Fixing a Victorian

[Imlach]

Brailsford will be contacting you shortly about a mental wellfare position in his latest cycling team. Your detailed analysis is very impressive have your CV ready!

The look he'll give me as I dress the team up in polka dotted corsets and syringe fill their drinking bottles with cilit bang and a solid dose of Russian gutrot

 

[Woz]

@Nabeaquam - the main reason why I dismissed the penny farthing connection is no knee over the pedal spindle.

I put a vertical line to demonstrate this. The knee is way behind. Plus I think cranks were much shorter on penny farthings.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

The look he'll give me as I dress the team up in polka dotted corsets and syringe fill their drinking bottles with cilit bang and a solid dose of Russian gutrot
View attachment 656333

Perfect ...no banned substances there...or brown jiffy bag action

 

[Mickeyspinn]

@Nabeaquam - the main reason why I dismissed the penny farthing connection is no knee over the pedal spindle.

I put a vertical line to demonstrate this. The knee is way behind.

Woz go take a look at an 1887 rover safety....
Kinky...odd size wheels front wheel driver weird beast...hailed as a safety bike nabeaquams bike is ligh year ahead...save for stem and its height it's more sporting than mine that's 15-20 years later!?

 

[Woz]

Dear Sir David,

We propose a radical training method for your team to HTFU and get with it again. Back to basics.




All those electronic shifters, GPS satnav route planning, barometer altitude meters, Watt meters, telecom ear pieces will be binned.

We are not interested in Excel sheets and graphs. Just blood, sweat and tears and self medication.

Yours,

Bikewrenchers Inn hosted by RB.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

Dear Sir David,

We propose a radical training method for your team to HTFU and get with it again. Back to basics.

View attachment 656340


All those electronic shifters, GPS satnav route planning, barometer altitude meters, Watt meters, telecom ear pieces will be binned.

We are not interested in Excel sheets and graphs. Just blood, sweat and tears and self medication.

Yours,

Bikewrenchers Inn hosted by RB.

Team sky......high?

 

[Woz]

Woz go take a look at an 1887 rover safety....
Kinky...odd size wheels front wheel driver weird beast...hailed as a safety bike nabeaquams bike is ligh year ahead...save for stem and its height it's more sporting than mine that's 15-20 years later!?

Agree. There are quite a few jumps of bike evolution going.

 

[1OldTrackGuy]

Daddy - The Victorian machine of mechanical and bodily torture.

Tried to do some research about positions back then and it's virtually impossible to find anything on this subject. The still camera and photo developing is still in it's infancy (Kodak roll film in 1889). When there is a picture, more often than not the rider isn't even sitting on the bike, presumably due to the long exposure time to keep still in a professional studio with a large format camera.

There are a handful of line drawings or painted pictures but human proportions are often mis-represented.

Most of the documentation is about the bike technology itself. I don't know, but probably at this time there were weird social sporty protocols of what was proper and taboo (eg. was it the done thing to ride off the saddle and have ones arse sticking up in the air? ) and there was probably all sorts of weird pseudo science in bike position.

I can't get my head around it - logic would say for a track bike you could put up with an uncomfortable position, but we already established early on the US pro track racers were riding to exhaustion for long periods being more like a circus act and the track being open day and night.
@Nabeaquam - that photo you found with a good side profile is the best I have seen.

Don't really see a solution to your too cramped position. Perhaps turning the seat-post around is at least worth a try (and like you say it does appear that was something done back then), or see if there were any longer stems and bars with more reach at the expense of loosing an original interesting part. Can't ever see this approaching a "normal" road position - it's just such a different beast.

Here is my own psudo-science attempt. The photo was "levelled" and I added various lines which I thought are of interest.

Head angle with a protractor on the screen gives about 65 degrees.

View attachment 656272

[ now off to send my CV to Sir David Brailsford ; I'm sure he will want me on his pay roll ]

This photo and bike is about 1893 so just about all the Safeties back then had rear sloping top tubes. I think this is F.J. Osmond and he might be on his Buckingham and Adams "Champion Racer" in this photo.

Racers hadn't quite figured out their exact racing position yet as this particular style of bike hadn't been around long yet as it was too soon after the Highwheel bike ended and the Safety style came in. The previous photo of the Highwheel racers in this thread is a picture I believe from the 1930's where some guys were replicating a race from the old days. The original Highwheel racers of the 1880's gripped the bars from underneath and would nearly put their chin on the top bar when racing. I have several photos showing this if one needs to see.

Top tubes didn't start leveling out till about 1895 or so and the Victorian bike in red ( about this topic ) I would guess is about 1900 - 1905 era.

The set up for this bike is about right - most guys by this time would have the saddle up another inch or two. The bar/stem would be dropped all the way to the bottom. This would get the racer more in the position you see today on the track. Most of the racers by 1898 were hunched way over in the position similar to todays racers. Reversing that seat post ( mentioned by someone ) would make the top post face downwards so this wouldn't work. Some posts were called a "T" because there was an extra tube behind the forward facing tube so you could actually put the seat slightly farther back if one needed it for a better positioning on the bike.

I have lots of photos showing this if one needs to see what I'm trying to explain. The era of 1893 racing position is much different than the position of the racers in 1900.

 

[1OldTrackGuy]

Interesting point. When I poked my nose in that idea I couldn't see any relation really.

Gentlemen wanted a posture more upright, but this picture suggests when you go fast you are leaning much more forward and hands even closer to the body. Your knees are considerably lower than the handle bars tops.

View attachment 656331

This photo is about 1930's where some guys got together to replicate a race from the 1880's

 

[Mickeyspinn]

This photo and bike is about 1893 so just about all the Safeties back then had rear sloping top tubes. I think this is F.J. Osmond and he might be on his Buckingham and Adams "Champion Racer" in this photo.

Racers hadn't quite figured out their exact racing position yet as this particular style of bike hadn't been around long yet as it was too soon after the Highwheel bike ended and the Safety style came in. The previous photo of the Highwheel racers in this thread is a picture I believe from the 1930's where some guys were replicating a race from the old days. The original Highwheel racers of the 1880's gripped the bars from underneath and would nearly put their chin on the top bar when racing. I have several photos showing this if one needs to see.

Top tubes didn't start leveling out till about 1895 or so and the Victorian bike in red ( about this topic ) I would guess is about 1900 - 1905 era.

The set up for this bike is about right - most guys by this time would have the saddle up another inch or two. The bar/stem would be dropped all the way to the bottom. This would get the racer more in the position you see today on the track. Most of the racers by 1898 were hunched way over in the position similar to todays racers. Reversing that seat post ( mentioned by someone ) would make the top post face downwards so this wouldn't work. Some posts were called a "T" because there was an extra tube behind the forward facing tube so you could actually put the seat slightly farther back if one needed it for a better positioning on the bike.

I have lots of photos showing this if one needs to see what I'm trying to explain. The era of 1893 racing position is much different than the position of the racers in 1900.

Interesting reading I too have seen the underhand grip on high wheelers funnily enough if you imagine seating on one ...not that i have..but that would to me anyway feel more comfortable and natural!
Nabeaquams Victoria were pretty sure is dated earlier than 1900 going by the amazing short-lived tubeset used in its manufacture.