Rolls-Royce Designer Picks Iconic Design Classic Moulton Bike Graham Hull Alex Moulton

Rolls-Royce and Bentley Head Designer Graham Hull picks one of his favorite and most innovative designs - a Moulton Bicycle. He owns and uses a Moulton bike to this day and talks passionately about the design icon that both the Moulton bike is and it's inventor, Sir Alex Mouton.
During World War II he worked on engine design at the Bristol Aeroplane Company. After the war he joined the family company, which made rubber components such as suspension parts for railway carriages; he turned it towards rubber suspension systems for road vehicles.
In the mid 1950s, Moulton developed an experimental rubber suspension which was tested on a Morris Minor. His friend Alec Issigonis heard of this work and together they designed a fluid and rubber suspension for a new Alvis car, which did not reach production. Moulton also designed "Flexitor" rubber springs for the 1958 Austin Gipsy, an off-road vehicle.
After the family business was acquired by the Avon Rubber Company in 1956, Moulton established Moulton Developments Limited to design the suspension system for British Motor Corporation's new small car, the Mini, that was being designed by Issigonis. The combination of conical rubber springs and small wheels was one of the many innovative developments that allowed Issigonis to achieve the Mini's small overall size. This was later refined into the hydrolastic and hydragas suspension systems used on later British Leyland cars such as the Austin Maxi, Austin Allegro, Princess and Rover Metro, and later on Rover Group's MG F sports car.
Moulton also designed the Moulton bicycle, launched in 1962, again using rubber suspension and small wheels. A factory was built at Bradford-on-Avon, and Moulton Bicycles Ltd soon became the second-largest frame builder in the country.
Under Moulton's will, the Grade I listed Hall - along with investments, land, outbuildings and cottages - was gifted to a charitable trust. In 2020 the trust was reorganised as a charitable incorporated organisation, the Alex Moulton Charitable Trust, which continues to preserve and maintain the Hall and its collections, and promote engineering and design.
The Moulton Bicycle name has undergone several changes of ownership. Since 2008 the name has been used by a privately held company which has a small modern factory just east of the Hall.
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[@joesprague1464]

Thank you for sharing this.Whether riding our 1965 Moulton F frame or our more modern tsr 27 Moulton we continue to benefit from and experience the excellent performance and engineering that is inherent in every Alex Moulton design.

[@W1RRP.Rolls.Royce.Podcast]

Great to hear! If only they weren't so expensive and more people could get to use them! Thanks

[@W1RRP.Rolls.Royce.Podcast]

Another amazing insight from Graham Hull about a fellow iconic engineer / designer - Sir Alex Mouton. Perhaps he is nto so well know now, which is why it is so interesting to hear Graham talk about himand his impact on design in both teh car world and the bike world.

[@alancrisp1582]

😂😅 Great stuff !. I could listen to this man talking about my favorite subject for hours.........................😊

[@W1RRP.Rolls.Royce.Podcast]

Too true, always so informative!

[@defender1006]

Alex Moulton's 1966 Morris Mini Cooper S 1275 Downton GMR 135D, had many modifications to his 'AM's' requirements.

[@W1RRP.Rolls.Royce.Podcast]

Sounds like a man who was always looking to make designs better! :-]

[@larsroth826]

been done before 1895 Dursley Pedersen

[@stevezodiac491]

You may have been a car engineer at Rolls Royce but from a life long racing cyclist's point of view the design of a Moulton is much more inferior to a modern race bike. There is no real need for suspension on such a small light weight vehicle, with a single rider because the pneumatic tyres on modern bikes are quite sufficient on their own along with the spokes on a larger wheel. Moultons 'bob' whilst pedalling, just the same as a mountain bike that also has both front and rear suspension, which isn't efficient at all and alters the natural cadence, for further efficiency losses. Smaller wheels do accelerate and decelerate faster but smaller wheels also do not roll as well and all things considered are not as fast as larger wheels and are twitchy whilst riding, they also as a wheel, don't smooth out road imperfections as well as larger wheels. So the addition of small wheels in bicycle design, nessessitates the need for suspension, that with larger wheels, it negates the need for further suspension, or the extra weight, it's addition would incur. Further, the frame is a round section tubing space frame, round tubes may be good for weight against structural load for some engineering requirements but round tubes are very bad for aerodynamics, add to this the whole space frame gives you as big as a surface area as you could possibly imagine, with the mirriad of triangles and you have got a bicycle frame with possibly the worst aerodynamics of any bike on the road, not withstanding added unessessary weight compared with the alternative double diamond frame, whereas modern day carbon fibre aerofoil shaped tubing on a modern race bike, is the leader in aerodynamic design, within uci constraints. Which is by far of the greatest importance along with the aerodynamics of the rider for going as fast as possible with the available power to propel the bike. The long seat and steerer tube, inherent in the Moulton design, also reduces overall stiffness, which again reduces total efficiency because of flex. The double diamond frame has persisted in bicycle design for one reason, it is the best within the design restraints of a none recumbent bike. So yes, for a bicycle commentator on bicycle design, you are a good car designer and engineer. Don't give up the day job. As far as I can see the Moulton was an answer to a none existent problem, a tour de force of misguided over engineering, just for the sake of it.

[@CarlAshcroft-mb9pp]

Do you know the Moulton holds the bicycle speed record, which I believe still stands to this day?

[@AlienLivesMatter]

Small wheels accelerate faster, have a smaller frontal cross section and climb hills with greater ease. UCI outlawed small wheels on bogus safety concerns.