C
Oooh!
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/default.htm
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page05.jpg
This year, more spokes, 32 front and 36 rear! (Apparently last year's
model didn't have quite enough spokes.)
Plus wonderful "disk-adjusting bearings to both wheels!" The "disk
adjustment wheels removed and replaced without change of adjustment"
means that the wheels could be removed without adjusting the bearings.
"Crucible steel fork sides . . .
"Crucible steel" was just the best kind of steel in the years _before_
the Victor ad, the term still being used as a faux high-quality
indicator. As wikipedia notes, the Bessemer process began producing
equally good steel at a fraction of the cost in the 1850s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel
Why such fine crucible-steel forks needed "Wire reinforcement--full
length" is as much a mystery as what the wire reinforcement was.
"Straight tangent" spokes are just straight-pull tangent-laced spokes.
The "tread" of 4 & 15/16ths inches is our modern Q-factor, ~125 mm.
The 7 or 6 & 1/2 inch cranks are roughly 177.5 mm and 152.5 mm--so
much for our delicate modern 2.5 mm increments.
"Victor barrel hubs" are probably just for the straight-pull spoke
arrangement, possibly something like this Columbia:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/pic/?o=rzyi&pic_id=120248&v=FR&size=small
Or like this Columbia:
http://i22.tinypic.com/wrbapw.jpg
Earlier Victors used flange hubs--see 3rd photo down:
http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm
The "straight-line driving sprocket" is described later in the
catalogue, with power graphs.
The nickeled 1/4 inch Victor block chain was inch-pitch and
quarter-inch wide.
But what are "slabbed nipples"? Just our modern 4-sided spoke nipples?
As opposed to what other kind of spoke nipples?
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page09.jpg
Victor tandems used 1/4 inch wide inch-pitch chain on the front and
3/8 inch on the rear.
Weight weenies, close your eyes!
With single-tube (roughly a tubular) 1 & 5/8ths inch tires, 41 pounds.
With double-tube (removable inner tube in a crude clincher) 1 & 7/8th
inch tires, 43 pounds.
That's an extra pound per tire.
Like many early tandems, the Victor's "steering posts are connected so
as to enable either rider to steer the machine alone, or both may
steer," as the illustration shows:
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page11.jpg
I don't know if any modern tandems still give the stoker equal
steering rights, but it seems like a bad idea.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page13.jpg
"These machines [the 1897 models] were the latest models designed for
the season just passed and their continuance as '98 Models is in
response to an active present demand. By using many of the tools and
gauges already in our factory, we are able to offer these models at a
reduced price."
Yeah, right.
Actually, the bike boom was collapsing, and prices were collapsing
with it, so marketing came up with the desperate idea of making last
year's models and selling them cheap.
The old versions had one-piece wooden rims, not the new laminated
version.
But they have the same new, improved number of spokes as the '98
models and the wonderful new Victor "straight line" sprocket.
Shades of XP and Vista!
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page16.jpg
Chain transmission is undoubtedly the best!
Of course, everyone else has been selling chains for years, so we cut
our gear teeth in a strange new shape to support our prices--
Er, to get rid of mud and grit, reduce wear, and improve efficiency.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page17.jpg
Yes, our new gear teeth are efficient! Here's a power graph of our
weird gear teeth versus the no-good junk that our competitors sell!
The Victor Dynamometer recorded pressure on the pedal on a strip of
paper advanced by a clockwork mechanism, an early PowerTap:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
Here's Scott's original "Cyclograph" with some more graphs:
http://books.google.com/books?id=rZ...n&as_brr=1&ei=5VotR-XvL5SysgOdjbS6CQ#PPA48,M1
Anyway, remember those fork sides made of crucible steel? They're
"reinforced by steel wires running along the entire length of the rear
edge. This is a point of excellence peculair to Victor."
Darned peculiar.
Lower down, Victor admitted that cork grip technology had come to a
standstill:
"In shape these [cork grips] will be the same as in 1897."
I bet that lots of worried riders breathed a sigh of relief when they
were reassured that the damned grips weren't going to change to some
new shape dreamed up by marketing.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page18.jpg
Nice illustration of how you can hold all the crank parts in your
hands. Notice the odd crank-arm attachment design.
