Town plans weekend of celebrations to honour prominent inventors (From This Is Wiltshire)

A weekend of celebration is planned to honour two distinguished Bradford on Avon engineers on their landmark birthdays.

Dr Alex Moulton, inventor of the Moulton bicycle and designer of the suspension for the original Mini, will be 90 on April 9, while on April 15 Jem Marsh, co-founder of sports car manufacturer Marcos, will turn 80.

Bradford on Avon Town Council, the preservation trust and the town’s museum have joined forces to put on an exhibition celebrating Dr Moulton’s engineering career at the West Barn from April 25-28.

Dr Moulton said: “I am deeply honoured and delighted. I feel very privileged that they have taken the trouble to do this.

Continue reading at Town plans weekend of celebrations to honour prominent inventors (From This Is Wiltshire).

11 Speed Alfine hub from SHIMANO

Hubstripping.com reports

Shimano announces a 11 gear hub. The range will be 409% (Alfine 8 gear 307%). The hub runs in a oil bath like the Rohloff Speddhub. This should result a higher efficiency and longer lifetime. The price will be 300,- Euro release data is September 2010.

Details can be found here….

via 11 Speed Alfine hub from SHIMANO « Hubstripping.com.

Alex Moulton’s Autobiography

Alex Moulton's Autobiography - Alex Moulton: from Bristol to Bradford-on-Avon - is now available for purchase from Alex Moulton Books.

In this new book, Dr. Alex Moulton recounts, in his own words, his lifetime in engineering. The whole story – from building steam cars as a teenager, and working under Roy Fedden at Bristol Aeroplane, through the development of rubber suspension systems that led to collaboration with BMC, Dunlop and Sir Alec Issigonis in the creation of Hydrolastic and Hydragas, to the revolutionary Moulton bicycle that, together with the Mini, became an icon of the swinging sixties – is told in Dr. Moulton’s characteristic direct style.

The book promises

Hundreds of illustrations – sketches, photographs and calculations, many in colour – accompany the text as this fascinating memoir unfolds, giving the reader an insight into the mind of one of Britain’s most innovative engineers. For those who know little of Dr. Moulton’s work, this is a comprehensive account; and for those who have prior knowledge this book contains a wealth of previously unpublished details and illustrations.

Moulton Tandem

Check out this Moulton APB Tandem on Youtube.

Moulton have never built a factory tandem, but several Mouton based tandems have been created as custom projects, by third-party framebuilders.

Several APB based tandems have been built by Doug Pinkerton. Here is one example of a Doug Pinkerton Moulton APB Tandem

See also an ATB based tandem in Australia