high-wheeler crash photo



R

Ryan Cousineau

Guest
Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.

This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
mid-fall:

http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"My scenarios may give the impression I could be an excellent crook.
Not true - I am a talented lawyer." - Sandy in rec.bicycles.racing
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
> Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.
>
> This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
> mid-fall:
>
> http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/

Good thing he wasn't clipped in!
 
On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 04:54:13 GMT, Ryan Cousineau <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
>Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.
>
>This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
>mid-fall:
>
>http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/

Dear Ryan,

Posed or not, it's another example of the hideous dangers of
low-spoke-count wheels!

Looks like a radial 8-spoke front.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 
[email protected] wrote:
> On Oct 27, 7:41 am, "Bill Sornson" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>>> Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
>>> Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil
>>> owners.
>>
>>> This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
>>> mid-fall:
>>
>>> http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/
>>
>> Good thing he wasn't clipped in!
>
> He dose have approved head-gear.

Low standards.
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
> Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.
>
> This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
> mid-fall:
>
> http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/
>

Yes but did he actually crash?
I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).
~
 
On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:41:16 -0500, DougC <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>> Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
>> Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.
>>
>> This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
>> mid-fall:
>>
>> http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/
>>
>
>Yes but did he actually crash?
>I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
>off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).

Dear Doug,

Possibly you're thinking of a unicycle?

When you tip over forward on a high-wheeler, you hit the handlebar
with both thighs and do a face plant.

Note the handlebar just above the rider's knee in the picture. Most of
the 25 to 50 pound high-wheeler is right behind him, 50 inches high,
and about to teach him why safety bicycles earned their name.

There were lots of bizarre patents for high-wheeler handlebars
intended to get around this problem, but none of them worked.

Many handlebar patents involved schemes to have the bar detach and
break away under the impact of the rider's thighs. The rider ended up
with a loose handlebar in his hands (or flying up into his face) and
the high-wheeler was still tangled between his legs.

One weird design had the handlebar curved in two U's _behind_ the
rider's legs, so that he could leap forward unimpeded. One problem was
that he wasn't leaping, he was toppling unexpectedly. Another problem
was that this placed a pair of handlebars _behind_ him, still coming
forward to crash into him from behind. Finally, it made mounting the
high-wheeler next to impossible:


http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid...&SectionNum=&idkey=NONE&Input=View+first+page


These absurd inverted ape-hanger bars drop below the front axle to
provide theoretical clearance in crashes:

http://i22.tinypic.com/jpu7p4

You can imagine what would happen to such silly bars in any real
crash.

Here's a page with four highwheelers with more detailed pictures than
anything I've ever seen:


http://www.hochrad.info/hochradseite/hochradbasic/hochrad allerlei sammlung.htm#hocheins

Click on a high-wheeler, choose the English version, and enjoy dozens
of detailed close-ups of the the parts.

Spoke in hub:
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochradzwei-223speicheauf.jpg

Square rear axle hole:
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochradzwei-192hrviereck.jpg

Adjustable mounting step ("Brazed-on highwheeler mounting pegs are the
work of Satan"--Sheldon Brown's grandfather):
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochradzwei-067auftritt.jpg

Tied-and-soldered (practically at the hub):
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochrad-4-speichen2.jpg

Complicated front hub bearings and pedals (try to figure it out):
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochrad-4-lagervorn200clip.jpg

Spoke and nipple in hollow rim:
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochrad-4-speichen3.jpg

A really threadless headset:
http://www.hochrad.info/hochradbilder/hochrad-4-spindel1.jpg

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 
On Oct 27, 9:17 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:41:16 -0500, DougC <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> >> Carl Fogel does love to point out how hazardous high-wheel (aka
> >> Ordinary, aka penny-farthing) bicycles were to their daredevil owners.
>
> >> This is apparently a modern photo, but it does illustrate a rider in
> >> mid-fall:
>
> >>http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/
>
> >Yes but did he actually crash?
> >I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
> >off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).
>
> Dear Doug,
>
> Possibly you're thinking of a unicycle?
>
> When you tip over forward on a high-wheeler, you hit the handlebar
> with both thighs and do a face plant.
>
> Note the handlebar just above the rider's knee in the picture. Most of
> the 25 to 50 pound high-wheeler is right behind him, 50 inches high,
> and about to teach him why safety bicycles earned their name.
>
> There were lots of bizarre patents for high-wheeler handlebars
> intended to get around this problem, but none of them worked.

He could be doing a flip dismount such as is shown in the opening
credits of the French movie Taxi, where a pizza delivery guy is tyring
to break a local speed record on his scooter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRVyZZXBICA

A very entertaining movie!

