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Q:
on thoes really old bikes was there a reason that the wheel was so big?
or are thoes bikes just a joke or something?
- James
U.S
A:
I think it was just so it could go faster. There wasn't a chain with
gears on it to vary the ratio of how many turns the pedal made to the
number of turns the wheel made, so to go faster you just made a bigger
wheel.
There are lots of reasons not to make big wheels -- it's hard to
climb up, accidents hurt more, it's harder to get the bike started from
rest, and it's hard to pedal one of these things up a hill. I wouldn't
want to be going down a steep hill on one either.
But those bikes were for real! We laugh at them now.
Tom
(published on 10/22/2007)
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