Originally Posted by
deaninkl
when I was young (in the early 60's) my mother told me stories about a great uncle that had a penny farthing and was still using it into the 1950's in Dorchester, Dorset in the UK. If he was a little drunk he would jump off and let the hedge catch the bike, as he lived at the bottom of a hill. Sometimes the bike would be protruding from the hedge for days until he used it again. As Dorchester is far from a flat town I can't imagine that such a bike was fun there at all. But he was a novelty and I guess enjoyed the notoriety. Never knew what happened to the bike though, I cant remember ever seeing it.
The best one could get with the Penny Farthing would be about 2:1 gearing in comparison to the modern 700c wheeled bike. I.E., something like a 42/21 gear ratio. The thing would probably climb reasonably well.
Did those things have brakes? Or did one just backpedal? Without clips of course. Take the feet off the pedals, and the cranks would spin.
They'd have to be a little topheavy. So, I could just imagine descents down 10% to 20% slopes
The bushes almost sound like a good idea.
