STONISHING BICYCLE EXPERIMENTS Enormous Carrying Capacity of a Slenderly Constructed Wheel —Entire Family Could Take an Outing on a Bicycle Built for One
New York, June 32.—(Special Correspondence to The Herald).
Interesting experiments have just been made to test the carrying power of a bicycle. The result has shown the astonishing strength that there is In the framework of a well-built wheel. The actual breaking point has not been reached in any of the experiments, although as many persons as could find room added their weight to the human pyramid during the chief test. In one instance a trial was made to find out how many could use one bicycle as a means of transportation in vacation time, should the size of the family be out of proportion to its bicycle-purchas-ing abilities. The result of this experiment is shown in the accompanying illustration, drawn from a photograph. The party consisted of an adult, who carried a banjo as his share of the luggage ; a youth who supported a heavy valise, a boy who carried as many sundries as he could hold on to, and a dog whose perch was a closely packed traveling bag. This holiday party made a load large enough for a fair-sized wagon, but the bicycle stood the strain, and the man with the banjo rode along with the entire weight and suffered no more inconvenience than that caused by the difficulty of balancing the bicycle with such an encumbrance on the front wheel. Had the bicycle been so constructed as to teave the man who did the pedaling free to use both hands and feet unhampered there wasshown to be no obstacle in the way of a holiday party made up like that seen in the photograph taking an outing on a twowheeled bicycle of ordinary weight. As it was, the man in the saddle did ride about with the load seen on his wheel. The extraordinary test was then made of substituting a full-grown man for the dog, the baggage remaining about the same as in the other experiment. In this case the difficulty of balancing such an unwieldy load was even greater than in the former one, but so far as the bicycle itself was-concerned, there was not a groan or a murmur, and no sign of damage to the machine after the tour of the exhibition room had been made several times.
One of the experimenters suggested that it would be a good plan to demonstrate that in the event of a rider being disabled far from home whith in the company of a friend, it would be possible to carry both wheel and rider to camp on the remaining bicycle. It required a good deal of nerve on the part of the boy who acted as the passenger in this experiment, but the bicycle was again shown to be quite capable of taking care of itself under the double burden. So far the experiments had been made to ascertain what weight could be carried by a riders who moved along with his load, and these experiments proved the bicycle to be a much more substantial carry-all than most people would suppose from the slender construction of the machine.
But carrying capacity of the wheel had not been put to a full test, for the reason that the limit of the bicycle’s endurance could not be tried for want of space to pile on more human freight. So the experimenters decided to fix the wheel in n stationary position, build a light platform across the frame of the wheel and get as many as could to stand on it until the overburdened machine collapsed beneath the weight. The platform itself was first weighed and found to be a hundred pounds in weight. Then, one after another, the assembled spectators were invited to stand on the platform. Ten men mounted, and the bicycle was supporting a weight of 1700 pounds without any perceptible strain on the wheels.
Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen men mounted on the stage, and upwards of 2500 pounds was by this time pressing on the wheel, but it still showed not the slightest sign of having reachcd the breaking point. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty men stood on the one wheel, and the bicycle, itself only thirty—two pounds, was supporting on its back a weight of over 2000 pounds. At this point some of the spokes showed signs of buckling under the great strain, and, as a collapse of the human freight would have resulted in a possible injury to some, it was deemed best to call down the men. An examination of the wheel showed that the strain had not incapacitated the machine. It could still be ridden with safely and comfort after the sevore experience it had gone through. It was proved by the experiments that while a slender machine like a bicycle will speedily collapse under severe pressure on any one part, if the weight cam he distributed over the whole machine the resistance is astonishing. Compared with the weight put on the wheel in the tests the pressure of even a very stout person is very slight, and the heavyweight who dreeds a collapse of his or her wheel owing to the avoirdupois of the rider is giving way to fears that are quite unnecessary.
To prove that one bicycle can be used in an emergency as a traveling carriage for an entire family, this remarkable load was mounted and successfully carried around on an ordinary wheel.
Experiments to test the carrying capacity of a bicycle demonstrated that this human pyramid, plus baggage, could be given a ride without bending a spoke of the bicycle.
Another interesting demonstration at the carrying-capacity tests. Showing the best way to get a disabled rider to camp. Carry him, bicycle and all. The wheel will stand it, if the rider can.
Courtesy of the California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, http://cdnc.ucr.edu