History of the bicycle
History of the bicycle
No single time or person can be identified with the invention of the bicycle. However, it can probably be asserted that the two most prominent inventions were the dandy horse of Baron Karl von Drais in 1818, and the addition of pedals by either Pierre Lallement or Pierre Michaux in 1863.
The bicycle's earliest known forebears were called velocipedes, and included many types of human-powered vehicles. One of these, the scooter-like dandy horse of the French Comte de Sivrac, dating to 1790, was long cited as the earliest bicycle. Most bicycle historians now believe that these hobby-horses with no steering mechanism probably never existed, but were made up by Louis Baudry de Saunier, a 19th-century French bicycle historian.
The most likely originator of the bicycle concept is German Karl Drais, then still a baron, who designed his 1817 machine to replace starved horses. [1] In January 1818 he patented his draisine or velocipede, a number of which still exist, including one at the Paleis het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. These were pushbikes, powered by the action of the rider's feet pushing against the ground: the need to balance on two wheels met the fears of the unknowing adults of those times who didn't dare to take their feet off the ground. Also Drais had been discouraged in his earlier attempts to create a transmission mechanism, and had by this time come to feel that propulsion by walking or running was more natural. Several other cartwrights also constructed these machines, most notably Denis Johnson of London who patented a "pedestrian curricle or velocipede" in 1819 which was more elegant than the draisine, but had no brake nor front-wheel trail.
Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan may share creative credit with von Drais for adding a treadle drive mechanism, in 1839, that enabled the rider to lift his feet off the ground while driving the rear wheel. However, some reports describe MacMillan's vehicle as more of a "quadricycle", and no documentary evidence has been furnished to prove that his vehicle had 2 wheels.
In the 1850s and 1860s, Frenchman Ernest Michaux and his pupil Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a different direction, placing pedals on an enlarged front wheel; according to bicycle historian David Herlihy, Lallement was the person responsible for first attaching pedals to a dandy-horse, and in his bicycle patent -- the earliest and only one for the pedal-bike -- the drawings of his machine greatly resemble Johnson's "pedestrian curricle". This creation, which came to be called the "Boneshaker", featured a heavy cast iron frame on which they mounted wooden wheels with iron tires.
Lallement emigrated to the United States, where he recorded a patent on his bicycle in 1866 in New Haven, Connecticut. The Olivier brothers formed a partnership with Michaux in Paris to create the first bicycle manufacturing company. When cast-iron proved to be too weak, the frame was redesigned as a single diagonal piece of wrought iron. The first bicycle craze swept Europe and the USA in 1868 and 1869, but then quickly faded due to bans (Herlihy p.120) everywhere except England, which became the site of the next series of improvements to its design.
The Boneshaker was further refined by James Starley in the 1870s. His "Ariel" model mounted the seat more squarely over the pedals, so that the rider could push more firmly, and further enlarged the front wheel to increase the potential for speed. With tires of solid rubber, his machine became known as the ordinary. British cyclists later likened the disparity in size of the two wheels to their coinage, nicknaming it the penny-farthing. The primitive bicycles of this generation were difficult to ride, and the high seat and poor weight distribution made for dangerous falls. The "ordinary" continued to increase in popularity in the UK, and became known more and more throughout Europe during the 1870s. In 1878, Albert Pope introduced his "Columbia" high-wheeler in America, and the bicycle continued to increase in popularity all over the world.
The subsequent dwarf ordinary addressed some of the ordinary's faults, by adding gearing, reducing the front wheel diameter, and setting the seat further back with no loss of speed. Having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Starley's nephew, J. K. Starley, J. H. Lawson, and Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain and producing rear-wheel drive. These models were known as dwarf safeties, or safety bicycles, for their lower seat height and better weight distribution. Starley's 1885 "Rover" is usually described as the first recognizably modern bicycle. Soon the seat tube was added, creating the double-triangle, diamond frame of the modern bike.
While the Starley design was much safer, the return to smaller wheels made for a bumpy ride. The next innovations increased comfort and ushered in the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. In 1888 Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop introduced the pneumatic tire, which soon became universal. Shortly thereafter the rear freewheel was developed, enabling the rider to coast without the pedals spinning out of control. This refinement led to the 1898 invention of coaster brakes. Derailleur gears and hand-operated, cable-pull brakes were also developed during these years, but were only slowly adopted by casual riders. By the turn of the century, bicycling clubs flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, and touring and racing were soon the rage.
