I don’t know how well this worked, but I love the idea of just tacking an engine onto the side of the wheel.
Bike Power Unit will convert any bicycle into an honest-to-goodness motor bike in 15 minutes. It attaches to the front wheel as shown. Its single-cylinder, three-horsepower air-cooled engine provides 100 miles to a gallon. Fuel tank is at top. American Brake Shoe, Rochester, N. Y.
This bike seems like it’s a little more complicated than it needs to be.
Supergeared French Bike Gives Cyclist Choice of Several Speeds
There’s a weird assortment of sprockets and chains incorporated into a supergeared bicycle invented in France. The chains appear to run at random all over the framework of the bicycle, but the arrangement gives the rider a choice of several gears. The bicycle has two-wheel brakes.
That’s actually a pretty cool looking bike.
Odd Bicycle Made from Bed
An English comedian recently entertained crowds at a cycling meet by riding the odd bicycle shown above. The frame of the curious wheel was made from the head of an old iron bed, to which old bicycle parts were added.
The Bicycle Comes Back
In amazing revival of fad of the nineties
By John E. Lodge
THE bicycle is back. Four million Americans now pedal along streets and highways. And, last year, factories in the United States turned out 750,000 machines, nearly equaling the peak production of the gay nineties. News items from all parts of the country tell the story of this dramatic boom in popularity.
In Chicago, Ill., for instance, 165,000 persons recently signed a petition asking for cycling paths to be constructed in the city parks. In Washington, D. C, a huge crowd of enthusiastic spectators, last winter, braved frigid winds for hours to watch an amateur bike race. From coast to coast, cycling clubs are i springing up. The veteran League of American Wheelmen has come back to life. The Amateur Bicycle League of America has approximately ninety affiliated clubs; the Century Road Club, promoting amateur races, has twenty-five or thirty, and there are upwards of 300 unassociated clubs in the country.
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Work Capacity of Athlete Measured in Bike Test
How much work can an athlete turn out, and what does it cost him in oxygen consumption and heart effort? A group of Stanford University athletes has set out to measure their work-output capacity and “fuel” consumption while pedaling a test bicycle. The driving sprocket of the “bike” is connected to a dynamometer which translates leg effort into horsepower. Over the subject’s head is placed a copper helmet into which measured air is pumped, then exhausted air from the lungs is piped away to be measured for oxygen depletion and production of carbon dioxide.
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Motor Unit Runs Bike or Mower
Powered by a 1-1/2-hp. engine, a two-wheeled unit designed and built by William Lusk of Cicero, Ill., can be readily attached to a bicycle, lawn mower, or scooter. Small pneumatic wheels carry its 200-lb. weight without marking soft turf and give ample traction for cutting heavy grass. Used on the highway as a scooter or bike motor, the unit delivers better than 25 m.p.h.
Lusk used a 1/8″ steel plate as a combined platform and chassis. The axle is a 5/8″ steel shaft running in ball bearings, with a small over-riding clutch at each wheel to give differential action. Power is transmitted by a pair of V-belts from the engine to a 7-to-l gearbox taken from a washing machine. A movable idler acts as the main clutch. By using V-belt pulleys of different diameters, Lusk changes the effective gear ratio to suit the job the unit is doing.
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Eccentric Cycles
BIZARRE bikes are back! In bicycling’s early days, granddaddy went wild over eccentric cycles. Then, bike tastes leveled off. But the comeback of the bicycle industry has changed things.
In 1948, almost three million bikes (eccentric and otherwise) were turned out. Currently, the U. S. owns 14 million cycles - a fifth of the world’s total. Even exclusive Skidmore College bowed to the trend and introduced a course in Bi-Psychology!
So, purloin a peek at the two-wheelers on these pages and you’ll begin to realize how far the fad has gone since you last looked.
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