Flat Tires? Bike Suspension Instead (1902 Patent)

Patent for "...a bicycle-frame so constructed that it is adapted to yield automatically...thereby doing away with the necessity of using pneumatic and puncturable tires..."

Smith, George Washington. Bicycle., patent, March 25, 1902; [Washington D.C.]. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth512247/: accessed April 8, 2017), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

The main drawback of bicycles in the U.S. at this time, aside from the continuing rise of popularity of automobiles, was that the tires most commonly supplied on bikes and their associated rims were not easily repaired by owners compared to modern tires with inner tubes. (The rims were relevant since switching to better, more easily repaired tires, required different rims.) As the patent application notes, flat tires were "the cause of great inconvenience to riders." This inventor (George Washington Smith - great name) decided that the main benefits of pneumatic tires was the shock absorbing aspect that could then be replaced by the insertion of what are somewhat like leaf springs in the middle of the bicycle frame. Clever, but perhaps too clever?

One wonders if he really equipped a prototype with solid rubber or otherwise solid replacement tires and tested this out. The pneumatic bicycle tire I suspect is one of those things that is hard to appreciate until you try some alternative. In particular, the amount of shock-absorbing done by a pneumatic tire is easily adjusted by how much pressure the tire is inflated to. A pneumatic tire can easily take most road buzz out of the ride that I think this system would transmit.

Of course the simplest judgment of this idea is rendered by history - while there are certainly some (in fact, many) bikes that have suspensions today, they all have pneumatic tires.


Lars Olsen on Flickr - Orange Crate from back in the 1960s with a suspension but also inflatable tires

Family Portrait with Bicycles

The Homer Family, between 1915 and 1920, with bicycles

The smaller children have tricycles that are sized for their age, but the older daughters have what are I think adult bicycles. Fairly clearly they are not the same model of bike, or even from the some company, since the head badges are different.

The Homers were a fairly well-to-off family financially, it seems. Louise Homer was a opera singer and recording star and her husband was a composer. These photos and others were from the Bain News Service collection at the Library of Congress and perhaps were for some article about Homer's home life and family, thus bringing the bicycle and tricycles into a photo.


Here by contrast they are smiling

A True Daredevil Use of a Bicycle

Crowd watch daredevil preparing to dive into water from cycle down elevated incline, state fair, Donaldsonville, Louisiana
Contributor Names-Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer
Created / Published-1938 Nov.
Format Headings-Nitrate negatives.
Medium-1 negative : nitrate ; 35 mm.
Call Number/Physical Location
LC-USF33- 011770-M4 [P&P]
Source Collection-Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)
Repository-Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540 USA
https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8a24248/

There is no photo in the collection of the pool or other container of water that was his target, or what the "dive" and resulting "landing" looked like. This looks like a crazy stunt, as far as an assured good outcome for the rider. Or the bike, for that matter.

Capitol Police Out Practicing Cycling

In front of Capitol reflecting pool

Yes, yes, they are some distance away, but about two dozen police officer with yellow reflective vests are practicing bicycle riding this morning. Who would have guessed they need practice.

The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold (Book Review)

The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold: Adventures Riding the Iron Curtain by Tim Moore

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


https://youtu.be/A5YVpF6PPm8 - is a video on YouTube by the author to the Russian (formerly the Soviet) national anthem with different footage of his trip, mostly taken by himself with his phone (which is remarkable in itself).


Author's video in support of the book on YouTube

Early in 2015 (I think that's right; books like this are often a bit vague on when they took place) travel writer/adventure cyclist Tim Moore set of to trace the route of the (former) Iron Curtain, the defacto border between socialist Eastern Europe (the "Soviet bloc") and Western Europe, much of which can be followed by riding the EuroVelo route 13 (EV13).

The full route, from the north to south, is 10,000+ km (or 6,200+ miles, give or take) and takes him in to (and out of, and back in to) twenty countries.

For reasons never quite properly explained, the author chose to start his trip in Finland in March, more or less guaranteeing that the part of the book describing his travails in Finland is about surviving when cycling in what most people would consider winter, with temperatures down to 20 below (Celsius - oddly this book was not edited for the US market, so temperatures are in Celsius and distances in kilometers - oh well). And to make things more challenging, Moore didn't select any sort of normal touring bike but an East German "shopping bicycle" with 20 inch (that is, small, like a folding bicycle) wheels - a pretty crappy, poorly made, heavy one at that. (This follows on his previous cycling bike where he attempted to follow the route of the 1914 Giro race in Italy in 2012 riding a bicycle that dated to that period, including wooden wheels.) With only two gears! And a coaster brake! OK and a crummy front brake. Which sets the stage for is self-deprecating tales of travel.


The author follows a tried and true approach to such travel narratives, mixing description of his adventures (or here, more often, misadventures) with digression on relevant history.

Probably the strangest aspect of this book is that the part set in Finland is dis-proportionally long compared to the rest of the trip, but then perhaps it is because it really took that much longer so it is proportional in terms of days of travel. He also provides more digressions into Finnish history and society than he does as he gets further south. (I'm not so fond of the history so this was fine with me.)

It's a long trip (three months, thousands of miles or kilometers) and over 330 pages, its a long book. I got through it, I enjoyed reading it.

Some of Mr. Moore's description of different nationalities (Finns, Russians, on to Austrians and Bulgarians eventually) would no doubt offend many people of these nationalities. Russians in particular. Hmm.

After Austria, it was a little more difficult to keep track of things - the EV13 goes in and out of countries and so border crossings become the main feature, along with some hill climbing escapades (followed by hair-raising descents) that are somehow less thrilling to read about than the descriptions of near-death-from-freezing-experiences towards the beginning.

Somehow Moore managed to travel this distance, including the slow snowy/icy parts near the beginning, in only three months. Amazing. And then with his book to relay it to us in the British version of ah-shucks humorous misadventures, including insights into a third of the nationalities of the former Eastern Europe and some thoughts about cycling thrown in.




View all my book reviews.

Now THAT'S a Tough Ride

Transportation with horses, mules, dogs and bicycle (detail)

Bicycle as part of Alaska Gold Rush. One wonders what it was for.


Mail and freight on Valdez Summit

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
www.loc.gov/item/99614295/

As I contemplate the March snow fall here, and getting to and from work . . . . .

Smartphone Add-Ons - How Smart is That?

"Hexagon is a bike camera that turns your smartphone into a rearview mirror" - article about a new Indiegogo funding effort for the solution to end all solutions for bike safety and anti-safety, all wrapped up in one.



Perhaps it goes without saying, but I am not the demographic this sort of thing is supposed to appeal to - but it's still a free country so I am still allowed to express some opinions, right?

It isn't impossible that someone will come up with a good rationale for attaching a smartphone to your handlebars, but so far I have yet to see one, particularly for recreational riders. For one thing, most of the brackets that hold smartphones in place aren't going to keep the smartphone attached if you have a simple falling accident, so in many cases, the phone ends up on the pavement, smashed. But that is secondary to the contradictions of this particular device.

There are a slew of safety features described - you have a turn signal system, a tail light, a brake light, you have a rear view mirror when the camera's view is displayed on the smartphone, it can provide video evidence if something bad happens, and it even provides parents real time information about a child's ride (with its "new generation parental control system" - by which they mean parents who are out of control, I think). It can automatically notify your emergency contacts if you get in an accident! But then there is important anti-safety feature, that this device encourages live streaming of insane stupid bike tricks. ("Amaze your friends with new tricks through live stream functions.")

"Your rides with Hexagon will be more safe, connected, and fun" - apparently I am a curmudgeon.