Chapter 82: The Home Front

Arnold stepped back and admired the new frame. The wheels were spoked with tires installed and waiting on the truing jig. This was Number 500 HOE-LEE SHE-IT and the big bike manufacturers were puzzled.

Arnold's bike frames sold for a thousand dollars. They were uncomfortable on the street, they didn't have fenders, baskets, streamer handgrips or fat springy seats ... none of the things big Madison Avenue Advertising Agencies claimed were necessary to entice a kid to buy That Bike.

"That bike ... Your bike ... the one every kid has to have because Billy Jones has one," said the Advertising Executive. "Your competition will be trailing in the dust of this fine machine."

HOE-LEE SHE-IT bikes had big knobby tires and straight handlebars. They had "GEARS" and a water bottle carrier. Some of them had an air pump so a kid could fix his own flats. They had strength and light weight. A twelve year old could carry one on his shoulder and run a mile without dying.

Arnold had taken European road bike derailleur sets, one front and one rear and machined new parts to make parallelogram chain guides more easily moved, with radically increased movement. This allowed the chain drive to select larger or smaller sprockets at the whim of the rider. It also allowed the rider to keep a measured pace with his legs. The 'derailleur' pushed or pulled the chain by means of a cable attached at one end to a shifter on the handlebar and the other end to the derailleur.

So that the crankset was not continuously turning, a freewheel mechanism, stolen from one of the Salvation Army Thrift Store bikes was incorporated in the rear wheel. When the rider applied pressure to the chain by means of a pair of foot cranks with a sprocket the freewheel device engaged. Without pressure the freewheel freewheeled, rotated without acting on the chain.

Arnold rode his bike everywhere on campus. Students laughed at him but every once in a while a 'mind of his own' student asked him where he got that fantastic bike and ended up buying one.

Five hundred bicycles spread among twenty-five thousand students isn't very many but thirty of those students were women ... and not your ordinary co-ed. Nope ... these were the smart, attractive women who turned down offers from every sorority on campus. They were serious students. Serious about studying and serious about staying in the shape they started school with. These girls got up early and rode hard. Soon there were guys on bikes trying to keep up ... and that sold more HOE-LEE SHE-IT bicycles.

A college professor noticed and, determined to impress his wife, bought Arnold's creation ... and that started a trend. Soon there were several leather elbowed, pipe smoking History, English and Geography professors flying to class with tweed coattails fluttering in the self powered breeze. English, History and Geography classes were lots more fun now that the lecturers were alive in the mornings.