Outils :Vous avez un site web ? Un blog ?
 Technorati reactions rencontre |
The ordinary, high wheel or penny-farthing was the first true bicycle on which speed and distance could be achieved practically. Larger and larger wheels, up to 1.5m (60") diameter, enabled higher speeds.[1][2][3][4][5] The description 'penny-farthing' refers to British penny and farthing coins, one much larger than the other so that the side view resembled a penny leading a farthing.[1]
Based on the French Boneshaker, James Starley and others produced bicycles with front wheels of increasing size, starting about 1870.[1] In 1878 Albert Pope began manufacturing the Columbia bicycle outside of Boston, starting their two-decade heyday in America.[1] Although the trend was short-lived, the penny-farthing became a symbol of the late Victorian era. Its popularity also coincided with the birth of cycling as a sport.
Contents |
The ordinary is a direct-drive bicycle, meaning the cranks and pedals are fixed directly to the hub. Instead of using "gears" to multiply the revolutions of the pedals, the driven wheel was enlarged to close to the rider's inseam to increase the maximum speed. This shifted the rider nearly on top of the wheel. His feet could not reach the ground.[1]
The frame is a single tube following the circumference of the front wheel, then diverting to a trailing wheel. A mounting peg is above the rear wheel. The front wheel is in a rigid fork with little if any trail. A spoon brake is usually fitted on the fork crown, operated by a lever from one of the handlebars. The bars are usually mustache shaped, dropping from the level of the headset. The saddle mounts on the frame less than 50cm (18in) behind the headset.
Mounting needs skill. One foot is placed on a peg above the back wheel. The rider grasps the handlebar, scoots and lifts himself into the saddle. Strong, spry young men dominated bicycling.
Although easy to ride slowly because of the inverted pendulum effect, the penny-farthing was prone to accidents. To stop, the rider presses back on the pedals while applying a spoon-shaped brake pressing the tire. The center of mass being high and not far behind the front wheel meant any sudden stop or collision with a pothole or other obstruction could send the rider over the handlebars ("taking a header" or "coming a cropper"). On long downhills it was recommended that riders hook their feet over the handlebars so they would land on their feet. This made for quick descents but left no chance of stopping.
The bike, with the one wheel dominating, led to riders being referred to in America as "wheelmen", a name that lived on for nearly a century in the League of American Wheelmen until renamed the League of American Bicyclists. Clubs of racing cyclists wore uniforms of peaked caps, tight jackets and knee-length breeches, with leather shoes, the caps and jackets displaying the club's colors. In 1967 collectors and restorers of penny-farthings (and other early bicycles) founded the Wheelmen [1], a non-profit organization "dedicated to keeping alive the heritage of American cycling".
Tremendous feats of balance were reported, including negotiating a narrow bridge parapet and riding down the US Capitol steps with the small wheel in front.
The high-wheeler lives on in the gear inch units used by cyclists in English-speaking countries to describe gear ratios. These are calculated by multiplying the wheel diameter in inches by the number of teeth on the front chain-wheel and dividing by the teeth on the rear sprocket. The result is the equivalent diameter of a penny-farthing wheel. A 60-inch gear, the largest practicable size for a high-wheeler, is nowadays a middle gear of a utility bicycle, while top gears on many exceed 100 inches. There was at least one 64-inch Columbia made in the mid 1880s, but 60 was the largest in regular production.
In 1884, Thomas Stevens rode a Columbia penny-farthing from San Francisco to Boston,[1] the first cyclist to cross the United States. In 1885–86 he continued from London through Europe, the Middle East, China, and Japan, to become the first to ride round the world.
The nephew of one of the men responsible for popularity of the penny-farthing was largely responsible for its death. James Starley had built the Ariel (spirit of the air)[6] high-wheeler in 1870 but this was a time of innovation and when chain drives were upgraded so that each link had a small roller, higher and higher speeds became possible without the large wheel. In 1885, Starley's nephew John Kemp Starley took these new developments to launch the Rover Safety Bicycle, so-called because the rider, seated much lower and farther behind the front wheel contact point, was less prone to "a header".[1]
In 1888, when John Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic tire for his son's tricycle, the high wheel was made obsolete. The comfortable ride once found only on tall wheels could now be enjoyed on smaller chain-driven bicycles. Over the 15 years the ordinary vanished. It lingered into the 1920s in track cycling until racing safety bicycles were perfected.[1]
Today enthusiasts ride restored ordinaries, and a few will build a new one, but the shape of the Rover Safety and its development of the diamond-framed bicycle has come to dominate the perception of what a bicycle looks like. Only a few cyclists understand that the term "ordinary bicycle" does not mean a standard diamond-frame.
