The prior art United States patents discussed below show attempts to utilize hand motion to drive the front wheel of a velocipede such as a bicycle. However, each example of the prior art has one or more disadvantages such as awkwardness, no rear drive, limitation of the driver's ability to alternate between hand driving of the front wheel with driving of the rear wheels with foot pedals, lack of simultaneous hand and foot driving or lack of choice of hand driving speeds. Further, existing velocipedes can not readily be converted into these previously described hand-drive velocipedes.
U.S. Pat. No. 651,941 shows a manual front drive, has no rear drive, shows no multiple choice of speeds, and is awkward to operate because of the position of its crank arms.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,533,728 describes a three wheel bicycle where a hand crank goes directly to the front wheel, with no drive on the rear wheel.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,193,305 has a hand crank for the front wheel drive using a single speed chain and no adjustability.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,823,959 shows a hand crank driving a single speed chain.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,910,599 lacks a rear drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,927 is a tricycle with no rear drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,147,742 does not have any front wheel drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,152,005 has awkwardly positioned drives for a tricycle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,766 uses a hand crank for the front wheel but has no rear drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,303,255 has a single front drive, and no drive on the rear.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,316,616, relates to a wheel-chair with hand drive on the front wheel and no rear drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,417,742 uses a hand crank to assist the foot pedals for the rear drive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,420 shows a single speed drive chain from a rotary crank to the hub of the front wheel.
One object of the present invention is to provide a velocipede, such as a bicycle, which has an independent hand drive for the front wheel.
Another object of the present invention is to modify an existing bicycle by providing a hand-driven, multiple speed front wheel drive which is independent of the rear drive and which can freewheel.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will be apparent from the description and claims which follow, taken together with the appended drawings.