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In the late 19th century many bicycle industry pundits thought that drive shafts would be the bicycle power train of the future. The patent below was a way for the bevel gear of a drive shaft bike to engage a selected gear, and to change to another gear for more gearing options. This system might have been in use today had not derailluers been developed to allow a chain to be moved from gear to gear.
Here is a nice design for a two wheeled tandem bike, with each rider’s seat being directly above a wheel. This is from 1891.
One way to lighten a bike is to get rid of the chain. But if the cranks are attached to the axle of the wheel, then the wheel has to be very large in order to get any speed out of the bike. That is the design need that drove the velocipedes to have huge front wheels, and that design presented serious problems. Here is a design that does away with the chain, and has front wheel drive. However the crank is geared, and the power is transmitted via planetary gearing to the front wheel.
Bruce on ceramic bearings: I’ve replaced the stock Catrike bearings with ceramics bearings on both of my Speeds. Front and rear. In a year and a half I’ve burned up two of the stock bearings, so I was looking for something that is more durable and that I wouldn’t have to worry about again. It just so happens that they really improve the coasting abilities of a trike, which also means they reduce pedaling effort. But, they ain’t cheap! PRH has just done the ceramic swap in the rear of his trike, and is awaiting the arrival of his new fronts. He felt the improvement from just the rears. If I recall, they are about $50/bearing, and there are four of them in the two front hubs. It takes about ten minutes to replace them in each front hub. Here’s a link to my section on Flickr where I keep my pix of the guts of a front hub, showing the bearings and how they fit. For information on how to remove these bearings, check out this post. It’s easy! Click here to see pix of a front hub disassymbled. ABEC stands for Annular Bearing Engineers’ Committee. This committee works to determine the standards for bearings for the Anti-Friction Bearing Manufacturers Association (AFBMA). The ABEC scale classifies different accuracy and tolerance ranges for bearings. The first column of this table lists the five ratings in the ABEC scale. ABEC Ratings ISO Class ABEC1 Class 0 The ABEC rating of a bearing is determined by the following (for a 608 size bearing): 1. How close the bore is to 8mm in microns
Thanks to PRH for this latest info on these bearings! These are the bearing and part numbers to order them from VXB Bearings. You will note that these are also ABEC-7 bearings, as well as ceramics. Kit8041 6904-2RS Bearing 20x37x9 Si3N4 Ceramic:Stainless:Sealed:ABEC-7 Quantity 2 same bearing from BOCA Bearings Kit7660 6805-2RS Bearing 25x37x7 Si3N4 Ceramic:Stainless:Sealed:ABEC-7 Quantity 2 same bearing from BOCA Bearings For standard Catrike rear hubs you need one of each of these kits from vxb.com: Kit7653 6000-2RS Bearing 10x26x8 Si3N4 Ceramic:Stainless:Sealed:ABEC-7 (about $30) I believe that all current Catrikes use the same hubs and bearings. The older front hubs used two of the 6904 bearings, but all of the current models use one each of the above bearings in each hub. An excellent step up from the stock bearings on a Catrike would be to good stainless steel bearings. The next step would be to stainless ABEC-7 bearings. The next step would be to non-rated ceramics. The top of the line (well, almost!) would be ABEC-7 ceramics. You will note that “Stainless” is listed in the description. That’s because the globes (balls) are the ceramic component, but the races are stainless steel. The best analogy I can give of the difference in ceramic versus steel balls is the difference between a golf ball and a ping-pong ball, as far as smoothness. Unless you just have a bunch of money to spend, I would recommend running the stock bearings until one of them gives you trouble, then replace them all with ceramics, keeping the stock ones for spares. Concerning sealed bearings, they can be lubed. That process is discussed in a separate post located here. My experience (Bob’s) with ceramics has been that they make a 2-3 mph difference in my riding. I found a roll out hill with a straightaway below it, and I coasted my trike on the test track before and after installing ceramic front bearings. Over about a 300 yard run, the trike went 40 paces (120 feet) further with the ceramics. On all the “go fast” sections of my regular route to work, over the next week I set new personal best times on every section, by about 3 mph. On one section, the new speed ability made me try to complete a 6 block section at speeds above 20 mph. I was successful at that. My usual speed over that route is more like 17, and on some areas I usually drop down to 13 or so. Bruce says the bearings will get better after 200 miles of run in, so I’ll retest them later. If you install ceramics looking for speed, you should remove the seals, clean out the grease they come with, add replacement grease, and replace the seals. Excess grease would be displaced by the bearings as they rotate, and would come to rest on the bearing cage. During use, oil from the grease would seep out and lubricate the bearings. But if there is so much grease that the bearings have to continually push it aside you will lose any speed advantage the ceramic bearings might have given you. When you replace the grease, you can also make a batch of “thin” grease to pack the bearings with, made of 70% grease and 30% 3-in-1 oil. The picture below shows how much “thin” grease I added.
