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I recently stumbled across a video clip which prompted recollection of a curious bicycle uility-cum-security handlebar that was marketed in the late 19th and early part of the twentieth century.
The device was invented by one J. F. Sargeant of Bracknell and comprised a two-part handlebar containing inside it a selection of tools including a bicycle pump, oil-can, cleaning brush, and spanner.
It seems the handlebar was easily detached and solidly reattached with a single rotation of the left half. The removable half was also retained as proof of ownership when checking the bicycle aboard a train, both halves sharing a unique identifying number.
The patented design could be retrospectively fitted to most varieties of bicycle and a service was offered which would convert the customer’s existing handlebars including full nickel re-plating.
It was felt the bicycle was less likely to be stolen when left parked with incomplete or “dismembered” handlebars. If further security was felt necessary, Mr Sargeant had also developed a version which contained a Colt revolver, apparently tested successfully at the Military Tournament. An umbrella might have been more useful…!
From what I can determine, the handlebar was originally manufactured under license by Longhurst and Hitcham of Ascot but a trade advertisement from 1897 suggests a manufactory in Wokingham, nearby but on the opposite (west) side of Bracknell from Ascot…
Now, we both know that the natural laws of the universe would normally ordain that the “patent improved” handlebar part at the most inopportune moment, most likely while negotiating a potholed road under heavy traffic.
However, the video clip below would tend to suggest this is not an entirely unmanageable situation and this contraption of Sargeant’s may not have been the acme of theft deterrence the inventor would have led us to believe…
r:B
It was pure whim that found me dropping the word “bicycle” into an online thesaurus. I’m not entirely sure what I expected beyond “bike” or “cycle”…
Certainly not this…
R:B
Many thanks to Transform Scotland for expressing enthusiasm in this blog and linking to it from their important and informative site!
Also thanks to a very old friend in Embro for dropping a link. Glad to see you’re causing as much trouble as ever..! :c)
Just - ahem! - don’t mention the trams…
R:B
“One of the little things in cycling which bothers the average rider is the gradual escape of air from new and practically perfect tyres*…
“A French scientist has just discovered a reason for this. Rubber, it appears, is more porous to the oxygen in the air than to its other constituent, nitrogen. The consequence is that all the oxygen of the imprisoned air gradually either leaks out or is absorbed by the rubber, which is said to have quite an appetite for that vital gas. Chemical change is thus proceeding, and the remaining gas is called Azote, and it will not leak through the rubber. It is, therefore, recommended that cyclists should never entirely deflate a tyre if it can be avoided, for the old gas inside the air tube improves with age. Fresh air may be all right for the rider, but it is not good for the tyres.”
“Cycling Notes”, The Derby Mercury,
Wednesday 30th August 1899
* Fortunately, modern butyl inner tubes do not suffer from this problem…
“Every village in this country, in Switzerland, Germany, and so on, has its cricket, football, tennis, nine-pins, pigeon, musical or singing clubs. Other societies are much more numerous, and some of them, like the Cyclists’ Alliance, have suddenly taken a formidable development. Although the members of this alliance have nothing in common but the love of cycling, there is already among them a sort of freemasonry for mutual help, especially in the remote nooks and corners which are not flooded by cyclists; they look upon the “C.A.C.” – the Cyclists’ Alliance Club – in a village as a sort of home…”
– Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution, London 1902, p.230
R:B
There is a widespread misconception that the “white patch” on the rear mudguard of British roadster-type bicycles was introduced during the Second World War. In fact it has its origin in earlier traffic regulations and is therefore only of limited accuracy in dating bicycles of this period.
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| From 1947 Rudge |
Just stumbled onto this and I really hope I’m the first to blog it… :c)
An article in August’s International Journal of Andrology examines the “Influence of moderate cycling on scrotal temperature” (International Journal of Andrology, Volume 31, Number 4, August 2008, pp. 403-407).
No, really!
Apparently we should rest assured that “moderate cycling under standardized conditions…is not a major genital heat stress factor”. Fancy!
So, there’s nothing to worry about provided you cycle with an array of thermistors hooked up to your crotch and bike saddle – I have to assume that’s what they mean by “standardized conditions”.
Curiously, their results show that the right, erm, side is marginally cooler than the left. A cooling breeze off the chainwheel, perhaps? I dare say not at the rate I pedal!
rb
