1893 Geared Front Driver (Replica)

1893 Geared Front Driver (Replica) 

36″ Front wheel

20″ Rear wheel

LENGTH: 60″

WIDTH: 26″

HEIGHT: 52″

The ‘Geared Front Driver’ also known as the ‘Geared Ordinary’ was built by dozens of different companies in the early 1890s. My friend Paul built this one some years ago as He wanted one that was practical to use for long distance cycling. He used a front fork, wheels and tyres supplied by Unicycle .com and made his own geared hub. He built the rest of the machine along the lines of the Crypto. It is easy to ride and much safer than a Crypto Bantam whose front wheel is too small or an ordinary with 50″ or larger front wheel.

 

 

Instead of the cranks driving the front wheel direct — as in the ungeared ‘ordinary,’ the spindle carried a pinion: on the inner circumference of the hub was a ring of teeth; between these teeth and the aforementioned pinion was a set of three small pinions revolving on studs affixed to the hub-flange. By means of this mechanism (which was similar to that used in the high gear of a modern three-speed hub) the 49 inch driving wheel was geared up to about 62 inches.

This gear was a development of the Crypto Dynamic two-speed gear, invented by William Thomas Shaw and William Sydenham in 1882, patent No. 3230. With mechanism locked solid, the road wheel was “geared” up or down according to the number of teeth on the driving and driven sprockets: with the pinion in operation a lower gear was brought into action.

BELOW: You can see the internals of the gear in this Front Driver.

 

BELOW: As this bicycle is set up for riding, a spare is being sold with it in case it’s needed sometime in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GEARED ORDINARIES