Synopses & Reviews
The Dancing Chain is the story of the modern bicycle and the gadget that makes it tick: the derailleur gearing system used on almost all quality bicycles today. The book culminates a decade of work by author Frank Berto and contributors such as Ron Shepherd, Raymond Henry, Walter Ulreich, Tony Hadland, and Gordon Selby. The first edition took 5 years to write, and this second edition has been in the making since the minute the first edition came out 5 years ago.
Most other books on the history of the bicycle go to great lengths explaining the development from hobby horse to boneshaker to high-wheeler, and suddenly stop once the safety bicycle is introduced towards the end of the 19th centruy. Instead, we've concentrated on the last one hundred years; or, as we put it, the first 100 years of the derailleur bicycle.
We found that the range of answers to the problem of making a bike go faster on level ground and climb better uphill was much greater than anyabody realized. That's the reason for including some 1,000 illustrations, many of which depict different stages of development of the derailleur bicycle.
Synopsis
Unlike other bicycle history books, which cover only the first 100 years, this book deals extensively with the second century of bicycle development. It traces the development of the modern derailleur bicycle from its crude beginnings right up to the most modern mountain bikes and road racing bicycles. This completely rewritten second edition includes over 200 additional illustrations and hundreds of text corrections and updates.