folk have done all kinds of interesting things.... including this (which I found whilst looking for something else)
All I have is a picture, no words. All I can assume is that this is for someone who is riding in the dark or who is partially sighted; the two small nuts and bolts appear to have been placed so as to allow the gear to be set accurately via tactile means alone. Seen anything like it?
In the pre-indexed days, we had five or six cogs only. It was just a movement of the lever to go up or down the ratios and if there was noise, you adjusted. I've commuted in the dark both ways on friction, and you don't look at the levers, you feel them and listen.
Maybe if the rider was deaf and couldn't fine tune it could be of use.
Maybe not partially sighted but maybe the bike was used for audax and I guess when you're tired and it's dark, it just helped to be able to feel what gear it was in (other than just feeling it 'through the pedals').
I do a lot of cycling in the winter after dark, and even though the bikes have gear indicators, I can't see these in the dark, and I'm never so sure what chainring I'm on (they're triples) at the front. Consequently I sometimes forget to change back up from the inner ring at the front after a steep hill and I'm in too high a gear at the back and therefore cross-chaining - it feels just the same as if I'm in the middle ring and a mid to lower gear at the back. That seldom if ever happens in daylight.
Somebody's going to say you shouldn't need to look to see what gear you're in. Well, whether you should or not, I do. It could even be that we do it unconsciously and only notice we do (and we can't...) when we ride in the dark.
And why the lack of a front brake? On a 2nd look could the V notches be for the rear mech indexing and the bolts a means of indexing the front mech with a bit of trimming.
At the last count:- Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X3, Raleigh 20 stowaway X2, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840
I still use downtube friction shifters. After riding the same bike for a long time you really don’t need anything like this - you just shift automatically and don’t need any indexing or indicator.
It would have interfered with my front changes when I had 2x5 back in the 70s as I used to change the front shifter with my right thumb. I had a very wide block (14-32/34) & I needed to do a double shift so could do both shifts simultaneously with one hand.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
My first introduction to friction shifting was on a Toys-R-Us Falcon racer and the mounting screws that held the gear levers on always worked loose no matter how tight you fastened them. As I got used to the bike I could shift perfectly between sprockets.
RickH wrote:It would have interfered with my front changes when I had 2x5 back in the 70s as I used to change the front shifter with my right thumb. I had a very wide block (14-32/34) & I needed to do a double shift so could do both shifts simultaneously with one hand.
Ah! The double downtube shift,it's so long since I used d/tube levers I quite forgot all about that
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"All we are not stares back at what we are"
W H Auden
rjb wrote:And why the lack of a front brake? On a 2nd look could the V notches be for the rear mech indexing and the bolts a means of indexing the front mech with a bit of trimming.
the bike has the latest wi-fi disc brakes. get with it daddio
Crying with laughter.
