Is the Bowden cable (the basic design of a bike's brake cable) named after Frank Bowden? Was he its inventor?
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 11:00 PM, donald gillies <gillies@ece.ubc.ca> wrote:
> The company was founded on 'Raleigh' Street in Nottingham, Englanda.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/
>
> A year before Raleigh was founded, the founder, a lawyer, Frank Bowden
> was told by his doctor that he would die within six months if he
> didn't do something about his health. The key to his recovery was
> cycling, and he became so convinced of its ability to help other
> people that he immediately went out and bought a bike company, and in
> a short time (about a decade) built it into the biggest bike company
> in the world.
>
> I think for the first 50 years or so they actually had Sir Walter
> Raleigh logos on the bicycle, etc., even up until the 1960's, I have
> seen Sir Walter Raleigh laying down his cape on a decalset for a 1960
> gransport (decalset by the esteemed Michael Swantak, now that library
> is maintained by http://www.velocals.com), but maybe someone eventually
> noticed this story of the life of Sir Walter Raleigh and the
> connection to the Heron and so the bird was adopted as a symbol?
>
> Sir Walter Raleigh By John Buchan, 1911
> Google books
>
> http://tinyurl.com/
>
> SIR WALTER RALEIGH BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU , 1905
> LATELY DISCOVERED AMONG HIS UNPUBLISHED JOURNALS AND MANUSCRIPTS
> INTRODUCTION BY
> FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN
> EDITED BY
> HENRY AIKEN METCALF
>
>
> http://www.archive.org/
>
>
> "Then the screen of boughs was lifted and I saw the Cacique bending
> over me, and with him another. That other was an old man with a
> thin white beard and a high nose ; and I thought him a white heron
> come to fight the terrible orange-tawny fowl."
>
> "I know not what he did to me, but six hours later I awoke from deep
> slumber with the pain gone and my health restored, save for a
> singing in my head like the fall of a weir. There was Amias smoking
> a pipe, and the Cacique and the old soothsayer playing a game on a
> thing like a chessboard."
>
> Anyway, the Heron might represent the restorative power of the bike,
> either in the Sir Walter Raleigh story, or for Frank Bowden himself.
>
> For more information about the history of Raleigh, I highly recommend
> this article :
>
> http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/
>
> - Don Gillies
> San Diego, CA
> _______________________________________________
>
--
Ken Freeman
Ann Arbor, MI USA