Successful early bicycle manufacturers included Englishman Frank Bowden and German builder Ignaz Schwinn. Bowden started the Raleigh company in Nottingham in the 1890s, and soon was producing some 30,000 bicycles a year. Schwinn emigrated to the United States, where he founded his similarly successful company in Chicago in 1895. Schwinn bicycles soon featured widened tires and spring-cushioned, padded seats, sacrificing some efficiency for increased comfort. Facilitated by connections between European nations and their overseas colonies, European-style bicycles were soon available worldwide. By the mid-20th century bicycles had become the primary means of transportation for millions of people around the globe.
In many western countries the use of bicycles levelled off or declined, as motorized transportation became affordable and car-centred policies led to an increasingly hostile road environment for bicycles. In North America, bicycle sales declined markedly after 1905, to the point where by the 1940s, they had largely been relegated to the role of children's toys. In other parts of the world however, such as China, India, and European countries such as Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, the traditional utility bicycle remained a mainstay of transportation, its design only gradually changing to incorporate hand-operated brakes and internal hub gears allowing up to seven speeds. In the Netherlands, such so-called 'granny bikes' have remained popular, and are again in production. Especially in Amsterdam they are often colourfully painted and/or otherwise decorated.
North America, increasing consciousness of physical fitness and environmental preservation spawned a renaissance of bicycling in the late 1960s. Bicycle sales in the United States boomed, especially after the 1973 oil crisis, largely in the form of the racing bicycles long used in such events as the hugely popular Tour de France. Sales were also helped by a number of technical innovations that were new to the US market, including higher performance steel alloys and gearsets with an increasing number of gears. While 10-speeds were the rage in the 1970s, 12-speed designs were introduced in the 1980s, and today most bikes feature 18 or more speeds. By the 1980s these newer designs had driven the three-speed bicycle from the roads. In the late 1980s the mountain bike became particularly popular, and in the 1990s something of a major fad. These task-specific designs led many American recreational cyclists to demand a more comfortable and practical product. Manufacturers responded with the hybrid bicycle, which restored many of the features long enjoyed by riders of the time-tested European utility bikes.
No single time or person can be identified with the invention of the bicycle. However, it can probably be asserted that the two most prominent inventions were the dandy horse of Baron Karl von Drais in 1818, and the addition of pedals by either Pierre Lallement or Pierre Michaux in 1863.
The bicycle's earliest known forebears were called velocipedes, and included many types of human-powered vehicles. One of these, the scooter-like dandy horse of the French Comte de Sivrac, dating to 1790, was long cited as the earliest bicycle. Most bicycle historians now believe that these hobby-horses with no steering mechanism probably never existed, but were made up by Louis Baudry de Saunier, a 19th-century French bicycle historian.
The most likely originator of the bicycle concept is German Karl Drais, then still a baron, who designed his 1817 machine to replace starved horses. [1] In January 1818 he patented his draisine or velocipede, a number of which still exist, including one at the Paleis het Loo museum in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. These were pushbikes, powered by the action of the rider's feet pushing against the ground: the need to balance on two wheels met the fears of the unknowing adults of those times who didn't dare to take their feet off the ground. Also Drais had been discouraged in his earlier attempts to create a transmission mechanism, and had by this time come to feel that propulsion by walking or running was more natural. Several other cartwrights also constructed these machines, most notably Denis Johnson of London who patented a "pedestrian curricle or velocipede" in 1819 which was more elegant than the draisine, but had no brake nor front-wheel trail.
Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick MacMillan may share creative credit with von Drais for adding a treadle drive mechanism, in 1839, that enabled the rider to lift his feet off the ground while driving the rear wheel. However, some reports describe MacMillan's vehicle as more of a "quadricycle", and no documentary evidence has been furnished to prove that his vehicle had 2 wheels.
In the 1850s and 1860s, Frenchman Ernest Michaux and his pupil Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a different direction, placing pedals on an enlarged front wheel; according to bicycle historian David Herlihy, Lallement was the person responsible for first attaching pedals to a dandy-horse, and in his bicycle patent -- the earliest and only one for the pedal-bike -- the drawings of his machine greatly resemble Johnson's "pedestrian curricle". This creation, which came to be called the "Boneshaker", featured a heavy cast iron frame on which they mounted wooden wheels with iron tires.
