Maybe Flecc knows? Yesterday, at the finish line of the London-Brighton Veteran Car Rally I saw a number of vehicles which could be called three-wheeler cars or tricycles. Some were plainly bikes with petrol engines, others had bodywork and could be the forerunner of the Trotters Independent Trading Reliant. Is there a definition for the early "power assist bike" which is not a car? See photos attached.
London to Brighton Veteran Car Rally 2008 - bike
- Thread starter Conal
- Start date
C
Cyclezee
Guest
Conal,
I hope you are not suggesting Flecc is old enough to remember these three wheelers when they were new
J hn
I hope you are not suggesting Flecc is old enough to remember these three wheelers when they were new
J
hn
There was no distinction at the beginning between three and four wheelers when motorised, and using bike parts didn't class them as bikes or tricyles. They were all just motor cars. The term tricar was in use for a while but disappeared in the early 1920s.
Many of the very early motorbikes were also basically bikes with engines, and this together with the bike parts in the early cars wasn't surprising since it was bicycle makers who were amongst the first into car and motorbike creation. Of course the Wright brothers were also bicycle dealers when they achieved the first powered flying machine.
So the cycle trade was eminent in the creation of motorised road and air transport, but understandably they never classed their new creations as bicycles in any way but as entirely new forms.
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Many of the very early motorbikes were also basically bikes with engines, and this together with the bike parts in the early cars wasn't surprising since it was bicycle makers who were amongst the first into car and motorbike creation. Of course the Wright brothers were also bicycle dealers when they achieved the first powered flying machine.
So the cycle trade was eminent in the creation of motorised road and air transport, but understandably they never classed their new creations as bicycles in any way but as entirely new forms.
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Cars evolved from bikes?
Just managed, with my IT literate brothers help, to show the pictures. Whilst I was failing miserably I realised that two of the car/tricycles have one wheel at the back and are therefore rear wheel drive, whilst the one with the bike handle bars has only one wheel at the back and is more of a bike with front handlebars for steering.
Questions
Did the power assisted three wheeled vehicle (bike with engine) come before the car?
Does the one wheel at the front predate the two wheels at the front?
Which is more stable (at speed)?
If so, and car technology evolved from bikes, does this mean that e-bike technology is being watched with interest by car research and development companies, or are the two markets completely separate now?
Just managed, with my IT literate brothers help, to show the pictures. Whilst I was failing miserably I realised that two of the car/tricycles have one wheel at the back and are therefore rear wheel drive, whilst the one with the bike handle bars has only one wheel at the back and is more of a bike with front handlebars for steering.
Questions
Did the power assisted three wheeled vehicle (bike with engine) come before the car?
Does the one wheel at the front predate the two wheels at the front?
Which is more stable (at speed)?
If so, and car technology evolved from bikes, does this mean that e-bike technology is being watched with interest by car research and development companies, or are the two markets completely separate now?
Sorry, not normally that quick.
Question one doesn't really apply as it wasn't a bike with engine. The very first IC motorised vehicle used wagon parts, three cartwheels with one at the front. It's scale was more like a traction engine than a bicycle.
So in answer to question two, one wheel at front of course.
Question three. One wheel at the front has a better record from the stability point of view but both have severe though very different disadvantages.
Question four. The markets are completely different now and I doubt the motor industry would give the e-bike one a glance when looking for progress. Two of our best known e-bike motors were created by the motor industry in fact so it's very much the reverse. Following the Arab oil crisis of the 1970s both General Motors and Chrysler started looking at alternative transport forms. From GM research Edwin Currie had a bicycle motor idea and created the Currie Electrodrive rear wheel spoke attached motor that we know to this day.
Meanwhile Chrysler developed the motor that we now know as the BionX, abandoning it somewhat unfinished, hence the need for the rider to keep selecting the power and regen modes. It would have been good if that could all have been automated, but the Canadians who now produce it are happy with it as it is, and it's certainly a good product.
And of course our lithium batteries and in particular the Li-polymer ones result from electric-car battery research.
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Further to the above, some 20 years after the first motorised carriages the cyclecar appeared, no pedals of course, the "cycle" just referring to the lightweight construction, and they lasted though the 1910s and much of the 1920s. These were minimal, sometimes just motorised platforms, sometimes single seaters. Here's a single seat example:
The earliest use of "cycle" that I know of was Henry Ford's first motor vehicle attempt, the 1896 Quadricycle, though it clearly wasn't in any way a bike:
The earliest use of "cycle" that I know of was Henry Ford's first motor vehicle attempt, the 1896 Quadricycle, though it clearly wasn't in any way a bike: