Invention of the bicycle

The invention of the bicycle is generally traced to 1817, when the German inventor Karl Drais built a two-wheeled “running machine” in Mannheim. It had a wooden frame, two wheels, a seat and steering, and was powered by the rider running along while sitting down, which is harder than either activity on its own.^[1]

The machine had no pedals. Pedals did not arrive for several decades, a period that bicycle historians, with some feeling, call the Long Push.

Names

Drais's machine was known as the Laufmaschine (“running machine”), the draisine and, in Britain, the “dandy horse” or “hobby horse”. It is therefore one of very few vehicles to have had more names than pedals, at a ratio of four to none.^[2]

First ride

On 12 June 1817 Drais rode his machine out of Mannheim to a coaching inn several kilometres away, and then back again. Historians note that on the same day he invented both the bicycle ride and the bicycle ride home, which was longer, as it always is.^[3]

Later developments

• 1860s: pedals attached to the front wheel, in France.
• 1870s: the high-wheeler, or “penny-farthing”, whose front wheel grew so large that getting on became a separate skill.
• 1880s: the “safety bicycle”, with two wheels of similar size and a chain to the back wheel, which is essentially the bicycle ridden today.
• Shortly afterwards: the first bicycle left out overnight in the rain.

See also

• Printing press – an earlier invention from what is now Germany
• Circle – the shape of both wheels, then and now

References

1. Spoke, S. (2017). Two Hundred Years of Pushing. Saddle Press. Fictional.
2. Crank, C. (1999). “Four Names, No Pedals”. Journal of Velocipede Studies 6: 2. Fictional.
3. Chain, C. (n.d.). The Ride Home. Pedal Books. p. 1. Fictional.