Page:The Cycle Industry (1921).djvu/19

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EARLY HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF THE BICYCLE
5

for all wood-wheeled carts and vans to-day. The cycle makers, in their search for lightness, first made similar compression wheels, with hollow steel spokes screwed into iron naves and rims. Then came the suspension wheel which had all the spokes in tension instead of compression. These were first constructed by heading the spokes, threading them through a steel

Fig. 2
THE ARIEL BICYCLE OF HAYNES AND JEFFRIES
The wheel spokes were tensioned by levers


felloe or rim and inserting them into screwed nipples which were in their turn screwed into the flanges of the hub. Subsequently the spokes were screwed direct into the hub and tensioned by turning the spoke itself and not the nipples. Mention also must be made of the lever construction of Haynes and Jeffries, the precursors of the Rudge firm. This was an arrangement that tensioned the wheel by pulling a lever attached to the spokes so that they were strained in a direction tangential to their hub and held tight by locking the