V is for Velodromatics

I bought this at the weekend from Adrian at Mercator Trading and it's brilliant!

I guess it's probably French, most cycling toys are, and while it looks like the Britains one, it also looks like several other ones! I think the rider's posed most like the Britains one, although the hats wrong however and pose is where the similarities end as . . .

. . . this chap is articulated, and attached to a offset-cam wheel mechanism which forces the raider to pedal furiously as you push the bike across a smooth by slightly gripping surface - shiny kitchen worktops don't cut it!

Also of interest is the juxtaposition of materials, metal handlebars, clipped to a - possibly - polypropylene frame with a hard styrene rider - everything then held together by the glue on his hands. 

Close-ups of the mechanisms by which the rider pedals, and you don't want to know how he's fixed to the frame, but we Brits killed a king with a similar novelty - ouch!

Briefer than I'd like today as my Britains cyclists are in storage (and not a great sample!) so I can't expand with comparison-shots and such like, so I've also added a pistol to the jig-toy page and another figurine to the Goebel 'Mainzelmännchen' post.