Bicycle Technology and Patents

Those old bike designers tried a lot of ways to cushion the ride of the safety bike on the rough roads found at the end of the 19th century.  Here is a different way to employ springs on the front forks to cushion the ride. 

Even after bikes were built using chains, other power transmission modes were tried in early years and continue to be tried today. The chain is just so efficient its hard to beat. An early alternative to the chain and gears utilized a drive shaft. Some added gears to the drive shaft to form a transmission like the early cars were using. This one from 1897 even had a shift lever and a real transmission and a drive shaft that operated with bevel gears to the rear wheel. Having machinery and machinists capable of making bevel gears and transmissions such as this made the transmission to automobiles much smoother and faster.

This figure from a U.S. patent from 1869 shows a tadpole recumbent trike. It is powered by the user’s hands and feet. The feet work a treadle, and the hands work the rods. Rod and lever propulsion was common in those days, because reliable chains had not been developed yet, and the crank and chain was not proven as the best way to transfer power. This wheel and frame configuration is about 140 years ahead of ahead of the Catrike and other trikes, which have similar frame and wheel configuration.

This was not the first recumbent bike, but it is certainly an early one. I have no information that this was ever built, but it sure was ahead of its time. It is very similar to long wheel base recumbents on the road today.

The crank is such a simple device that one could assume it is as ancient as the wheel.   The function of the crank was performed in the ancient world by handspikes which would be inserted in holes to move a capstan, and moved periodically to new holes around the cylinder of the capstan. 

In about the first century AD cranks were used on Roman medical devices, but it was not until 850 AD that proof of a crank in Europe is found, in a picture of a man sharpening a sword on a grindstone turned by a crank.  Other references show the crank in use in certain regions by about 1100 AD, and use in a variety of tools in Europe was widespread by 1600 AD.  Of course, the Chinese had used the crank since 100 BC. 

The Frenchmen Pierre and Ernest Michaux added cranks and pedals to the existing form of the bicycle, by adding them to the front wheel in 1861.  Some people believe that this modification of the Dandy Horse makes the Michaux brothers the inventor of the bicycle.  However, the version made by John Starling was much closer to the modern version of the bicycle, and most people credit him with the invention of the modern form of the bicycle.  Other contenders for earliest bicycle invention include Kirkpatrick MacMillan in 1839.

The Michaux brothers partner was Pierre Lallement, who may also have been the original inventor or collaborator in the crank powered bicycle. Lallement immigrated to the U.S. and got a patent on his crank powered bicycle, which was the first U.S. patent on a bicycle, in 1866.   

Machinist George Singer of Coventry England left his job at the Coventry Machine Shop of James Starley to form the Singer Cycle Company in 1875.  He manufactured sewing machines, safety bicycles and patented a bicycle fork in which the ends of the fork were curved.  This improved steering, and made for a smoother ride, because the forks would absorb some of the shock from rough roads, rather than transmit the shock to the handlebars. The model below was a dual propulsion bike, being propelled by arms and legs.

Singer also made a motorized wheel that replaced the wheel of a bicycle, and later made motorcycles and sporty little automobiles.

This appears to be a front suspension bike, patented in 1891.  The seat and cranks are attached solidly to the rear wheel, but if the front wheel hit a bump it would be allowed to raise up against the spring located near the crank.  Interesting.  Many other early suspension designs are in the Bicycle Technology section of the Patent Pending blog.  In the top version of this bike, steering is by handles by the saddle, which is connected to the front wheel by cables. There is no traditional handlebar.   I think the inventor was trying to allow the rider to sit upright and not have to lean forward to steer the front wheel. That might really relieve some back strain.

Here is a cool trike, tadpole configuration, built with the horse lover in mind. When one technology is replaced with another, the new technology often mimics the old one, either to be conservative in design, or to appeal to users of the old technology. This trike is very early on the American scene, and might appeal to riders used to horses. It is steered by reins which control the rear wheel, and is propelled by the rider lunging the front legs of the horse up and down, to turn the cranks attached to the front wheels. This patent was used as a reference first to invalidate the Lallament patent, and later was acquired by Colonel Pope as part of his patent portfolio used to obtain royalties from all bike manufacturers.

Thomas B. Jeffery was born in Stoke, Devonshire, England.  At the age of eighteen he emmigrated to the United States, and moved to Chicago.  Later he worked making models of inventions for submission to the U.S. Patent Office by inventors.  With partner R. Phillip Gormully he formed a bicycle company and became the 2nd largest bicycle manufacturing company in the U.S.  One of his accomplisments was developing a clincher rim and tire so that pneumatic tires could be used more effectively on bicycles.

The Gormully and Jeffery bicycles included a model called the Rambler. In 1900 Jeffery and Gormully sold their interest in their bicycle company and bought a factory in Kenosha Wisconsin, and began making automobiles. They kept the trademark “Rambler” from their bikes, and their cars were called Ramblers. This is Jeffery’s first automobile. Some of his early designs had a front mounted engine, and a steering wheel, but his first production models conservatively followed the Duryea pattern, and had a tiller and a rear engine.

The Ramblers costs in the $750 to $850 range, and has an 8-hp, 1.6L, 1-cyl. engine mounted
beneath the seat. In the first year of sales the Rambler became the second largest selling car, with 1500 automobiles sold, second only to Oldsmobile.

Here is yet another way to achieve multiple speeds on a bike, by the use of a driveshaft and bevel gears. This one has multiple bevel gears on the drive shaft, and multiple bevel gears on the wheel plate, so it could achieve a wide range of gear ratios.