>>2046588
>gearing
nah. The safety bicycle, thanks tl its chain drive, had the benefit of virtually arbitary gearing.
The penny farthing owed its large wheel to gearing. No transmission, only direct drive - > wheel circumference dictates your gearing. The head injuries were quite something. So the safety bicycle was born, with the expressed purpose of bringing the rider closer to the ground and further between the two wheels, all made possible by combining transmisson with a smaller wheel.
But as I've said >>2046519 the co. promise is not that simple. Besides speed there is comfort. To be very clear: A bump of a certain size 'appears' larger to a smaller wheel and vice versa. Imagine riding head onto a curbstone on 3" wheels. Your wheel would hit it head on, at a right angle and stop your bike right there. A real big wheel would result in an apparent angle at the point of contact of only a few degrees. That's important for MTB but I suspect strength was the limiting factor. This is why we do now see so called 29" wheels. Materials made it that far. We can now have strong 29" wheels that negoriate bump much better.
It goes without saxjng that the more compact wheel is stronger, even the bracing angles are increased for the same hub diameter.

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You know what really grinds my gears? When multiple knobs create misinformation and then spread it by citing eachother (Woozle effect)I wanted to…

You know what really grinds my gears? When multiple knobs create misinformation and then spread it by citing eachother (Woozle effect)
I wanted to…