Cycling art, energy, and locomotion : $b A series of remarks on the development of bicycles, tricycles, and man-motor carriagesScott, Robert P. (Robert Pittis)
History
Cycling art, energy, and locomotion : $b A series of remarks on the development of bicycles, tricycles, and man-motor carriages
Scott, Robert P. (Robert Pittis)
Bicycles; Cycling; Tricycles
[Illustration: Lever rear-driver, 30-inch wheels, gear about 50; up
hill, grade, one foot in twenty; speed, eight miles per hour.]
[Illustration: Lever rear-driver, 30-inch wheels, gear about 50; up
hill, grade, one foot in twenty; speed, twelve miles per hour.]
[Illustration: Lever rear-driver, 30-inch wheels, gear about 50; up
hill, grade, one foot in twenty; continuation of No. 14, over top
of hill.]
A six-inch crank was used upon the machines in these experiments, and
the lever action was such as to be comparable to a fifty-inch gear. The
height of a point on the curve shows the extent of and variation in
power upon the pedal, and the translation from left to right the time.
In consequence of the limit of pressure occurring but once in each
stroke, the number of undulations determines the speed, since it would
show the number of strokes in a given time, and we know the number that
make a mile.
The number of pounds’ pressure at any point on a curve is shown by the
figures upon the perpendicular line, as, for example, in No. 1 the apex
of the curve just to the right of the scale is about even with the
hundred-and-fifty-pound point; this pressure was maintained for a very
short space of time, since the curve travels a very short distance to
the right at this point; in other words, it is quite sharp at the top.
Stronger springs were used on the Cyclograph in testing the safeties,
as I found myself liable to compress them beyond their limit; hence
the scales must be closely observed in making comparisons. Among
the interesting results noticeable in these experiments I find, for
instance, in Nos. 3 and 4, an abnormal deviation in the height of the
curves at the same speed upon the same track at nearly the same time,
though running in opposite directions. Finding this strange difference
of some fifty pounds in pressure, I noticed an almost imperceptible
breeze against me in the one, and in my favor in the other, direction.
No. 12 illustrates how a hundred-and-fifty-pound man gets up a pressure
of two hundred and forty pounds presumably by a ninety-pound pull on
the handle-bar.
In No. 9 we see how one hundred and fifty pounds pressure is applied
in back-pedalling down a grade of one foot in twelve. That the curve
would not be very regular is easily impressed upon the mind of the
average rider.
One part of curve (not shown), of peculiar contour, terminated
experiment No. 9 at a rut a little farther down the hill, with dire
results to the operator and provoking influence upon the running gear
of the ’graph, which has been making some erratic curves of its own,
now and then, ever since.
Comparing Nos. 5, 10, and 13, the curve of the lever machine (13)
indicates that, while pressure is not so great as in the others, it is
held for a longer time, shown by the greater height and sharper tops to
the curves of the crank machines.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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