Sam, Strangely I have just finished the WWI chapter of my Elswick-Hopper story and from the company archives I can throw light on your chain situation. Many UK companies had built up a good export business by 1914, throughout the world. Hopper had invested £000's in doing so and had business in all parts of the world including north and south America, Australia, India and China. The war was not supposed to last long (do politicians always have these illusions?) but Kitchener immediately called for volunteers and the Germans upped the ante by sinking ships in a most ungentlemanly fashion by using U-boats and causing a bit of a shipping crisis. Young chaps flocked to join the army and see some action and manufacturers started employing women in large numbers for the first time, thus triggering ultimately an unstoppable move towards full emancipation. Many firms were comandeered for munitions work and I imagine that chains and especially big ones would be required for mechanised machines of war - many motorcycles were used by the military and chains were superceding belt drive. Materials, by 1916, were proving a real problem. However, most bicycle makers were not equipped for munitions as that needed lots of machine tools. Raleigh did OK as they turned over the Sturmey Archer factory to munitions, thereby earning a knighthood for Frank Bowden. Fred Hopper spent most of the war trying to keep hold of key workers to make bikes for export, claiming that the balance of payments was important - which it was, but the western front swallowed up millions of young men in the mud and blood of what was probably the worst loss of life in the history of mankind and so he finished up with most of his skilled men in uniform. However, he managed to keep exporting and by 1917 prices for munitions were falling and the push was on to reclaim the export business. So, having been told (falsely) by the UK government that all the Barton factory would be taken over for munitions, Fred's insistence in the importance of the export market was proved to be correct. 1919 was a bumper year for the company! So, yes, the UK government was not too interested in your bike's chain size, but I bet the makers sweated blood to get it! Hope this is not too boring, but perhaps it makes a change to the endless debate on killer (or is it death?) components and bikes.
Nigel Land Hopperland Lincolnshire UK
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:37:45 -0800 (PST) From: sam lingo <frameteam2003@yahoo.com> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: Re: [CR]Inch pitch? and more on chains Message-ID: <20060125043745.12801.qmail@web51512.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <p0623090dbffc1489cec3@[10.0.1.31]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Precedence: list Message: 4
Sheldon Brown <CaptBike@sheldonbrown.com> wrote:
I own (and love) a 1916 Mead Ranger. I also have a photocopy of the original catalogue.
The catalogue makes a big deal about the English 1/2" roller chain
specced for this model, but the actual bike has 1" roller chain. The
chainring pattern is identical to the one shown in the catalogue, so
I'm sure the drivetrain was original. My interpretation is that
British factories had more important things to do in 1916 than making
bike parts for export...
If your bike is just a bit older,say1911,it would have come equipted
with an english Brampton (1") twin-roller chain (same pattern
chainring-with what the catalog calls the williams pattern---having the
shoulder for the chain to run on)
sam lingo,pleasanton tx