The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-07-14
EDIsoN's BICYcLE EXPERIMENTS.
He Attaches "a Heavy Spring 10 His
wheel to HELP him. Up IIiIIs.

Wheel TO Help HIN. Up Hills.
A reporter of a New York paper visited
Thomas A Edison at his laboratory at
Edison. n. j.. the other day. THAT is Mr..
Edison" said the good-looking man, point
ing to the man who sat at the desk and
was rather more shabbily dressed than his
companions, Mr.. Edison smiled when ask
ed whether it was true that he had in
vented a device for propclling bicycles by
electric power. No" said he. 'it is not
true. l have never tried to adopt electric
power to the propulsion of bicycles. What
could have started such a report? Why, l
believe l know" said the wizard laugh
ing bit this time. II have been expert
menting with an attachment to a bicycle
for my own personal use, and for several
conditions, but l have not had time 10 do
anything to it lately. My house in Lew
ellyn park, Orange is about one-sixth of
mile from my laboratory and 50 feet high
er up the mountain side. so in order to
save myself a heavy pun when ! went home
in the middle of the day, l designed
heavy spring, just large enough for the
purpose, which was to be wound up by
power from the laboratory engine and at
tached to the bicycle before l started up
most of the energy for the ascent. OF
course, there was nothing electrical about
1t at all: it was a purely mechanical con-
struction. 1t Is now at my laboratory and
/ have not worked at 1t for some time, as
l expect tospend the summer here getting
my iron plant into running ORDER
BY the way" said Mr.. Edison, turning
to the good-loOking young man in the
office, haven't you often wondered why
springs are not made use of in bicycles or
tricycles. as accumulators of energy? II
would be comparatively easy to adapt
them for the purpose The device could
be so arranged that when riding down
hill or even on level the writer could at
will throw the spring into gear and by de-
grees wind it up to its limit. Then when
a hill waste be climbed, or the rider wish
ed to stop working for a short distance
on the level, he could turn on the power
and let the spring give back someSof the
energy stored up in 1t. 1 don't see why
this should not be done. 1t could be ar
ranged so that the spring could be wound
up gradually. so as not to make pedaling
much heavier when on a level, and should,
l think, he of sufficient power to carry
rider thousand feet or so on a good
road with no up grade without his doing
any work.
Yes, believe that the system of driving
tricycles by storage batteries and electric
motors will undoubtedly be in use in
short time, perhaps two or three years.
Storage batteries have not yet been de-
Vised that would be light enough and
small enough to be carried on bicycles, but
l believe that batteries, powerful enough
to send a tricycle. twenty or twenty-five
miles and return. on good roads, could be
made to weigh not over sixty pounds.
motor weighing twenty pounds would
probably be sufficiently large to attain
with this size battery a fair speed on a
level road. A few years will probably see
the system applied to trucking goods in
city streets.
I believe" said Mr.. Edison. that it is
a matter of only few years at most be-
fore hundreds of miles of special bicycle
roads will be built with single trolley
wires overhead. Riders will have moters
on their wheels, which can receive current
from the wires by troilies, so that quick
spins may be taken. This would open up
a new Held of pleasure and usefulness to
the deVotees of the wheel"
-Theological.-Bes what Is