THE wheel I n 1870s England bicycles were big literally big The front wheel of a high-wheel bicycle could top four feet 1 2 m in diameter With its much smaller rear wheel the metal and wood contraption looked awkward and it was heavy and difficult to ride Rigid metal tires made for a bumpy ride and dismounting from the tall seat was a challenge and a hazard even for skilled riders As noted by American humorist Mark Twain Get a bicycle You will not regret it if you live 1 Despite the shortcomings of these ungainly contraptions they were popular with the rich young men who enjoyed competing with them in bicycle races 6 chapter 1
High-wheeled bicycles provided both recreation and transportation for those who were brave enough to ride them
Tinkering in his Coventry United Kingdom workshop James Starley a 41-year-old machinist had no experience building bicycles But he had a hunch With only a few improvements he thought he could make bikes stronger faster and more comfortable First Starley experimented with a tubular steel frame Then he made seat springs shorter and stiffer and he created a rear brake that operated by turning the handlebar grips But his biggest innovation concerned the front wheel Spokes on bicycles at the time were stiff and heavy Starley came up with the idea to stretch wire spokes from the wheel’s rim to the hub and then tighten them Spokes under tension are better at absorbing road shock than rigid spokes are and they are much lighter Starley knew his all-metal Ariel bicycle which he patented with his partner William Hillman in 1870 was a big improvement from earlier high wheelers But he needed a way to show bicycle enthusiasts what the Ariel could do In 1871 Starley and Hillman rode their Ariel bicycles from London to Coventry in one day a 100-mile 161 km trip on primitive roads Both men were so exhausted that they stayed in bed for the next three days but the publicity stunt worked They gained as one of their first customers James Moore a famous racing cyclist The Ariel became popular and sold well Even so Starley had a feeling he could make more improvements and he continued working on spoke technology In 1874 he introduced the tangent-spoke wheel The load-bearing principle was the same as for his previous tension wheel But in this new Ariel he connected the spokes from the rim to the hub 8
at an angle rather than in a straight line Tangent spokes were very strong and could better withstand the forces of pedaling and braking than straight spokes could The result was a wheel that was even lighter and better riding than it was before Starley’s innovation was such a success that nearly every bike built since 1874 has used this technology Tangent spokes have even been used on motorcycle car and airplane wheels Because of his innovations and the fact his Ariel bike marked the beginning of Britain’s bicycle manufacturing industry Starley earned the title father of the bicycle industry Bike historian Andrew Ritchie says Starley was probably the most energetic and inventive genius in the history of bicycle technology 2 Trains Planes and Dishwashers It is hard to imagine the present-day world without the wheel Wheels are integral to The tangent-spoke wheel Starley invented distributed the weight of the rider around the whole wheel unlike its wooden predecessors 9
