Friday, July 27, 2012

Vertically Compliant in 1896 . . .

I'm just kidding - while bicycle advertising from the 1890s can seem surprisingly familiar more than 100 years later, they didn't talk about "vertically compliant" bike frames. Not that I understand what bicycle reviews mean with some of their phrasing, but vertically compliant seems to be the opposite of rigid - that a bike frame flexes vertically.

Rigid Bike
What they mean is, buy this bike!!

"A bicycle with the strongest, most rigid frame built." An 1896 ad from
"The Referee and Cycle Trade Journal: a Weekly Record and Review of Cycling and the Cycle Trade." Volume 17, Number 1 - May 7, 1896.
Full volume of issues

Here are some modern discussions of this sort of thing:

* Bicycle frame compliance

* Frame design

* Carbon fiber frames and compliance

I tend to give a lot of credit to developments in bicycle design of the 1890s but it seems intuitively obvious that this is one of those "there can be too much of a good thing" situations. I am reminded of the infamous SNL skit where Ed Asner, leaving for vacation from his job running a nuclear reactor, says, "Remember, if something goes wrong, you can never put too much water into a nuclear reactor." In the bike frame ad the meeting is clear - the more rigidity the better! Well, maybe . . .

No comments:

Post a Comment