AN IMPROVED METHOD OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING VELOCIPEDES
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Ernest Ambrose Smythe at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 30th August 1881.
ERNEST AMBROSE SMYTHE, of 7, Melcombe Place, Dorset Square, London.
"AN IMPROVED METHOD OR APPARATUS FOR PROPELLING VELOCIPEDES."
A straight cogged rod, rack, or chain, fitted with a footrest, pedal, or stirrup, and
moved by the foot of the rider or person using the velocipede, acts upon and turns
a cogged wheel or pinion after the known manner and mechanical movement of a
rack and pinion. The said pinion or cogged wheel is concentric with the driving
wheel or driving wheels of the velocipede, and acts upon and turns the same by
means of a ratchet, that is to say, by means of a cogged click-wheel concentric
with the driving wheel, and a spring detent or pawl, the click wheel of the said
ratchet being attached to, combined with, or sunk into the cogged wheel aforesaid,
and the spring and pawl attached to or combined with the shaft axle or centre-
piece of the driving wheel or driving wheels of the velocipede, or the said
click wheel may be attached to, combined with, or sunk into the axle shaft or centre
piece of the driving wheel or wheels, and the spring and pawl attached to or
combined with the cogged wheel aforesaid.
In any event, the motion or power of the said rack and cogged wheel or pinion
is communicated to the driving wheel by means of a ratchet. The said ratchet
after the known manner and mechanical action of ratchets is operative or active in
one direction, and inoperative in the reverse direction, and in like manner the
whole apparatus, or so much of it as is above described, communicates motion to
the driving wheel when moved in one direction, and is inoperative or practically
inoperative in the reverse direction. The rack may pass through or against a
bracket or guiding slab attached to the fork side body or any part of the velocipede,
and fitted or not fitted with a small wheel or wheels against which the smooth or
reverse side of the rack may freely move, the said bracket or guiding slab being
for the purpose of keeping or guiding the rack in such closeness or proximity to
the cogged wheel, as to ensure its due catching, biting, or acting upon and
turning the said cogged wheel.
An apparatus as above described may be provided for each foot or leg of the
person using the velocipede, the rack worked or used by one foot being joined to

page_text: the rack worked by the other foot by a piece of gut chain, steel ribbon, leather
band or strap, or other pliable substance, the said pliable substance being passed
over or running against a pulley, or two or more pulleys or grooved carrying wheels
situated in or attached to the body or any part of the velocipede, the whole or
double apparatus acting in such a manner that the forcing of one rack and
apparatus in one direction moves or pulls the other rack and apparatus in the
reverse direction.
When used with or applied to a bicycle or velocipede used after the manner of
a bicycle, an apparatus will be placed upon each side of the driving wheel, and the
rack upon each side will be joined to the rack on the other side by means of a
piece of gut chain, steel ribbon, leather band or strap, or other pliable substance
passed over and running against one, two, or more grooved carrying or pulley wheels
attached to the body or upper part of the velocipede, in such a manner that the
forcing downwards of one of the said racks raises the other in like manner to
the action of a pair of weighing scales, the double apparatus as above described
being worked and moved by alternate strokes of the feet or legs of the person
riding the bicycle or velocipede, that is to say, when the apparatus upon one side
is communicating motion to the driving wheel that upon the other side is moving
in the direction in which its motion is inoperative upon the driving wheel.