Here's a photo of such an arm on an 1897 Victor:
http://www.auctionflex.com/auctionimages/9768/1053/9768_1053_1RD0RE728.jpg
And look at the gaps between that sprocket and its chain! Typical of
inch-pitch of that era.
Translation of embarrassing lower paragraph:
"We use the best steel everywhere in our $100 and $75 bikes. Our cheap
$50 model uses cheaper steel wherever a broken part won't kill you,
but marketing said that we had to tell you that we absolutely won't
make bikes out of cheap material. It doesn't really matter because
we're gonna be out of business by 1899, according to p. 194 of
'Collecting & Restoring Antique Bicycles' by G. Donald Adams."
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page20.jpg
Incidentally, we tie-and-solder our spokes, as the illustration shows.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page21.jpg
Those are the rat-trap versus combination pedals.
"Spring oilers" are just spring-loaded dust-caps over the oil-ports
for hubs and cranks, as opposed to screw-on caps or (shudder!)
uncovered oil ports.
Previously, Victore made a big fuss about how their Dynanometer showed
that 9 teeth on the rear inch-pitch was more efficient than 8 teeth,
but marketing has moved on and left this kind of technical article out
of the catalogue:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page22.jpg
Five kinds of handlebars. Victor uses outside collars to attach them
and doesn't sell unreliable, hard-to-adjust internal binders.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page23.jpg
Victor sells only anatomical saddles, meaning holes.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page24.jpg
Victor's $5 Frost gear case is made of rubber, steel, and aluminum.
Cheapskates shouldn't buy it because it only fits on Victor's $100
bike, not the $75 or $50 models.
Upgrade, damn it!
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page25.jpg
Okay, you cheapskates, marketing told us to explain why we're making
that $50 model. Fine--the crucial phrase in all the gobbledygook in
the first paragraph is that you're "not willing to invest $100."
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page27.jpg
For fifty bucks, you get wheels, cranks, a front fork, and pedals, and
so on, just about the same as the hundred-dollar model.
The wheels are one-piece elm, not laminated, and it serves you right.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page29.jpg
Well, there are a few other differences.
The $50 models have "sheet-metal frame connections"--honest, they
won't break. The pedals and chain are "special" (meaning not the good
stuff on the $100 and $75 models).
Who's the son-of-a-***** who crossed-out marketing's Gothic-script
"Fifty Dollars" and scribbled "$40.00 Cash"?
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page30.jpg
Tires!
The catalogue doesn't mention Victor's tire resiliometer:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
Anyway, tires . . . $10 per pair, guaranteed.
Or $7.50 per pair, just like Victor's cheap $8.50 tire, except for the
tread rubber.
Oh, without the guarantee.
"We have made it in response to a demand for a reliable tire of low
price to be sold without guarantee."
Yeah, right--customers were screaming for "a reliable tire" without a
guarantee of reliability.
The no-warranty-tire craze was in the news back in 1897--see the start
of this NYT article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E3DD1039E433A2575AC1A96F9C94669ED7CF
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page31.jpg
All the other bike companies will try to sell you shaft-drive **** in
1898, but chainless bikes are just a desperate marketing gimmick.
Victor knows better and would never stoop to making chainless bicycles
that it knows are inferior to--
Er, never mind. The customer is always right, so engineering will
cobble something together without a chain, sometime later in 1898.
But chainless inefficiency costs extra, so you'd better have $125
handy if you want to break the hearts of the engineers who proved that
Victor's $100 "straight-line" gear-teeth are more efficient than shaft
drive.
Below the vaporware chainless bike is the Victor track racer, with the
frame dropped 3 inches at the crank, a narrow 4 & 1/4 inch tread, a
front fork that takes only narrow 1 & 1/2 inch (or smaller) tires, a
skinny 3/16 inch chain, the 8-tooth rear sprocket that Victor proved
was less efficient than a 9-tooth sprocket (oops!), and a maximum 94 &
1/2 inch gear (probably a 26-tooth front).
***
G. Donald Adams says that Victor did indeed make that chainless with
the $25 premium :
http://i11.tinypic.com/6ufd9hs.jpg
Naturally, Victor had the special efficient roller-drive that Adams
describes, but it wasn't enough to overcome that terrible ad.
Victor went out of business in 1899 as the bike boom collapsed.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/default.htm
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page05.jpg
This year, more spokes, 32 front and 36 rear! (Apparently last year's
model didn't have quite enough spokes.)
