History
The first freewheel for a bicycle was patented by William van Anden of Poughkeepsie, New York ; on 23 March 1869, he was issued patent 88,238 for "improvements in velocipedes".
The friction freewheel was a part of the Torpedo bicycle gear hub invented by Ernst Sachs in 1903.
A bicycle freewheel was developed and patented by cycle component manufacturer Villiers Engineering of England in 1902.
The freewheel is sometimes known as the "Stieber Clutch" named after its German developer Ortwin Stieber.
Read more about this topic: Freewheel
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“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)