Moulton is an
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
bicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
manufacturer. The company was founded in 1962 by Dr
Alex MoultonDr. Alexander Eric Moulton CBE is an English engineer and inventor, specialising in suspension design.Moulton is the great-grandson of the rubber pioneer Stephen Moulton, the founder of the family business George Spencer Moulton & Co...
, who designed the "
HydrolasticHydrolastic is a type of space-efficient automotive suspension system used in many cars produced by British Motor Corporation and its successor companies....
" and rubber cone
suspensionSuspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose — contributing to the car's roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants...
systems for the
BMCThe British Motor Corporation, or commonly known as BMC was a vehicle manufacturer from United Kingdom, formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organisation in 1952...
MiniThe Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
motorcar, and the later "Hydragas" system used by its successor companies.
Moulton bicycles are noted for unconventional frame design, small wheels, and front and rear suspension.
A misconception about Moultons is that they fold in the manner of more recent designs by manufacturers such as
BromptonBrompton Bicycle is a manufacturer of folding bicycles based in Brentford, London.The Brompton folding bicycle and accessories are the company's core product, noted for its self-supporting compact size when stored. All available models of the folding bicycle are based on the same hinged bicycle...
or
DahonDahon is the world's largest manufacturer of folding bicycles with a two-thirds marketshare in 2006. The company was founded by David T. Hon, a former laser physicist, in 1982 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, with assembly factories in China, Macau and Bulgaria...
. This is not true, though the Moulton design paved the way for such designs and various Moultons over the years have been made in separable versions allowing relatively easy dismantling for transportation or storage. Mass-appeal versions such as the Standard and Deluxe were complemented by Speed versions used in competition.
Thus although Moultons are often included in the
folding bicycleA folding bicycle is a bicycle designed to fold into a compact form, facilitating transport and storage. When folded, the bikes can be more easily carried into buildings and workplaces or onto public transportation or more easily stored in compact living quarters or aboard a car, boat or plane...
category along with small wheel folders,
small wheel bicycleSmall wheel bicycles are adult bicycles which have wheels of 20 inch nominal diameter or less, which is smaller than the 26" or 700c sizes common on most full-sized adult bikes. While many folding bicycles are small wheel bicycles, not all small wheel bicycles can fold...
s would be a more technically correct term covering all such bicycles.
In August, 2008, the company announced it will merge with British bicycle manufacturer
Pashley CyclesPashley Cycles is an English bicycle manufacturer in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, established in 1926. The company has been making bicycles for more than 80 years.-History:...
.
History
In the late 1950s, disillusioned with the design of the classic bicycle,
Alex MoultonDr. Alexander Eric Moulton CBE is an English engineer and inventor, specialising in suspension design.Moulton is the great-grandson of the rubber pioneer Stephen Moulton, the founder of the family business George Spencer Moulton & Co...
set about creating a new design. He thought the classic
diamond frameA bicycle frame is the main component of a bicycle, on to which wheels and other components are fitted. The modern and most common frame design for an upright bicycle is based on the safety bicycle, and consists of two triangles, a main triangle and a paired rear triangle...
was inconvenient to mount, difficult to adjust for size and not suitable for both sexes. He believed that classic bicycles were uncomfortable to ride without the use of wide, low-pressure
tyresA bicycle tire is a tire that fits on the wheel of a bicycle, unicycle, tricycle, quadracycle, bicycle trailer, or trailer bike. They may also be used on wheelchairs and handcycles, especially for racing...
which increased
rolling resistanceRolling resistance, sometimes called rolling friction or rolling drag, is the resistance that occurs when a round object such as a ball or tire rolls on a flat surface, in steady velocity straight line motion. It is caused mainly by the deformation of the object, the deformation of the surface, or...
. He also thought large wheels made a bicycle slow and cumbersome to store, and did not easily fit emerging societal commuting patterns in the developed world, which often combined
more than one formIntermodal passenger transport involves more than one mode of transport of passengers. Some modes of transportation have always been intermodal; for example, most major airports have extensive facilities for automobile parking and have good rail or bus connections to the cities nearby. Urban bus...
of transport.
Moulton considered that small wheels with high-pressure tyres would result in less rolling resistance, less
inertiaInertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
and hence greater
accelerationIn physics, acceleration is the rate of change of velocity with time. In one dimension, acceleration is the rate at which something speeds up or slows down. However, since velocity is a vector, acceleration describes the rate of change of both the magnitude and the direction of velocity. ...
. He then went on to develop a range of high-pressure tyres in cooperation with
DunlopDunlop Rubber was a company based in the United Kingdom which manufactured tyres and other rubber products for most of the 20th century. It was acquired by BTR plc in 1985. Since then, ownership of the Dunlop trade-names has been fragmented.-Early history:...
. Suspension for the front and rear was developed to give a comfortable ride with the smaller wheels. In this respect, the Moulton bicycle was truly ahead of its time, as bicycle suspension would not become common for another 30 years.
The Moulton bicycle also featured a different frame instead of the traditional diamond design. It is often known as an
F-frame or
Lazy F due to its unusual structure. The F-frame had no top tube, as such, and could therefore be easily mounted by those with mobility limitations, whether imposed by physical infirmity or by type of clothing.
Impact
When the design was released in 1962, it was one of the first major innovations in bicycle design since the "
safety bicycleA safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing or ordinary and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being...