Plus wonderful "disk-adjusting bearings to both wheels!" The "disk
adjustment wheels removed and replaced without change of adjustment"
means that the wheels could be removed without adjusting the bearings.
"Crucible steel fork sides . . .
"Crucible steel" was just the best kind of steel in the years _before_
the Victor ad, the term still being used as a faux high-quality
indicator. As wikipedia notes, the Bessemer process began producing
equally good steel at a fraction of the cost in the 1850s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel
Why such fine crucible-steel forks needed "Wire reinforcement--full
length" is as much a mystery as what the wire reinforcement was.
"Straight tangent" spokes are just straight-pull tangent-laced spokes.
The "tread" of 4 & 15/16ths inches is our modern Q-factor, ~125 mm.
The 7 or 6 & 1/2 inch cranks are roughly 177.5 mm and 152.5 mm--so
much for our delicate modern 2.5 mm increments.
"Victor barrel hubs" are probably just for the straight-pull spoke
arrangement, possibly something like this Columbia:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/pic/?o=rzyi&pic_id=120248&v=FR&size=small
Or like this Columbia:
http://i22.tinypic.com/wrbapw.jpg
Earlier Victors used flange hubs--see 3rd photo down:
http://www.prices4antiques.com/itemsummary/251080.htm
The "straight-line driving sprocket" is described later in the
catalogue, with power graphs.
The nickeled 1/4 inch Victor block chain was inch-pitch and
quarter-inch wide.
But what are "slabbed nipples"? Just our modern 4-sided spoke nipples?
As opposed to what other kind of spoke nipples?
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page09.jpg
Victor tandems used 1/4 inch wide inch-pitch chain on the front and
3/8 inch on the rear.
Weight weenies, close your eyes!
With single-tube (roughly a tubular) 1 & 5/8ths inch tires, 41 pounds.
With double-tube (removable inner tube in a crude clincher) 1 & 7/8th
inch tires, 43 pounds.
That's an extra pound per tire.
Like many early tandems, the Victor's "steering posts are connected so
as to enable either rider to steer the machine alone, or both may
steer," as the illustration shows:
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page11.jpg
I don't know if any modern tandems still give the stoker equal
steering rights, but it seems like a bad idea.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page13.jpg
"These machines [the 1897 models] were the latest models designed for
the season just passed and their continuance as '98 Models is in
response to an active present demand. By using many of the tools and
gauges already in our factory, we are able to offer these models at a
reduced price."
Yeah, right.
Actually, the bike boom was collapsing, and prices were collapsing
with it, so marketing came up with the desperate idea of making last
year's models and selling them cheap.
The old versions had one-piece wooden rims, not the new laminated
version.
But they have the same new, improved number of spokes as the '98
models and the wonderful new Victor "straight line" sprocket.
Shades of XP and Vista!
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page16.jpg
Chain transmission is undoubtedly the best!
Of course, everyone else has been selling chains for years, so we cut
our gear teeth in a strange new shape to support our prices--
Er, to get rid of mud and grit, reduce wear, and improve efficiency.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page17.jpg
Yes, our new gear teeth are efficient! Here's a power graph of our
weird gear teeth versus the no-good junk that our competitors sell!
The Victor Dynamometer recorded pressure on the pedal on a strip of
paper advanced by a clockwork mechanism, an early PowerTap:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
Here's Scott's original "Cyclograph" with some more graphs:
http://books.google.com/books?id=rZ...n&as_brr=1&ei=5VotR-XvL5SysgOdjbS6CQ#PPA48,M1
Anyway, remember those fork sides made of crucible steel? They're
"reinforced by steel wires running along the entire length of the rear
edge. This is a point of excellence peculair to Victor."
Darned peculiar.
Lower down, Victor admitted that cork grip technology had come to a
standstill:
"In shape these [cork grips] will be the same as in 1897."
I bet that lots of worried riders breathed a sigh of relief when they
were reassured that the damned grips weren't going to change to some
new shape dreamed up by marketing.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page18.jpg
Nice illustration of how you can hold all the crank parts in your
hands. Notice the odd crank-arm attachment design.
Here's a photo of such an arm on an 1897 Victor:
http://www.auctionflex.com/auctionimages/9768/1053/9768_1053_1RD0RE728.jpg
And look at the gaps between that sprocket and its chain! Typical of
inch-pitch of that era.
