In 1904, the Chicago Flexible Shaft Co created a catalog for Horse Clipping Machines, including this bicycle attachment.
Simply place your front wheel in the stabilzing box and then place the “fibre friction roll” against the rear tire.
With no loud noise produced by either machine, this easy-to-use horse grooming item is perfect for those equines who dislike the buzzing and strong vibrations from an electric clipper. Get the advantages of hand-clipping with the speed of electric clipping!
The catalog continues to suggest the owner, “enlist children with their bikes, who ‘will furnish the motive power for clipping a horse for a trifling consideration, a matter of 10c at the most.’ Or your neighbor or your friends that think your horse-clipping bike is cool.
After bikes enjoyed a surge in propularity in the 1890s with personalties like Annie Londonderry making the daily papers, engineers designed more human-powered contraptions like this inverted trick bike Fixie kids could use today
and this seat-propelled bike
The rider stands upon the foot-rests q, and, by the weight of his body, depresses the saddle, which is attached to a lever b, pivoted at its end c to the frame. The downward movement of the lever b causes a spring pawl e to actuate a ratchet-wheel f. The motion of the ratchet – wheel is communicated through wheels i, k, l to the chain-wheel m and thence to the hind wheel n, so that the bicycle is propelled forwards. The pressure on the saddle is then released, and the saddle is restored to its normal position by a spring p, when the cycle of operations is repeated.
that is not unlike the Elliptigo we spotted earlier this week on the bike path.
The bike blenders, sewing machines, washing machines, and camera rigs, all have been invented before in some form by an earlier generation of tinkers. Check this Pope Manufacturing, shaft-drive kickshift.
Cargo too….
[1905 Alldays Standard Carrier Tricycle](1905 Alldays ‘Standard’ Carrier Tricycle) via Museum of Tradesman’s Delivery Bikes. Inventions via Ptak Science Books.
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