Joseph
 
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:41:16 -0500, DougC <[email protected]>
> wrote:

> >Yes but did he actually crash?
> >I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
> >off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).
>
> Dear Doug,
>
> Possibly you're thinking of a unicycle?
>
> When you tip over forward on a high-wheeler, you hit the handlebar
> with both thighs and do a face plant.

If you *unintentionally* tip forward on an Ordinary, your thighs hit the
bars. If you do it intentionally as a dismount, you fling your legs
wide and push off on the bars, vault clear of the bike, and land on your
feet.

Unless you screw up, of course. Then it hurts a lot.

Not that I ever failed to clear the bars when I was trying to master the
technique. ;-)

--
[email protected] is Joshua Putnam
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/>
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
<http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html>
 
On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:55:57 -0700, <[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>> On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:41:16 -0500, DougC <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>
>> >Yes but did he actually crash?
>> >I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
>> >off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).
>>
>> Dear Doug,
>>
>> Possibly you're thinking of a unicycle?
>>
>> When you tip over forward on a high-wheeler, you hit the handlebar
>> with both thighs and do a face plant.
>
>If you *unintentionally* tip forward on an Ordinary, your thighs hit the
>bars. If you do it intentionally as a dismount, you fling your legs
>wide and push off on the bars, vault clear of the bike, and land on your
>feet.
>
>Unless you screw up, of course. Then it hurts a lot.
>
>Not that I ever failed to clear the bars when I was trying to master the
>technique. ;-)

Dear Josh,

The rider in the picture in question doesn't look as if he's trying a
dismount:

http://flickr.com/photos/aaleksander/403543772/

If you can get someone to film a successful over-the-bars dismount, it
would be a good video to put up on YouTube. I suspect that a legs-wide
approach would leave the highwheeler crashing, but a knees-to-chin
appproach might let an acrobatic rider keep a hand on the bike and
allow some semblance of a graceful dismount.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 
On Oct 28, 8:06 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> If you can get someone to film a successful over-the-bars dismount, it
> would be a good video to put up on YouTube. I suspect that a legs-wide
> approach would leave the highwheeler crashing, but a knees-to-chin
> appproach might let an acrobatic rider keep a hand on the bike and
> allow some semblance of a graceful dismount.

That would beat the heck out of a track stand at a red light.
 
[email protected] wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> [email protected] says...
>> On Sat, 27 Oct 2007 11:41:16 -0500, DougC <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>
>>> Yes but did he actually crash?
>>> I seem to remember that this was a show-y way to dismount--by vaulting
>>> off forwards (and landing upon one's feet).
>> Dear Doug,
>>
>> Possibly you're thinking of a unicycle?
>>
>> When you tip over forward on a high-wheeler, you hit the handlebar
>> with both thighs and do a face plant.
>
> If you *unintentionally* tip forward on an Ordinary, your thighs hit the
> bars. If you do it intentionally as a dismount, you fling your legs
> wide and push off on the bars, vault clear of the bike, and land on your
> feet.
>
> Unless you screw up, of course. Then it hurts a lot.
>
> Not that I ever failed to clear the bars when I was trying to master the
> technique. ;-)
>

this whole thread just screams of BikerFox
 
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:28:12 -0700, <[email protected]> wrote:

>Found one!
>
>http://tinyurl.com/ytat3y shows a successful over-the-bars dismount,
>with the rider holding the bars as he lands.

Dear Josh,

Excellent!

The photo looks like a knees-to-chin and feet up and over a handlebar
still gripped with both hands, as opposed to a legs-wide followed by
somehow grabbing the trailing handlebar again--but I could be wrong
about that, too.

Thanks for finding the dismount photo.

Scrolling down to page 14 of that New Zealand bike history book gives
an interesting sidelight on the extinction of the highwheelers.

Despite the claim about "how quickly international inventions were
adopted in New Zealand," the 68 penny-farthings in the 246-bicycle
parade of 1892 are actually an indication of how slowly the new safety
bicycle was adopted down under.

Bicycle parades in the U.S. featured practically no highwheelers by
1892, much less 27% penny-farthings:

http://www.goodhuehistory.mus.mn.us/Bicycleclub1891.JPG

Above is a typical group of safeties, ready to ride in Red Wing,
Minnesota. A single ride next to a safety usually convinced the owner
of highwheeler to replace his buggy whip with the modern marvel.

***

Completely off-topic, but here's the most lurid picture of block chain
that I've yet seen, which I stumbled across while looking for some
highwheeler details:

http://oldroads.com/show/pict0141.jpg

The solid blocks obviously had more friction than rollers, not mention
being noticeably heavier. The chain is on this bike:

http://oldroads.com/show/pict0140.jpg

It's Stephen Hartson's 1892 Lovell Diamond, way down on this page:

http://oldroads.com/show/2003.html

Cheers,

Carl Fogel
 
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