THE AMERICAN STAR BICYCLE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2376, 14 November 1881, Page 3

THE AMERICAN STAR BICYCLE.

[" Harper's Monthly."]

This new bicycle was patented in New York in 1880. The inventor, Mr W. €r. Pressey, has introduced radical changes, both in its construction and in the method of operating it, which he claims to be changes for the better.

There is no doubt, as every bicycler must have learned from his experience with hi* wheel, that the position of the rider is one of suoh unstable equilibrium that the swifter he is riding the greater is his danger if he meets any obstacle in the road, even though it be not larger than a medium-sized pebble, that the shock which the passage over it may give to his driving wheel may have a tendency to retard its progress for a second and leave his own momentum free to assist itself by throwing him headlong from the wheel in the direction he is going. This accident is so common that " taking a header," as it has been named, is an experienoe which any bicyoler knows may occur to bim at any time, despite all the care he may exercise. Even to the most expert rider, such an accident may prove serious, and he of necessity counts the chances of it as one of the prices he must pay for the pleasurable excitement in the exercise of his skill.

Ib the new bioycle, however, as the rider is placed between the wheels he is firmly supported, and is not liable to this accident, for it is quite possible to ride it with safety ever a log six inches in diameter. And again, as the ordinary method of propelling the bicycle is by the use of cranks upon each side of the driving wheel, operated alternately by the feet, the action of the rider is of necessity an awkward one, and an uneconomic use is made of the force he expends. For the push of his feet, from very nature of the orank movement _ to whioh it is applied, can only be exercised through about one-quarter of their revolution. This inherent defect in the construction of the bioycle in its present form is remedied in the new bicycle by a radically different method of propulsion. The rider's feat rest upon two adjustable treadles, placed one on each side of the machine, and working independently of each other. By a system of curved levers operating an ingeniously devised set of clutches working one on eaoh side of the hub of the driving-wheel, which in this machine is placed behind the rider, the power of propulsion is applied. The movement of the feet and legs of the rider is thus made quite easy and natural, and the levers can be worked together, alternately, or alone, just as the rider finds most easy and conveniens. Another advantage claimed for this system —adjustable treadles—is that the size o£ the driving-wheel is not limited, as in the case of the ordinary bicycle, by the length of the rider's leg. There is no longer any necessity for a rider's being measured for the bicycle he desires to ride, as accurately as for a pair of pantaloons he desires to wear. Oa tho contray, a small boy or the tallest man can ride any bicyole thus constructed, by simply adjusting the treadles to fit him, an operation easily and quickly performed. This change in the mechanism tor the propulsion of the bioycle gives an appartunity for the use of a larger propelling wheel, thus gaining an advantage in the distance travelled by each revolution of the wheel, it being evident that a driving-wheel five or six feet in diameter will in each revolution pass ever more space than one only three feet La diameter, and that such an increase of diameter, as it is in no way dependent upon the length of the rider's legs, becomes easily practicable.