Lallement emigrated to the United States, where he recorded a patent on his bicycle in 1866 in New Haven, Connecticut. The Olivier brothers formed a partnership with Michaux in Paris to create the first bicycle manufacturing company. When cast-iron proved to be too weak, the frame was redesigned as a single diagonal piece of wrought iron. The first bicycle craze swept Europe and the USA in 1868 and 1869, but then quickly faded due to bans (Herlihy p.120) everywhere except England, which became the site of the next series of improvements to its design.
The Boneshaker was further refined by James Starley in the 1870s. His "Ariel" model mounted the seat more squarely over the pedals, so that the rider could push more firmly, and further enlarged the front wheel to increase the potential for speed. With tires of solid rubber, his machine became known as the ordinary. British cyclists later likened the disparity in size of the two wheels to their coinage, nicknaming it the penny-farthing. The primitive bicycles of this generation were difficult to ride, and the high seat and poor weight distribution made for dangerous falls. The "ordinary" continued to increase in popularity in the UK, and became known more and more throughout Europe during the 1870s. In 1878, Albert Pope introduced his "Columbia" high-wheeler in America, and the bicycle continued to increase in popularity all over the world.
The subsequent dwarf ordinary addressed some of the ordinary's faults, by adding gearing, reducing the front wheel diameter, and setting the seat further back with no loss of speed. Having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Starley's nephew, J. K. Starley, J. H. Lawson, and Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain and producing rear-wheel drive. These models were known as dwarf safeties, or safety bicycles, for their lower seat height and better weight distribution. Starley's 1885 "Rover" is usually described as the first recognizably modern bicycle. Soon the seat tube was added, creating the double-triangle, diamond frame of the modern bike.
While the Starley design was much safer, the return to smaller wheels made for a bumpy ride. The next innovations increased comfort and ushered in the 1890s Golden Age of Bicycles. In 1888 Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop introduced the pneumatic tire, which soon became universal. Shortly thereafter the rear freewheel was developed, enabling the rider to coast without the pedals spinning out of control. This refinement led to the 1898 invention of coaster brakes. Derailleur gears and hand-operated, cable-pull brakes were also developed during these years, but were only slowly adopted by casual riders. By the turn of the century, bicycling clubs flourished on both sides of the Atlantic, and touring and racing were soon the rage.
Successful early bicycle manufacturers included Englishman Frank Bowden and German builder Ignaz Schwinn. Bowden started the Raleigh company in Nottingham in the 1890s, and soon was producing some 30,000 bicycles a year. Schwinn emigrated to the United States, where he founded his similarly successful company in Chicago in 1895. Schwinn bicycles soon featured widened tires and spring-cushioned, padded seats, sacrificing some efficiency for increased comfort. Facilitated by connections between European nations and their overseas colonies, European-style bicycles were soon available worldwide. By the mid-20th century bicycles had become the primary means of transportation for millions of people around the globe.
In many western countries the use of bicycles levelled off or declined, as motorized transportation became affordable and car-centred policies led to an increasingly hostile road environment for bicycles. In North America, bicycle sales declined markedly after 1905, to the point where by the 1940s, they had largely been relegated to the role of children's toys. In other parts of the world however, such as China, India, and European countries such as Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands, the traditional utility bicycle remained a mainstay of transportation, its design only gradually changing to incorporate hand-operated brakes and internal hub gears allowing up to seven speeds. In the Netherlands, such so-called 'granny bikes' have remained popular, and are again in production. Especially in Amsterdam they are often colourfully painted and/or otherwise decorated.
North America, increasing consciousness of physical fitness and environmental preservation spawned a renaissance of bicycling in the late 1960s. Bicycle sales in the United States boomed, especially after the 1973 oil crisis, largely in the form of the racing bicycles long used in such events as the hugely popular Tour de France. Sales were also helped by a number of technical innovations that were new to the US market, including higher performance steel alloys and gearsets with an increasing number of gears. While 10-speeds were the rage in the 1970s, 12-speed designs were introduced in the 1980s, and today most bikes feature 18 or more speeds. By the 1980s these newer designs had driven the three-speed bicycle from the roads. In the late 1980s the mountain bike became particularly popular, and in the 1990s something of a major fad. These task-specific designs led many American recreational cyclists to demand a more comfortable and practical product. Manufacturers responded with the hybrid bicycle, which restored many of the features long enjoyed by riders of the time-tested European utility bikes.
posted by harbail | 2:53 AM
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