IMPROVEMENTS IN VELOCIPEDES
Year: 1871

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by George Ainsley at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 29th
September 1871.
I, GEORGE AINSLEY, of South Shields, in the County of Durham,
Photographer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for
"IMPROVEMENTS IN VELOCIPEDES," to be as follows:-
My improvements apply mainly to velocipedes which are connected
together to run continually in the same circle, but they may be wholly
or partly applied to such velocipedes as are to be used either inde-
pendently or connected together to run on common roads.
My Invention consists in working velocipedes by a movement of the
body of the rider as when imitating the rider of a horse, the pressure of.
the feet or weight of the rider on stirrups when the body ascends, and
then the descent of the body and its weight upon the saddle produce the
force and movements that propel the carrying wheel or wheels, these up-
and-down movements of the rider being communicated through con-

page_text: necting rods and levers to friction or nipping wheels or ratchets on the
axle of the driving wheel, so that whether the movement produced by
the rider is much or little it is communicated and contributes to the
propulsion of the vehicle or vehicles, while, should the rider sit still, the
wheel rotates freely, so that the inaction of one rider cannot retard or
obstruct the action of the others, when several velocipedes are connected
together.
The arrangement of the mechanism is as follows:-The driving or
carrying wheel has its axle on a horizontal framing, and on the axle on
each side of the wheel a V grooved nipping wheel is secured, and there
is an oscillating lever centred on the axle for each nipping wheel, each
of which levers carries a nipping pawl that "bites" in the ✓ of the wheel
so that the movement of the levers one way propels the wheel, but when
the back movement takes place or when the pawl levers are stationary.
the wheel moves forward freely as the nipping pawls then slip over its
surface. These pawl levers are each connected by a rod to one arm of
a T or three armed lever, having its fulcrum on the framing. There are
two of these T levers, one on each side of the frame, and on one arm of
each lever a stirrup is jointed; another arm of each of the T levers is
jointed to a double vertical connecting rod, which has a slot in it
working upon an upright stay from the framing. The upper end of the
double connecting rod is jointed with the spring which carries the saddle,
the other end of the saddle spring being jointed with an upright from
the framing carrying the cross handle. There is a spring carried by the
upright stay that comes against each end of the slot in the double con-
necting rod and acts as a buffer at the two extremes of its movement.
When the pressure of the feet is brought upon the stirrups, those arms
of the T lever descend and the other arms lift the saddle; when the
weight of the rider comes upon the saddle the stirrup arm ascends, and
thus by these alternate movements the T levers are oscillated and the
pawl levers of the nipping wheels are acted upon to propel the driving
wheels. The frames of a number of these vehicles are connected together
when they are to run together or in a circle.