Summaries

TranslaTion tiina alestalo

Vanhat Velot club meeting in Kuhmoinen. More photos on p. 25. Hand-controlled trikes for the disabled Back in the old days, threewheel mopeds were a common sight in nearly every village. Only a few people know that, in addition to mopeds, a company named Erkkola in Ilmajoki assembled also hand-pedalled tricycles (or trikes) for the disabled, as Marko Eriksson describes on pp. 9–13.

Salomon Erkkola was one of the many migrants who had left for America in search for wealth and returned. Erkkola came back to Ilmajoki in 1900 and started repairing, then assembling bicycles. The bicycle smith produced vehicles from miscellaneous parts, and two bikes assembled at the same time almost never were identical. Sourcable parts were bought from G. L. Hasselblatt’s bicycle shop in Vaasa.

One day in 1927, a Siiri Köykkäneva and her brother from the neighbouring village, Kurikka, came to Erkkola’s to inquire if it were possible to make a vehicle that Siiri, with no legs, could ride. So far, no one had made such trikes in Finland, and ordering one from Germany seemed a precarious and expensive affair.

The first design for a disabled trike worked from the first trial, and the customer was happy. Soon many others contacted Erkkola for an adapted tricycle. The demand for the vehicles changed the direction of Erkkola’s business in a big way. Making tricycles required more time and effort as frames and wooden seats had to be made from scratch. At some point, son Eino came along to help Salomon in the business, and to our knowledge Erkkola’s workshop was the only maker for disabled tricycles in Finland. At the end of the wartime, Salomon Erkkola decided to give up normal bikes and fully focus on adapted trikes.

Erkkola’s workshop was located in the village of Ranto, in Ilmajoki’s Koskenkorva. In a humble metal workshop of one room, he prepared the frames by bending metal pipes, and welded joints in a furnace. The other room was reserved for woodwork; there he prepared wooden seats and handgrips. Many basic parts like hubs, wheel rims and mudguards were no different from a normal bike.

In over two decade’s time, Erkkola assembled 273 trikes for disabled riders in nearly every part of Finland. Over 100 000 people were crippled fighting at the front, which caused a sudden peak in demand. Government helped finance hand-pedalled trikes for many who had lost their legs.

Motorization

Demand for trikes and wheelchairs continued to grow in the 1950s, and in 1956 the workshop was expanded and more workforce was hired. That year, 15 trikes and the first motorized tricycle were produced.

Year 1957 was the company’s true breakthrough. 52 vehicles, seven of which were motorized, were delivered to customers that year. The first motorized trikes used a Rex motor, but in 1960 the company changed to Sachs and kept to it. Demand had risen explosively to 113 vehicles sold that year, 44 of which being mopeds. The workshop-turned-to-factory was expanded three times in the 60s and eventually occupied 1000 square meters.

A curiosity in Erkkola’s history is the fact that the products delivered were documented in an exemplary way. Since the first delivery of a disabled trike in 1927, Salomon Erkkola kept a notebook which documented the serial number, buyer and address, and price of the vehicle sold. Coming to the 1970s, the company had already manufactured around 4000 disabled mopeds and trikes.

Instrumentalism got interested in Erkkola’s business in the 1980s. Eino Erkkola sold his part of the company in 1984, and Matti Erkkola, Salomon’s grandson, followed suit a year later. The company continued operations in Koskenkorva until 1990, when Instrumentarium closed the factory and merged its functions with other departments in Lahti.

How does Matti feel about deal with Instrumentarium now, 30 years later? - I’ve wondered many times whether the company would still exist, had it not been sold to Instrumentarium. But time ran past disabled mopeds in the 80s, and business conditions changed radically within a few years. I believe we sold the company at just the right time, Matti Erkkola concludes.

Yrjö Louhela’s velocar A great rarity was found in Southern Häme: a velocar in nearly original condition. Word about the velocar got around to recumbent enthusiasts through social media. Experts of Vanhat Velot were excited about the vehicle which was stored in a barn loft, out of children’s reach. The significance of the velocar soon revealed to relatives and village people alike. They searched their memories and their albums for pictures of it.

The following story began to take shape: The builder of the velocar, farmer Yrjö Louhela had lost his hearing at an early age, which also meant a reduced sense of balance. To be able to enjoy the landscape while riding, he wanted a bike that would stay up in all conditions. In the early 1950s plagued with material shortage, velocars were the automobiles of the time, built from bicycle parts, composite materials and plywood crust.

A handy man, Louhela followed a reference drawing and rigged up a velocar in which he rode the neighbourhood roads for years. While constructing the vehicle he was already in his 50s, and children remembered how secretive he was while working at his planing bench. A model, the kind of which were published in hobby books at the time, was attached on the wall beside him.

The simple design of the velocar can be observed in photos on pp. 15 – 18. They also show the good condition of the velocar; only the rusty metal parts give away its 60 years of age.