I splurged and bid 3GBP a few weeks back for a copy of Newnes Every Cyclist's Handbook, c. 1936, by F.J. Camm, editor of "The Cyclist." It arrived earlier this week, and I keep picking it up and delving into it.
This is really more of a basic primer than anything else - but oh, some of the stuff in it is simply lovely. When a chapter is titled "The 'Gear' of a Bicycle," it becomes quite clear that the use of the singular is deliberate. Cramm writes about Sturmey Archer hubs - but not the AW, which I suspect was introduced later in the year. The chapter on lighting doesn't mention DynoHubs, either, probably because they weren't out yet.
The chapter on derailleurs has an interesting quirk - buried within it is a small section on the B.S.A. "D-P" gear - a two-speed gear that allowed fixed-gear or freewheel operation in both gears. The fixed/free control was a cable-operated unit mounted to the bars, the gear selector was fitted to the top tube. A cool-looking epicyclic (sp?) unit, and I wonder how many were made. Hilary? Ray? Mick?
The line drawings are lovely - typically featuring slack angled machines with full 'guards, wingnuts, both front and rear brakes. Typically, a pump fitted to brackets on the downtube. No trace of a water bottle on any of them, but frequently a surprisingly small saddlebag. Almost all of the handlebars pictured are Marsh bend or inverted North Road or Middleton or Lauterwasser - and I suspect that to the untrained eye, you'd need the field guide to identify which is which.
The worst thing about this book is it has whetted my appetite for vintage cycling books ... would any of our esteemed colleagues from across the pond care to submit a bibliography of books, say, pre-1955, for those of us who are fascinated by the British cycling scene of the past?
thanks for letting me ramble, Russ Fitzgerald, still waiting for his Mercian road-path to arrive, in Greenwood SC velocio@meta-net.net