{"id":1417,"date":"2019-03-31T14:12:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T14:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1417"},"modified":"2019-03-31T14:12:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T14:12:27","slug":"national-backup-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1417","title":{"rendered":"National Backup Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was very excited to learn that today, March 31, is National Backup Day. I thought, what a great subject for my blog. When I think about cars, I think about the Model T, built by Henry Ford. We all know it was the first car made that was affordable to \u201caverage\u201d people \u2014 not just the rich. But the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford wasn\u2019t the Model T, it was the Ford Quadricycle. The Quadricycle was just a frame, powered by an engine that burned ethanol \u2014 four bicycle wheels were mounted on it. It was driven by a chain \u2014 the transmission had only two gears, first and second. It did NOT<\/em> have a reverse gear. I think you can see where this story on National Backup Day is going\u2026 The success of the Quadricycle led to the founding of the Henry Ford Company and later the Ford Motor Company (in 1903.) But back to the Quadricycle and backing up.<\/p>\n

The first 800 Quadricycles actually produced for sale could<\/em> back up and were put in reverse with a lever. All units produced after that put the vehicle in reverse using a pedal between the clutch and brake pedals. The middle peddle was used to engage the reverse gear when the car was in neutral. After the Quadricycle, Ford went on to produce the famous Model T. Its transmission was a planetary gear type that was billed as \u201cthree speed,\u201d but in today\u2019s terms it would be considered a two-speed, because one of the three \u201cspeeds\u201d was reverse<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re probably wondering what\u2019s the fastest anyone has ever driven backwards\u2026 well, a few years ago, a stunt driver named Terry Grant drove a Nissan Leaf (really!) backwards over a course about three miles long and and averaged about 55 mph \u2014 in reverse. If you think that\u2019s impressive, in Germany, Marco Hellgrewe drove a truck backwards for 39.7 miles in 5 hours and 21 minutes.<\/p>\n

I know by now you\u2019re as excited as I am about back up day, but after putting together all this fascinating data, I\u2019ve been told that National Backup Day doesn\u2019t have anything to do with going backwards \u2014 it\u2019s a day that everyone is supposed to make a copy of all their data on their computers. To say I\u2019m a little bummed would be an understatement. I think a day dedicated to backing up should be about\u2026. backing up.
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very excited to learn that today, March 31, is National Backup Day. I thought, what a great subject for my blog. When I think about cars, I think about the Model T, built by Henry Ford. We all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}