chunkymonkeybik

I was looking at a scalefish penny farthing bike,,,,,pretty expensive! 1800 for the base model.

Looks cool, maybe more of a work of art.

bobwysiwyg

The local LBS I go to in Chelsea has several originals hanging high on their wall. Always intrigued by them.

Philphine

one the local shop owners has one. I've seen it when we have the mayor's bike ride each spring and fall. I guess I have the chance to try a penny fake thing. I have the front wheel and fork off a coker monster, but it's not really something I'm interested in trying.

fietsbob

there is a P-f trike @ the LBS, it works well at being parked across the open door for ventilation.

base2 

https://www.worksmancycles.com/high-wheelers.html

Rollfast

I don't even have a ha'penny.


Some days I need the curb to get on a 26"

Dave Armstrong

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I had a small high wheeler hanging on my wall for about ten years. I bought it on ebay for around seventyfive bucks, sold it for about the same amount. Whole lot cheaper than a full size one takes up a lot less room.

CliffordK

That looks like it would be fun.

Coker also makes the 36" Wheelman with pneumatic tires, although apparently temporarily unavailable.

https://www.cokercycles.com/coker-wheelman

Darth Lefty 

This seems like one of those things it might actually be cheaper to make yourself than to buy. There's not much to that bike for a thousand bucks, or $1800. You could start with a unicycle hub and get pretty far. It looks like they have a solid tire which you could make from cord stock - not that it would be that great to ride on. The big lack would seem to be a rim.

That 36er is going to have a unicycle tire, yes?

CliffordK

Most are smaller, but Coker, and maybe a couple other manufacturers use 36" wheels. But, yes, it should be the same base, for half the cost.

Ahhh, found he Nimbus 36er rim.
Nimbus 36" Stealth2 Rim with Braking Surface | Unicycle.com

It looks like they have the hubs and long spokes too... It could be a fun project, but doesn't look cheap if one sources all the parts new.

Perhaps one could snag a steel hub + steel BB spindle at the local coop, and weld them together

base2 

That's pretty cool. I wonder what the pricing will be. I'd bet a $800 to $1000 would be the sweet spot.

I've always wondered how long replacement tires and replacement parts would be available for something like this. It's not like every LBS has 42 inch slicks just hanging on hooks nowadays.

Darth Lefty 

Like I said, I think the tires are cord stock. You'd glue the ends together, and glue them to the rim like a tubular. Grainger website shows 1" cord stock in neoprene, silicone, buna, and EPDM. Getting real pneumatic tires and tubes made would be a lot harder because they need to be molded.

Rims really seem like more of a sticking point to me. How would you get one? You could ask a rim company like Velocity if they could make you tubular rims in an oddball diameter and drilling but could they, and what would that cost? You could maybe send a piece of steel channel through a tubing bender. Or maybe you could send a few rims through a tubing bender to un-bend them, join them to make one big rim.

Imagine the truing stand!

Considering when you look at the original bikes they appear to be made out of wrought iron, anything welded out of Walmart bikes would do ok for a frame.

CliffordK

I could imagine sewing a pair of sewups together. One could probably come up with a fairly good pneumatic, and the shape would probably work itself out, and for simplicity, sizes up to 2 x 700c, or 1400c (probably closer to 2x26", or 52" max).

If one could order 1000 of them, a real manufacturer might make some custom tubulars I wonder how size dependent their tooling is. Perhaps I'll have to look at a vintage one sometime to see how complicated the casing actually is. Rubber would be easy enough to apply. But, I HATE sewing sewups...

I do have a pipe roller which is a fairly simple device. One could probably make special dies, plus an extra set of rollers to start with flat stock, and roll out a C-shaped single wall rim of any size desired.

I saw a description somewhere of a person making custom spokes for a homebuilt penny farthing. Building the dies should be easy enough.

Darth Lefty 

Spokes didn't seem like that big of a sticking point to me. You could do it with a Z bend in wire stock.

StephenH

I don't think Worksman makes those, they just sell them. They have also imported various cruisers, etc.



Boneshakers - Rideable Bicycle Replicas

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.

CliffordK

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.

deaninkl

No brakes at all Clifford, and no back peddling, crank was on the front wheel, you would have to be mighty strong to stop on the peddles. If on the flat you just planned ahead and let your body weight on the pedals slow you down, on a incline you jumped off side saddle and run beside it while stopping. My uncles hill was quite steep, but only a 100m in length, I think he was good at that hill, parking "in" the hedge was an art he perfected... if you go to you tube you can find them racing on the wooden raceways of the day... scary and fun...