Page 22 - PBCOctober2022

Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine olume 19 No.2 October 2022
V
22
Correspondence to the Editor

Remember, you can always have your say in the magazine by sending me correspondence in
whatever format suits you.
Send it to: pickwick2610@hotmail.com or to Taverners, Warninglid Lane, Plummers Plain,
West Sussex RH13 6NY
_____________________________________________________________________

You will recall that the back cover of the March magazine pictured the infamous Pump-Up
Penny, about which your President subsequently said “he knew her!” I have since received the
following mail from Dr Slammer:

I write in response to the photograph on the rear page of the March 2022 issue of your magazine. The
image of the bicycle having its tyre inAlated is not what the modern world calls a Penny Farthing. It is of a
geared front-driving bicycle (GFD), probably manufactured by the Crypto Bicycle Co. of City Road London,
although there were other makers using the gearing system patented by the Crypto Company. My learned
friend Scotford Lawrence, is right when he says that pneumatic-tyred machines of this type helped to
continue the enthusiasm for high-wheeled bicycles against the advance of the smaller wheeled Safety
Bicycles, but is entirely wrong when he implies that pneumatic-typed Ordinaries have not survived.
Indeed, there are a great number surviving, mainly in museums perhaps, but they were offered for sale
until at least 1894, and there are still several in use in France, where numerous enthusiasts have
manufactured modern tyres to Ait.
A range of different ‘Crypto’ gearings were available. Although difAicult to be sure because the imaged
bicycle is at an angle, it appears to have a 34-inch driving wheel, and records show that this could be
geared as high as 65-inches, thereby almost doubling the distance travelled by one turn of the pedals.
Gearing of this type was popular because, unlike the Safety Bicycle with inch-pitch chain drive to the rear
wheel, a chain that was open to abuse and clogging, ‘Crypto’ gearing was a sealed dust free unit and the
motto, ‘no chain, no snags’ was adopted by the company. The other advantage was that GFD machines
were lighter, and more comfortable to ride. This type of geared bicycle, with various sizes of driving wheel,
remained popular between the years 1891 and 1895, with the much smaller, but similarly operated,
‘Bantam’ bicycle lasting to 1899. The Ordinary Bicycle had been a highly successful mode of transport
from the days of its transition from the Velocipede.

Emerging from about 1872, the pioneer makers were the Coventry Machinists Co., John Keen, William
Grout and James Starley and come the late 1870s, with signiAicant development in strong lightweight
steels, the Ordinary bicycle matured into an impressive recreational mount, ridden by young men in