Hallo Raoul, Jan and Steven,
thanks a lot for the detailed info about the introduction of rim brakes!
Martin Appel, Munich, Germany
RD> My 1893 Sterling , built in Chicago ( motto - "Built Like A Watch" ) RD> is all original except for the tires , and one missing cork grip on the RD> wooden handlebar .
RD> I mention it because it is VERY "high-tech" for 1893 .
RD> Both wheels have nickel-plated hubs with what I will call wavy-flanges RD> , for STRAIGHT-PULL spokes !! And in addition , both wheels are tied RD> and soldered !!
RD> The pedals do not have toe clips . But the pedals do have small , RD> nickel-plated, bolted-on plates , on the trailing edges , which were RD> obviously intended to help hold the shoe onto the pedals .
RD> In the rear , it has a "stiff-wheel" "fixed-gear" rear hub ( with RD> block chain , not roller chain ) .
RD> In the front , it has a nickel-plated , steel , "spoon brake" . RD> The lever on the handlebar would be fairly familiar-looking to anyone who RD> has used a Raleigh DL-1 Tourist with "rod-brakes" . At the other end of RD> the linkages , the spoon of the brake pushes downward onto the tread of the RD> front tire .
RD> The bicycle also has a fully nickel-plated front fork , with an RD> external "uni-crown-style" fork crown , and narrow-oval fork blades .
RD> There is a very large amount of very ornate striping , especially on RD> the front fork .
RD> So , it was very fancy , undoubtedly expensive , and very RD> "high-tech" for 1893 .
RD> And yet it has a front "spoon-brake" , without any trace of anything RD> like a caliper brake .
RD> Looking ahead a few decades , it seems perhaps that caliper brakes were RD> another one of those "sneaky foreign continental-type" inventions , very RD> slow to catch on with the conservative folks of the U. S. of A .
RD> A Fellow Wheelman , RD> Yours In Cycling , RD> Raoul Delmare RD> Marysville Kansas
RD> ----- Original Message ----- RD> From: "Martin Appel" <martin@camelot.de> RD> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> RD> Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 10:52 AM RD> Subject: [CR]Rim brakes since when?
>> Hello List,
>>
>> i'm only an infrequent reader so i hope this isn't a faq; couldn't
>> find anything in the archive.
>>
>> German Cycling magazine current issue has a feature about one of their
>> writers trying to climb the "ballon d'alsace" on a bicycle from 1898.
>> the bicycle is a "Permanenz" built in Germany, Dresden until 1905.
>> it has one "block" brake where a ruber block ets pressed onto
>> the front tire. Pictures from 1910 already show bikes equipped with
>> rim brakes. Does anybody know when these got invented/first used on
>> bicacles? who made them?
>>
>> Martin Appel,
>> Munich, Germany
>>
--
servus,
Martin mailto:martin@camelot.de