Steven M. Johnson
> In one of the crashes, the hero gets up and starts riding on
> his bike with supposedly bent wheels.
>
> What they are, is what I have heard called "parade wheels,"
> or "clown wheels." They are built off center, and in the
> movie it looks like about 6-7" off center, so the bike bucks
> up and down. Anybody ever seen a vintage pair of these?
> Or know how to build them?
Great, great movie. That Joe E. Brown has a mouth on him doesn't he?
I have built a wheel like you describe. In maybe '73 a customer of the bike shop I worked in brought in a vintage scooter, no pedals just a platform to stand on. I have the vaguest memory that that brand was Fungo or Pongo or some such. It was built to have a massively off-center rear wheel, and that was how you powered it down the road - by jumping on the platform in sync with the whole thing going up and down! The wheel was missing so we had to build one.
Calculating the spoke lengths might not have been too hard with a bit of trig, but I just drew the rim full size by laying it on the paper, drew in the hub off-center, and measured the spoke lengths. Since there was no driving hub, radial worked fine; crosses would complicate it a bit, though the process would be basically the same.
The scooter was a ball to ride and got lots of attention wherever it went. And um, er, well it was vintage and kinda lightweight so I hope I'm not too far off topic here.
Mark Bulgier
Seattle, Wa
USA