1923 TT winner. Freddy Dixon's Douglas outfit with banking sidecar, the action controlled with a lever by passenger, Walter Denny. (Thanks JP)
If I didn't know better, I'd say the outfit is equipped with disc brakes. Also thanks to JP, information here on the unique brake.
Amazing how close they came to a disc brake, and then..."Naah...".
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Found the passenger's name to be Walter Denny, he probably operated the chair
brake as well.
Much thanks, JP, post updated. Interesting that the braking system wasn't more popular.
ReplyDeleteWonder what the insurmountable material (materials?) obstacle could have been at that time. Cost of manufacture? Surely an industry's worth of engineers couldn't have simply glanced at a prototype, said "Ahh, that'll never work," and gone back to trying to make brakes out of raccoon tails and mud.
ReplyDeleteIn the early or middle 1970s Honda made a small humble bike (200cc twin?) whose front disc was operated by cable. A chopper buddy of mine bought one as a not very magnanimous gift for his wife and then, to general astonishment, hogged it for his own use (wearing a sack over his head so no other local 1%ers could identify him).
He said the brake worked just fine. So I doubt that the problem circa 1923 was not that hydraulic systems hadn't yet been tamed. I'll double my bet that contemporary mfgrs found it too expensive to make very flat cast iron rotors that did not warp or crack too readily.
... Sorry! I thought I heard someone ask for my opinion.
Always want an opinion! Until I posted that pic, I was unaware of that brake system. You;re right it couldn't have been worse than the rim brakes... Could have been anything from manufacturing cost, or pressure from a drum brake manufacturer or maybe its ineffectiveness in the rain (making that up, I have no idea). Though that didn't stop the Japanese in the early seventies. I have to find out more!
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