[CR]Rim Brake versus Spoon Brake

My 1893 Sterling , built in Chicago ( motto - "Built Like A Watch" ) is all original except for the tires , and one missing cork grip on the wooden handlebar .

I mention it because it is VERY "high-tech" for 1893 .

Both wheels have nickel-plated hubs with what I will call wavy-flanges , for STRAIGHT-PULL spokes !! And in addition , both wheels are tied and soldered !!

The pedals do not have toe clips . But the pedals do have small , nickel-plated, bolted-on plates , on the trailing edges , which were obviously intended to help hold the shoe onto the pedals .

In the rear , it has a "stiff-wheel" "fixed-gear" rear hub ( with block chain , not roller chain ) .

In the front , it has a nickel-plated , steel , "spoon brake" . The lever on the handlebar would be fairly familiar-looking to anyone who has used a Raleigh DL-1 Tourist with "rod-brakes" . At the other end of the linkages , the spoon of the brake pushes downward onto the tread of the front tire .

The bicycle also has a fully nickel-plated front fork , with an external "uni-crown-style" fork crown , and narrow-oval fork blades .

There is a very large amount of very ornate striping , especially on the front fork .

So , it was very fancy , undoubtedly expensive , and very "high-tech" for 1893 .

And yet it has a front "spoon-brake" , without any trace of anything like a caliper brake .

Looking ahead a few decades , it seems perhaps that caliper brakes were another one of those "sneaky foreign continental-type" inventions , very slow to catch on with the conservative folks of the U. S. of A .

A Fellow Wheelman ,
Yours In Cycling ,
Raoul Delmare
Marysville Kansas