CYCLING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue V, 29 January 1898, Page 125

CYCLING.

A tricycle cab is one of the latest features* of the streets of Berlin. It is called the Heydt cycle, so named after the inventor, ami a company has been organised in the German capital which now has five hundred of these tricycle eabs in use. The cab is built on the principle of the bicycle, with the ditferenee that it has three wheels instead of two. The two large wheels support a comfortably cushioned seat, on their axle, and the small wheel in the rear is used for steering purposes only. In this tricycle cab the coachman or operator sits in the rear and the passenger in front. The conveyance is propelled by a simple up and down movement of the feet, just as a sewing machine is operated, and there is no chain or sprocket arrangement.

It is said that this new device has met with great favour in Berlin. The cab is eheap and light in weight, ami can be propelled with great ease and at great speed. A mile ride costs something like a eent and a-half. which is infinitely cheaper than the charge for the regular cab service. The cab can be very cheaply constructed. and, as no horses are required to be stabled and fed. that expense is entirely done away with, and the company is making money.

The cab is so constructed as to be suited for all kinds of weather. For bright, balmy days, when no covering is required, there is a hood arrangement which can be detached. In stormy weather it can be easily replaced, thus affording the passenger all the protection desired from the weather.

This cab has been found of especial benefit to invalids. They ean be wheeled about comfortably and quickly, which is a great advantage over the heavy and cumbersome invalid chairs.

A mathematician has computed the movement, of a rider's feet while working a bicycle, and has demonstrated that it requires less exertion to travel fifteen miles on a bicycle than to walk three miles.

The French have a decidedly practical way of looking at new methods of locomotion. No sooner was the bicycle established than a large re-venue-producing tax was imposed on it. and now it has been decided by the French authorities to impose a tax on motor cars, the tax apparently varying in different parts, according to the density of the population. In the large centres of population the tax will be a somewhat serious item, and in Paris it amounts to $l2 on vehicles for two passengers and $2O on larger vehicles. It is curious that at the same time that this tax is being imposed it is also being proposed that subsidies should be granted to public services of motor cars.

Work on pneumatic tyres for bicycles is largely done by girls. Only where strength is required, as in putting the tyre on the wooden rim. is niau called into service. It is necessary, when constructing tyres, to put the bands into the sticky mixture, which is applied to them to make them moderately impervious to injury. At first the hands are apt to crack. but they harden after a while. Most of the girls employed in bicycle factories are very young. A few older ones are required to fasten the ends of the rubber tubes together and to

put the valves in place. Such work requires judgment and deftness. I should hardly think the boom in chain less safeties is likely to be so pronounced in England as it is at present in America, says Chas. Sisley, but several British makers are evidently moving in the matter. Among these is the Quadrant Cycle Company. of Birmingham, which is introducing a cbainless bicycle, with what is known as the cross-roller gear. This is not a bevel gear, and it is claimed, therefore, that all friction with the cogs is dispensed with; it makes no noise, and there is no jar to the feet. The makers also claim that there is no backlash, and no adjustment is ever required.

What the cycle trade wants just now is something novel in cycle Amstruction to give a fillip to business, and induce people to buy new machines. This is just why the American manufacturers are making such a boom in the States of the chainless bicycle. This ehainless bicycle is no novelty. It has been used in England anti France for some years, but being overstocked with chain-driven machines of the ordinary type which have come down in price in America, the makers, headed by the Pope Manufacturing Company, decided to boom the chainless bicycle at a high price, and thus attract those people who will Im> up-to-date. and buy the very latest thing in machines, no matter what the price.

If the English cycle makers were to do something of this kind it would greatly encourage business. It is the present fixity of pattern which causes dulness in the trade. Constant change of fashion is the best thing possible to prevent prices falling. Fancy a fashionable hat-maker er tailor always keeping to the same styles year after year! Would it not prove fatal to his business'? And it is the same thing in cycle making. If only bicycle polo were a better known game it would be immensely popular. In Ireland there are several teams who play it enthusiastically, and the professional players at the Crystal Palace have scored a great success, though the bicycle polo they play is different from the ordinary game. Instead of using mallets they knock the ball about with their front wheels.

Entirely a new method of jointing, specially applicable to tubes in cycles, has just been invented. The invention consists in the use of an internal spring locking-ring or thimble provided with a longitudinal slit, having its edges turned inwards so as to form a tapering opening, into whieh a grooved key. suitably tapered, is driven. This spreads the ring or thimble against the inner surface of the tube, producing a fine joint. This method, the inventor claims, entirely supersedes, as it does away with the necessity of brazing. Amongst the latest inventions to benefit the lot of the cyclist is a penny-in-the-slot machine to inflate flabby tyres. It consists of a large reservoir of compressed air. and can l>e stationed in any shop whieh eaters for cyclists' custom, or carried on to the highway by an enterprising vendor of sherbert and water, who may combine the business of quenching the thirst of the young with the satisfying of porous or punctured tyres. From the air chamber a pi[>e leads through a series of valves for reducing the pressure, and through a mechanism that only operates on receipt of the required penny.—The Cvcle.

.1. W. Stocks, the famous racing cyclist, whose records are a household wool among wheelmen, announces that he has definitely retired from the race path, and will in future devote hintself entirely to business, having Iteen appointed general manager of the Ariel Cycle Company, Limited, which has been formed to take over the business recently carried on for the manufacture of Dunlop cycles. It is a good many years since Stocks, who is a native of Hull, won main hundreds of prizes before he started record-breaking on the safety bicycle. It is very funny what different ideas the modern cyclist has of what constitutes a 'bone-shaker.' I have heard the high bicycle, which preceded the present safety type of bicycle, so descrilted. and latterly in the policecourt. when a case of furious riding was lieing tried at Reignte, a solidtyred safety bicycle, built three or four years back, was stated in the evidence to l»e a 'bone-shaker"; but

neither of these ean be correctly called a 'bone-shaker," which particular type of machine has nothing tiKMlern about it. It was iu existence in the late sixties and the early seventies. had iron tyres, generally wooden wheels, of equal or nearly equal size, drove from the front wheel direct, and the rider sat on a long flat steel spring over the rear wheel. The postal authorities of St. Petersburg have lately been experimenting with tricycle carriers for collecting letters from pillar-boxes and post offices in place of the inconvenient carriages now in use.

Many riders are far too careless of the condition of their tyres. Barring those encounters with inverted tacks, broken bottles, and upturned horse shoes, which cannot always be prevented or foreseen, there is no reason why any good tyre of standard make should not, with proper care. last two seasons through, even though the milt age recorded be high. Neglect in the matter of keeping a tyre well filled with air. however, will ruin it ]>erhaps more quickly and completely than any usage it could be subjected to. A good thing for every rider to remember regarding pneumatic tyres is that the tighter you keep them pumped tip the longer they will last, provided, of course, they are sound at the start.

Some time ago a wheelman was killed in a peculiar manner near Bridgeport. Conn.. U.S. He sustained a fall whieh. however, would probably not have resulted in any serious injury had not one of the side pockets of his coat contained an apple. He fell in such a way as to bring the apple between his body and the ground, and the sudden pressure upon an important abdominal nerve centre caused a shock resulting in almost instant death.