Translation of embarrassing lower paragraph:
"We use the best steel everywhere in our $100 and $75 bikes. Our cheap
$50 model uses cheaper steel wherever a broken part won't kill you,
but marketing said that we had to tell you that we absolutely won't
make bikes out of cheap material. It doesn't really matter because
we're gonna be out of business by 1899, according to p. 194 of
'Collecting & Restoring Antique Bicycles' by G. Donald Adams."
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page20.jpg
Incidentally, we tie-and-solder our spokes, as the illustration shows.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page21.jpg
Those are the rat-trap versus combination pedals.
"Spring oilers" are just spring-loaded dust-caps over the oil-ports
for hubs and cranks, as opposed to screw-on caps or (shudder!)
uncovered oil ports.
Previously, Victore made a big fuss about how their Dynanometer showed
that 9 teeth on the rear inch-pitch was more efficient than 8 teeth,
but marketing has moved on and left this kind of technical article out
of the catalogue:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page22.jpg
Five kinds of handlebars. Victor uses outside collars to attach them
and doesn't sell unreliable, hard-to-adjust internal binders.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page23.jpg
Victor sells only anatomical saddles, meaning holes.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page24.jpg
Victor's $5 Frost gear case is made of rubber, steel, and aluminum.
Cheapskates shouldn't buy it because it only fits on Victor's $100
bike, not the $75 or $50 models.
Upgrade, damn it!
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page25.jpg
Okay, you cheapskates, marketing told us to explain why we're making
that $50 model. Fine--the crucial phrase in all the gobbledygook in
the first paragraph is that you're "not willing to invest $100."
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page27.jpg
For fifty bucks, you get wheels, cranks, a front fork, and pedals, and
so on, just about the same as the hundred-dollar model.
The wheels are one-piece elm, not laminated, and it serves you right.
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page29.jpg
Well, there are a few other differences.
The $50 models have "sheet-metal frame connections"--honest, they
won't break. The pedals and chain are "special" (meaning not the good
stuff on the $100 and $75 models).
Who's the son-of-a-***** who crossed-out marketing's Gothic-script
"Fifty Dollars" and scribbled "$40.00 Cash"?
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page30.jpg
Tires!
The catalogue doesn't mention Victor's tire resiliometer:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-...id=ABK4014-0090-119&coll=moa&frames=1&view=50
Anyway, tires . . . $10 per pair, guaranteed.
Or $7.50 per pair, just like Victor's cheap $8.50 tire, except for the
tread rubber.
Oh, without the guarantee.
"We have made it in response to a demand for a reliable tire of low
price to be sold without guarantee."
Yeah, right--customers were screaming for "a reliable tire" without a
guarantee of reliability.
The no-warranty-tire craze was in the news back in 1897--see the start
of this NYT article:
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E07E3DD1039E433A2575AC1A96F9C94669ED7CF
***
http://www.amoser.ch/christian/quellen/victor1898/images/page31.jpg
All the other bike companies will try to sell you shaft-drive **** in
1898, but chainless bikes are just a desperate marketing gimmick.
Victor knows better and would never stoop to making chainless bicycles
that it knows are inferior to--
Er, never mind. The customer is always right, so engineering will
cobble something together without a chain, sometime later in 1898.
But chainless inefficiency costs extra, so you'd better have $125
handy if you want to break the hearts of the engineers who proved that
Victor's $100 "straight-line" gear-teeth are more efficient than shaft
drive.
Below the vaporware chainless bike is the Victor track racer, with the
frame dropped 3 inches at the crank, a narrow 4 & 1/4 inch tread, a
front fork that takes only narrow 1 & 1/2 inch (or smaller) tires, a
skinny 3/16 inch chain, the 8-tooth rear sprocket that Victor proved
was less efficient than a 9-tooth sprocket (oops!), and a maximum 94 &
1/2 inch gear (probably a 26-tooth front).
***
G. Donald Adams says that Victor did indeed make that chainless with
the $25 premium :
http://i11.tinypic.com/6ufd9hs.jpg
Naturally, Victor had the special efficient roller-drive that Adams
describes, but it wasn't enough to overcome that terrible ad.
Victor went out of business in 1899 as the bike boom collapsed.
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
