Vintage Bicycle Item Quiz

OK, it's a Lamp Bulb obviously. Looking closely there is a feature that used to be
more common than it is today. "Dimples" on the globe.

Anyone remember these from their youth ?

Now Why were they made that way ? In what Bicycle lighting system would they have
been more common ?

It's a beautiful spring morning and you ponder riding the bicycle instead of driving the car.
The temps are in the brisk low 60's but it will warm up to 70 today the weather man reports
on the TV. No proper cyclist would be without this accesory if he pondered this decision.

What are these and what's do they do ? Tiptip !

Joe, those shouldn't go without photos here. For some of us they ARE nostalgia now.

The older ones here may remember using clothes pins and playing cards or half inflated
baloons tied to the fender supports and oh so carefully tucked under as the bike was pushed
foreward a bit so ya could Zoom, Zoom, Zoom !! Of course our dad's would scold us cause
doin that tended to loosen the spokes. Ahhh the fun and dreams a nickel could buy for a
po'country boy.

Who had these toy motors here ??? Do I see hands in the air !

fasteddie,

About the time I was getting up on my hind legs it was 1970 and the great 10 speed boom
hit in the USA. The things had been around with Schwinn and Columba producing them but
most of us kids dad's wouldn't get us one cause they didn't know how to work on it and
it was much more expensive than a standard Cruiser. Most of us grew up with those.

Occasionally some kid would show up on one of those 1950's "English Bike's" as we called them
back then. Often they were in a yard sale or people just gave them away when cleaning out the
garage or basement after the son or daughter had gone off to college or got married. About that
time many a baseball card collection were given away or just tossed in the trash that would have
made some 50's kid a millionaire today. On occasion some kid's mom would show up with an
English Bike she had given a few bucks for in a yard sale and give to her son or daughter figuring
if they trashed it she only had a couple bucks in it anyways. Some of the guys tried working
on those rear hubs to get them working again and would ride them around the neighborhood to the
various gas stations when they weren't too busy an get the proprietor there to show them things
they needed to know to fix the gear shift on those English bikes. They had owned them in their youth and were familiar with them. Often when they were brought home to a kid they were fixed
to run in high gear or whatever just so they would just run. I've heard so many people tell me the
gears in them were stripped, but they may have only been out of adjustment. Many of our dad's
didn't want us to have the things saying they stripped their gears too easily. So many dads then
came home from work tired and didn't want to work on a bicycle every other night when they
got home.

In those times, I used to see these wandering labor's, hobo's in earlier times, riding around the town on the old vintage Schwinns etc of the fifties and sixties as they were given to them for painting, lawn work, etc. I'm guessing people just wanted rid of them figuring the kids eyes had turned to the sleek 10 speed racers and no one would ever want those heavy old relic's from earlier times. I couldn't take my eyes off them and wondered what the old men would do with them. Later I found out they would ride them around town to the Pawn shops, Bicycle shops, and Antique stores to find their best offer so they could get money and go get drunk. I saw a lot of near perfect condition bikes of yester years take this last ride and where they went from there is anyone's guess. The english bikes often got a transplanted 26" medium size coaster brake rear wheel if a dad or grandad thought it was worth it. Several of the girls where I lived wound up with those probably cause it was reasoned
they would be easier on them and not tear them up like the boiz.

Yes....... Those are pant leg clips to keep your good clothing from getting grease off a chain
or wound up in the chain. In some parts of the world people will ride their bicycle (nonmotorized)
to work or church yet to this day. I used to get these elastic ones with snaps to wear when
I rode my motorcycles cross country so my jeans woun't flap about my ankles and numb them
after a hundred miles or so at 70mph.

So, why's the bulb dimpled ?

In earlier times there were mainly those generator powered headlamps if one wasn't using an oil
or carbide/acetylene lamp. Some had wires traveling to the headlamp and tail lamp and some just
had the headlamp built onto the body of the generator. The dimpled bulbs usually came installed
on electric lamps in those times. As kids we never could find replacements for when the old one
burnt out. Always wondered why they used them then but nobody knew.

But the reason is that the dimpled surface of the glass globe helps to provide a consistant even
light that doesn't glimmer as you ride. Dynamo hubs and generators often produced pulses of
electric which would direct power the bulb so that the element would flicker the light output. Also
the transparent lense tended to be compromised by the flickering. The lense on modern sealed beam
lights contains an aray of fresnel lenses built in which help diffuse the light the element
produces. The dimpled bulbs, however, helped to iron that condition out in earlier times when clear lenses, a reflector, and bulb were the common design. A second feature of the dimpled bulbs was that the inside of the globe was often treated with a translucent liquid coating containing organic
chemical dye (in various amounts depending on the bulb spec) to help absorb differnet light frequencies and thus adjust the glow of the light to the optimum color, brightness, and intensity so the maker could produce their best quality product for market in those times. Call it a lost technology
today.