Below is a list of the tools that trikebldr used when stripping and assembling a Catrike with Lucinda C. (Pink Panther) . Says Bruce: Some are listed as the set they are a part of. I’m a big fan of Park’s line of tools, but you can substitute for a lot of them. With this list, you can tear a current model Catrike completely apart. Park Tools list (with Park parts numbers) Polylube 1000 (PPL-1) All other tools Calibro (from Catrike) NOTES- Of course, a lot of these can be substituted for according to personal preference. The lubes are a personal choice. The wheel truing stand and dishing guage are Park’s best and can be substituted for much cheaper. Park makes a new hammer (HMR-2) with a replaceable rubber face on one end and a steel face on the other. It’s very nice and at $10.95 a pretty good deal. Both allen wrench sets are available at Lowe’s as HUSKY brand as one set (about $20). The side cutters are for crimping the cable-end ferrules, and for cutting the excess cable tie ends. The multi screwdriver I use is a Cobalt brand from Lowe’s. They have several different styles and sizes. Cobalt are good tools, and they go along quite well with all of the Park blue tools!!! The files are for when you drive the axles out with something a little too hard and kick up a burr that won’t let it go back in! I also use a 3/8″ drive torque wrench on some things because Park’s 1/4″ TW only goes to 60 in/lbs. The repair stand is a personal choice, but I looked at many, and tried fitting my Speed into them, and only the clamping head on the PCS-9 would fit a Catrike frame at the point where it gives a good balance so you can spin the trike to any angle you want for work. Lucinda already had a different stand, but she found out the hard way the same thing I found. I bought the cone wrenches as a set, but we only used the 15mm during the teardown of a rear wheel hub. Spoke wrenches are also a personal choice. Pedro’s makes a great set, as well as Park. I have found that I use two different sizes on one wheel at times because nipples are often not very consistent in dimension. I just make sure that the wrench fits very tight on the nipple. If one gets rounded, then you will need the adjustable wrench to work it. The adjustable spoke wrench is about $32, but well worth it the first time a nipple rounds off! Park’s four-sided spoke wrenches are better yet. They grip the spoke at all four corners of the nipple to help keep it from slipping. I believe that Pedro’s makes these, too. Needle-nosed pliers will do the same job as the master link pliers. Lucinda and I never did tear apart the freewheel (don’t confuse this with the cassette!) on the rear hub, nor did we remove it from the hub. Most books say that it takes a 10mm allen wrench to remove the freewheel from the hub, BUT, I found in all five Cats that I have around here that it takes a 7/16″ allen to fit. Maybe Rick (recycledteen) will chime in here to verify what he used to remove his a while back?!?!?! BTW, 7/16″ allens aren’t EASY to come by! The special “socket wrench” that it takes to open up a freewheel can vary, so you need to check with your local bike store to find out which one you need. Most shops don’t mess with them. They just replace the whole freewheel assembly. About the only reason to open one up is to clean out the heavier grease and put in a lighter grease, or use oil in an effort to reduce rolling friction during coasting. It DOES make a difference. If anybody NEEDS to know which tool it takes for Cats, I can look up which one I use. One last tool I have and use that I would like to mention for you serious wrenches, but didn’t break out while Lucinda was here, is my bottom bracket threading/facing tool. It’s a Park BTS-1, and it ain’t cheap! If you only have one or two trikes/bikes to maintain, just have your lbs do the job. They usually charge about $55 to do the thread chasing and shell facing job, so if you have it done nine times, you’ve paid for the tool! Of course, good friends, good music and good food go a long way to making the job go better! You’re on your own there, though! Bruce (trikebldr) Recently my 15 year old daughter has "adopted" my wife’s nice road bike, and has been doing some great rides around town on it. So I thought I’d look for another road bike of about the same size to have a road bike available for both of the ladies in my life. I thought I’d go check out a thrift store bike yard, because my partner Steve found a great mountain bike out there. I went to the bike enclosure of the thrift store, and ran into Steve and his wife Jody, who were scouting for a kids bike. We prowled around together looking for gems, and seeing mostly junk. Steve and Jody left with a nice kids bike, and I saw an aero brake lever on a handlebar, under a pile of nasty bikes. I unraveled the stack of nasty bikes, and got more and more excited as I freed the bike at the bottom of the pile. I saw a Campagnolo brake, then finally got the entire bike free to look it over. It was a Fuji, with double butted steel tubing, and about the right frame size for my wife. It had Campy hubs, cranks, brakes, headset, shifters, bottom bracket and skewers, and Cinelli stem and bars. The saddle was suede, and it had Shimano pedals. Since one tire was gone, and it was pretty dirty and greasy, the lady at the gate of the bike yard put a price of $5.00 on it. I tried not to jump for joy, paid my $5, and took the bike home to clean it up. It was like Christmas in July, and with new tires and a little soap, the old bike looks pretty decent. This bike was the JACKPOT! Judging from ebay prices, any of the Campy parts would go for $75 to $125, and the whole bike might run $500+ on ebay.