" in the 1880s and made an immediate impact. The 1962 version (aka "bicycle of the future") was the first production Moulton bicycle with suspension and the racing version was televised the same year in action by road race champion and Moulton employee
John Ronald ToveyJohn Ronald Tovey was a British cyclist from the South West UK. He raced for Bath Cycling Club in the early 1960s and also Gordano Valley CC. He was noted for racing the first production ‘Moulton’ cycles and was televised by ITN in 1962, racing a Moulton Special...
. Moulton bicycles became an icon of the Swinging Sixties and were sold around the world by the thousand and Moulton was briefly one of the largest bicycle manufacturers in Britain. The architecture and design critic,
Peter Reyner BanhamPeter Reyner Banham was a prolific architectural critic and writer best known for his 1960 theoretical treatise Theory and Design in the First Machine Age and for his 1971 book Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies...
, known for often controversial views on technology and industrialisation, was a keen advocate and user of the original Moulton.
Eleanor BronEleanor Bron is an English stage, film and television actress and author.-Early life and family:Bron was born in 1938 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a Jewish family of Eastern European origin...
's 1978 book
Life and other punctures celebrates travels round France on an original Moulton. In bicycle culture, the rider of a Moulton bicycle is often referred to as being a "Moultoneer" (a play on the word "Mountaineer").
Models produced
The following list of home-market models were produced between 1962 and 1967 in the Moulton factory at Bradford-on-Avon and in the BMC car factory at Kirkby, Liverpool:
Continental and Automatic M0, Standard M1, Deluxe M2, Safari M3, Speed M4, Stowaway M5 and the Speedsix M6. A further low volume, high specification 'S' range of Moulton bicycles was produced separately at another small workshop in Bradford-on-Avon and consisted of the Deluxe MS2, Safari MS3, Stowaway MS5 and the top-of-the-range 'S' Speed.
After the Raleigh take-over in 1967 (see below), the models changed to just the Major and Major Deluxe only. These in turn were both dropped with the introduction of the Mark III in 1970.
Sellout
The success of the Moulton spurred competitors to introduce similar designs, and competition led to the company being sold to Raleigh in August 1967. In 1974 production of the innovative cycles stopped. Raleigh produced the Major, Major Deluxe and the Mark III (previous Moultons were known as Series 1 and Series 2). The main differences were a re-designed rear suspension using a rubber ball instead of a block and a rear triangle replacing the swingarm of the earlier designs. Some of the early Moulton bicycles are today considered to be collectors' items.
Re-birth
In the early 1980s, Alex Moulton bought back the rights to the Moulton design from Raleigh, and brought out a design along broadly similar lines to the original. Aimed at the high end of the market, this AM series (which remains in production) has a
space frameA space frame or space structure is a truss-like, lightweight rigid structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with few interior supports...
allowing high rigidity and low weight when compared to traditional steel frames. In 1998 the New Series Moulton was introduced. This, similar to the AM, incorporates a Flexitor front suspension, and a rear suspension based on the unified rear triangle principle. The New Series includes the Pylon and Double Pylon high-performance models: in the latter all large diameter tubes have been eliminated, resulting in a pure space frame design and low weight.
Pashley-Moulton
To bring the new design to a larger market, a cheaper variant of the AM bicycle design, the APB (All-Purpose Bicycle), was produced under licence by
Pashley CyclesPashley Cycles is an English bicycle manufacturer in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England, established in 1926. The company has been making bicycles for more than 80 years.-History:...
from 1992 to 2005. To reduce costs, Pashley use off-the-shelf components as far as possible instead of the custom components of the original Moultons: for example, specially manufactured 17 by 1 1/4 inch (ISO 369) wheels, tyres, and inner tubes were replaced by the more common 20-inch ETRTO 406 size. In 2005 the Pashley-Moulton design was updated to create the TSR series: high-performance, lighter versions of the Pashley-Moulton replacing the APB.
Bridgestone Moulton
A newer model, stylistically and structurally similar to the original Moulton design, was manufactured by
BridgestoneThe is a multinational rubber conglomerate founded in 1931 by in the city of Kurume, Fukuoka, Japan. The name Bridgestone comes from a calque translation and transposition of ishibashi, meaning "stone bridge" in Japanese....
. Known as the Bridgestone Moulton, it was built in Japan and those sold in the UK were assembled in England at the Moulton factory. Like the original Moulton, the AM, and the APB before it, it is available in separable and rigid performance versions. Though similar in appearance to the original design, it is nevertheless a contemporary performance bicycle and features advanced design and components.
Links to the Bridgestone Moulton page have not appeared on the company's website since February 2009; the page remains.
See also
- Small wheel bicycle
Small wheel bicycles are adult bicycles which have wheels of 20 inch nominal diameter or less, which is smaller than the 26" or 700c sizes common on most full-sized adult bikes. While many folding bicycles are small wheel bicycles, not all small wheel bicycles can fold...
- Folding bicycle
A folding bicycle is a bicycle designed to fold into a compact form, facilitating transport and storage. When folded, the bikes can be more easily carried into buildings and workplaces or onto public transportation or more easily stored in compact living quarters or aboard a car, boat or plane...
- List of bicycle manufacturing companies
- Raleigh Cycles
External links