John Kemp Starley

First rover bike

Rover III Safety Bicycle from 1888

John Kemp Starley (* 1854 in Walthamstow ; † 1901 ) was a very innovative English designer and manufacturer of bicycles .

Family and companies

He was the nephew of James Starley , a former manufacturer of the Kangaroo bicycle (a moderate high-altitude bicycle from England with a chain drive on the front wheel that transmits pedal power). John Kemp Starley, who previously worked in his uncle's factory, founded the company JK Starley & Sutton Co in Coventry in 1881 with a partner , in which high bikes were produced. Since 1896 the company traded as Rover Cycle Company and was most recently known as MG Rover Group . However, he struggled to get into business as the established competition was quite fierce. So he began to develop a new bike with decisive improvements. At first he wanted to change the frame geometry . After that, the muscle power should be better used and, thirdly, the bike should be safer. At first he made his living building three-wheelers.

Rover Safety Bicycle

He secretly developed a two-wheeler that was supposed to be both faster and safer than high-wheeled bikes. It is said that he and his partner brought the first test models out into the country in his coach so that they could be tested there unobserved.

He presented his bike to the public in 1884 at the Stanley Veloshow in London . The big breakthrough did not occur with this first bicycle, known as the “Rover Safety Bicycle”. The press dismissed it as a bug or a crawler. Some found comforting that it was good for elderly and anxious drivers. Starley realized that he had a similar sensation as his uncle with the kangaroo, which had skyrocketed after winning a race. The existing ban on races of this kind did not seem to prevent him from organizing one. He hired the same successful rider, George Smith, who had already ridden the Kangaroo, and announced in the cycling journals a race from London to Brighton and back via Shoreham for the last Saturday in September . As a prize for the first three he offered an expensive gold wristwatch, a rover wheel and a silver wristwatch. The starting point was the Anderton's Hotel in Fleet Street in London. The police were ready with a large number on the day of the race, but Starley had tricked them and secretly decided on a different starting location. So the drivers could run the race without the police. And George Smith, the top racing driver, immediately set a new world record.

Rover from 1886. It has many of the design features of today's bicycles. But full rubber tires, climbing aid, obvious lack of use in the form of bent dropouts on the rear wheel, sagging chain and misalignment of the crank.

From then on it was clear that the new rover was the ultimate bike. Starley and Sutton had to expand the capacity of their manufacturing facilities almost overnight. The Rover Type II is still considered the prototype of the modern bicycle today. There were significant changes to the controls, which were now directly on the front axle, and to the brake , which was attached to the front wheel. The customers were enthusiastic, and within a year the “Rover II” had achieved a market share of 90%. But the two businessmen did not rest on their laurels. They continued to develop their bikes until the "Rover Type III" came out in 1888.

It was largely thanks to the race that the public's eyes were opened and that the low bike was able to replace the high bike.

A stability disadvantage of the frame construction was the missing saddle frame tube to connect the saddle, on which the body weight primarily rests, and the frame footrest.

literature

• Max JB Rauck, Gerd Volke, Felix R. Paturi: By bike through two centuries. The bicycle and its history. 2nd Edition. AT Verlag, Aarau et al. 1979, ISBN 3-85502-038-8 .