El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1897-05-06

when he planned each part and the
placed the parts together. Withou
knowing thoroughly the original in
tentions of the designer the amateu
mechanic may do considerable injur
to his mount and then wonder VIII.
in the world the "Old thing does
work WE'LL
| There are no such things as inter
changeable parts of the different N axe
of bicycles. If one happens to note a
particular style of bearing or adjust
ment that seems a little better thar
that on his own wheel, the best way tt
do is to purchase'a wheel possessed o
the bearing that seems best, and MOI
try to add to wheel that was never
made for such an addition.
Tires, pedals, chains, handle bar;
and sadt les are, of course, to a large
extent, interchangeable, but that is
about as far as bicycle will stand tam
pering with and run we'll.
Recently there was bicycle rider
who became enamOured of certain
curve in frame He didn't see why
| he couldn't put it in the frame of his
| heel, and he started out to accom- p
| lish the result with a wise, a pair OF
,, very strong pincers, an alcohol lamp
and plain hammer.
BY the time he had finished the
! wheel wouldn't run true, its manufac-
! turer would have denied ever turning
out such homely and uncouth looking
thing from his factory, the frame was
hopelessly bowed for all time to come,
and the wheel looked as though it had
been through the Chicago fire.
Fortunately the amateur mechanic
had plenty of money to buy other
wheels, 50 he could afford to crafty
his inclination for amusement. New
ertheless he was very much put out at
his lack of success and disposed to hold
the manufacturer of the machine to
account because the poor bicycle
couldn't stand everything.
1t is great temptation to amateurs
to aighten the spokes of the wheels.
1t looks like all easy task and all that
is necessary to bring the spokes to per-
lection is to use wrench made for the
purpose. Yet the wheel may be made
absolutely untrue if the repairer is ig-
norant of the way in which to do the
work.
The wheel will run after such treat
ment in a beautiful curved scroll re-
sembling the Spencerian exercises of
the writing class at school. The tire
will wear irregularly and the bicycle
never will recover, until it has been
not be in its original good state.
a bent crank is another great source
of temptation. OF course all that one
has to do is to put the bicycle on one
side. Then put a large stone or piece
of wood underneath the crank that is
out Of order, and pound the poor piece
of metal with a hammer or another
stone. Something will have to give
way shortly. II may be the stone, it
may be the hammer, but the chances
are that it will be the crank. 1t won't
look as well as it did before, and dur
ing the course of repair a double twist
may have been put into it that makes
it worse than ever.
Still there Will be some great salts
faction to the amateur iu knowing that
he did it himself. The wheel, proba-
bly,, will have to 60 back to the man
ufacturer for final adjustment, or for a
new crank.
A bend in the frame after collision
cannot be remeded by copious APP
plication of boulder. The bicycle tub
ing of these days is strong, but it has
its limits of endurance. 1t will band,
become dented, and stand hard
knock on the port side or starboard
side, but it will submit to too much
granite boulder argument. Then the
manufacturer should not be blamed for
making tubing that is full of flaws.
1t is not good idea to try to put
buC 1lOu "hCSl vi q JouCo UlCNClc Ol u
Smith frame, however much the former
may have some particular attractive
ness of axle or finish. There may be
the difference of a sixteenth of an inch
in width, and just that difference
would cause the wheel never to run
well again as long as the owner had it.
To sum it all up, if your bicycle
doesn't run well: o., in other words, if
it doesn't run to suit you, and the deal
er who sold it to you cannot make it
run to suit you, trade it Off. Don't try
to improve it by adding some other
parts that were never intended for il.
There is no question that different per-
sons become euamoured of different
styles of bicycles, just as different per-
sons have their favorites in the horse
world. A certain pitch, a certain
shape of frame, the matter of tread,
the adjustment of handle bars, weds a
rider to his wheel, and he may try an
other only to go back to his original
If he tries, however, to model
the original on ideas thoroughly his
own, and not in touch W tn the theory
of the man who built the wheel, there
is splendid possibility that large
amount of scrap iron will speedily be
offered for sale in the neigh borhood.