There is a lot of technology in head lights and bulbs that isn't understood by the masses even to this day. For years I wondered about those dimpled light bulbs. On battery powered headlights
they usually came with clear lightbulbs. Todays lights are beginning to use array's of LED's (light
emitting diodes) so that if one burns out there are several others that will still burn, there by
assuring redundancy.

As a side note about Halogen bulbs. The Halogen gas in the bulb keeps the electrons of the
material the element is made of from plating to the inner surface of the globe. Have you ever
looked at instrument pannel bulbs or side marker bulbs which look black ? That black metalic
coating is where the element plated to the inside of the glass globe. With the Halogen gas in
the bulb the electrons will travel back to the element as the bulb cools when it is turned off.
Perhaps not 100% but much better than the Argon gas filled bulbs.

You're walking by where some bicycles are parked one day and out of the corner of your
eye you not only see an old vintage bike, you notice something peculiar about it.

WHAT are you looking at and what kind of bike is it ?

Imagine you're out with your family on vacation a few states away from home and
you see an old mom and pop bicycle shop. It's an old place that looks frozen in time
and the wife and kids are dying to go to this strip mall down the block. Everyone
wants to stretch their legs for awhile and it looks like you have your choice of where
you want to stretch your's.

So you bid the wife & kiddies a plesant shopping trip and you mozy over to the little
time tunnel that looks like nothing about it has changed since 1950. On entering
you think you've landed in the past as there are so many vintage bicycles parked
on one side of the store. A little old lady inquires if she can help and you explain you
are just licking in some time while your family went to the mall down the street and
she smiles and tells you to look all you like.

As you turn around there is this old green vintage cruiser with a big hub on the front.
You wonder if it's a dynamo or a drum brake but there is nothing connected. Something
about it doesn't look right though, so you stoop down to get a closer look.

What is this if it isn't a dynamo or brake ?

Well, I'll post some answers now.



The saddle on page two that's seen in the TV Commerical for Zyrtec anti alergy medication
(where the girl promises her bike to ride it more often)

That's a Brooks Classic Saddle for City & Transport model B 73 Black or Honey Brown

Brooks saddles of the UK produces them and they are expensive. There is a less expensive
model that has the chorome parts painted black. I've seen them for varying prices depending
on the source.

BROOKS ENGLAND LTD


The second question is about the bicycle you see parked.

In the early 1950's there was a trend to build "Radio Bicycles" as boys could ride and enjoy
popular music or park it and listen while he worked or loafed. Many of the older folks I've talked to
about these told me that their parent's would not allow Rock n Roll or otherwise "Race" mucic in
their homes. So Jr got to ride his bike off somewhere else to listen to that stuff. The box in
the carry rack contained a battey pack which may have been a 45 or 90 volt dry cell. Just pray that
ugly l'il Red Head girl down the street didn't have her own bike and wanna ride along to
listen to the music with ya ! (and all the other guys and girls see ya together)

See the picture below.

While you browse the bicycle shop.

The last oddity may have been born of WW2 production engineering. In earlier times springer
and girder front forks were much more common, but they took materials & labor to build. During WW2 Production Engineers literally wrote new chapters on manufacturing techniques departing from the earlier more costly industrial processes. Stewart-Warner developed the "Floating Hub" for the front wheel as a less expensive solution to dampened front forks. These had an offset axle which could rock back and forth in the hub with road conditions and braking to achieve the same effect as a spring dampened front fork. This rethinking produced at a lower production cost as these could be bench crafted from small cast or stamped parts and the wheel building would not require any different skills of the builders. One thing for sure, the later 50's saw a lot fewer springer forks on the market and more lighter or Mid-weight bikes being built. The Schwinn Sting Ray saw a revival of the springer fork in the early sixties, but the springers weren't long in the Post War era. Nor were the Floating Hubs.

Nearly 63 year ago a freak of bicycles was brought into this world. Some
suggested it would be the future but it was only a decade or so ago
that the concept this bicycle represented began to catch on.

What is it ? Would you know who designed it or what was so special about it ?

Most recently, the SolCycle may have drawn part of it's inspiration from it. Often
new ideas borrow from earlier ones which were ahead of their times and had to
wait for a new material, or more refined component than was then available.