY Book for Cycle Building and Repair

Cycle Building and Repairing with Numerous Engravings and Diagrams in Google Book Search, published in 1904. From the Library of Congress. This one has loads of diagrams and illustrations.

A fair number of illustrations shows various bits and pieces ~



Below is a tandem for which the book describes construction - perhaps not all the details, but quite a bit.



There are 17 pages about dealing with tires - one gathers that these present some issues, judging from pages such as the one shown below. "13 tires in general use" sounds like a bit of standarization was needed.

Int'l Bike (or Walk) to School Month, Day ?

Arlington County tells me that October is "International Walk or Bike to School Month," and that on Wed, Oct. 6 (rain date: Oct. 13), Arlington Public Schools will participate by encouraging parents to walk and bike to school with their children.

More information is available.

One assumes in much of the world every day is walk to school day.

Bike Box (Traffic Measure) in Seattle

Article about a "Bike Box" in Seattle which is a traffic measure that I hadn't heard of before. The idea is to paint an area at stop lights for bikes to gather and wait rather than stack up in the bike lane. (I think that's the idea, anyway.)

I have to think about whether I think there is any real benefit or not.

One aspect is that 12th, the street where this will be in Seattle, is a fairly wide street but not very heavily used by car traffic. So it may make good sense there.

Russian Book from LC about Cycling (1895)

Sovremennyi velosiped (or Книга "Современный велосипед" 1895 года) from LC's collections was apparently one of the few General Collections items digitized by Google held at LC. It is an interesting book, although unfortunately the digitization by Google wasn't done particularly well. And it is entirely in Russian . . .



The cover shows a period side-by-side tandem bike.

Like most books of this period, even though it would seem very helpful to have lots of illustrations, there are rather few. Below is my favorite - since the Google image of these pages isn't good, I have done it over with both pages presented as a single image.



Below is an ad for a Russian bike dealer towards the end of the book. "Warehouse of American, English, and Austrian bikes and accessories."