The first U.S. patent filed on bicycles was by Lallament, for his version of an improved velocipede. Like the earlier velocipedes, it was powered by crank arms and pedals attached to the front wheel. That must have made turning interesting. Later early bikes, called velocipedes, had a large front wheel, driven by a fixed crank. Each rotation of the wheel required one rotation of the pedals, since they were rigidly connected. The wheel had to be large so that the rider could go faster without having to pedal furiously on a smaller wheel.
The tall wheel resulted in some tall crashes, and a need for a safer ride, by having smaller wheels.
A smaller wheeled bicycle was made possible by the use of gears, so that one rotation of the pedals could be converted to many rotations of the wheel. Of course, when you have one gear ratio, a very small and weak motor (the human rider), and widely varying loads (the hills, downhills, and flats of a road), you will immediately find that you need more than one gear ratio. All kinds of attempts were made to provide variable and selectable gear ratios, as evidenced by a number of patents and products. The Sturmey Archer hub changed the gear ratio by having gears internal to the rear hub, which provided 3 speeds. This hub was popular through the 1960s for touring bikes, but not for racers. Internally geared hubs are still around for special bikes, like recumbents.
Others devices changed the size of the chain ring, and some provided multiple chain rings that were selected by a fork repositioning the chain. Of course, when you change the size of chain ring that the chain is running on, that will produce a lot of slack in the chain, which has to be dealt with. A functional derailleur was made by Paul de Vivie of France in 1905. It was sold under the Velocio mark, and shifted among four gears mounted on the crank. We would call this a front derailleur in today’s terminology. Today’s bikes use a derailleur at the front, and one at the rear, which yields a large number of gear combinations for use when riding.
Paul de Vivie and his front derailleur The European racers were at the forefront of technology, and for a long time they chose to use a rear wheel with a chain ring on each side of the hub. One chain ring was geared for uphill, and one for downhill. When they got to the top of the mountain pass, they would remove their rear wheel, flip it over, adjust the chain, and zoom off on the downhill gear. Part of this choice of technology was caused by the rules of the established racing organizations, which precluded new technologies, such as non-wooden rims, and derailleurs. The use of multiple gears and derailleurs was also discouraged by “purists”, who viewed the need to change gears the sign of a weak or inexperienced cyclist. Tullio Campagnolo in his Racing Days The need of racers to remove the wheel and flip it over prompted an Italian racer, Tullio Campagnolo, to invent the quick release hub. After his racing career, Tullio founded the Campagnolo company, whose products exhibited amazing design and finish quality, and are still among the most prestigious bicycle components today. Simplex made a functional rear derailleur in the 1930s, which was cable operated, and became a standard on road racing bikes. It used two cables, because the internal spring was not strong enough to move the cage in both directions, so one cable moved it one way, and another cable moved it the other way.
Simplex Derailleur, courtesy of Tony Hadlund http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/derailleur/ In 1946, Campagnolo made a dual-rod derailleur called the “Cambio Corsa”, which used two levers that moved the chain from chain ring to chain ring, and also moved the wheel axle back and forth to take in the chain slack. Patent figures for the Cambio Corsa are here. Tullio Campagnolo and the “Cambio Corsa” The first derailleur that worked by moving the chain with an articulated parallelogram, called a cage, operated by cables, was made by Campagnolo in 1949. That model used two cables. The first single cable parallelogram derailleur was Campagnolo’s Gran Sport, made in 1951. This derailleur would be recognizable as a modern derailleur, and is very similar to current designs in 2004. Here is an interesting belt drive bike from 1890. One type of recumbent bike is called a long wheelbase recumbent, and this is an example which was patented in 1981. There are several commercial models using this general configuration, such as excellent bikes by RANS.
This model also has under seat steering, with a linkage to the front wheel, which is still a popular mode of steering.
In the era when alternatives were being tried to the "ordinary" bicycle, many new configurations were tried. One was that made by the Star Company, of H. B. Smith. In this design, the small wheel was in front, with the intent of reducing the number of headers that riders suffered. The Star Bicycle was used by Lucius D. Copeland as a frame for his steam engine.
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