Two wheels: the invention of the bicycle
AThe bicycle did not arrive as a single invention but developed over most of the nineteenth century. Its first ancestor appeared in 1817, when the German inventor Karl von Drais demonstrated a wooden ‘running machine’ in Mannheim. It had two wheels in a line and a handlebar for steering, but no pedals: riders pushed themselves along with their feet. For a short time the machine was fashionable, yet it was heavy, and riding it on rough roads was uncomfortable.
BPedals arrived in the 1860s, when makers in France attached them directly to the front wheel. Because each turn of the pedals produced one turn of the wheel, the only way to go faster was to make the front wheel larger. This logic led to the ‘high-wheeler’, later nicknamed the penny-farthing in Britain, with a front wheel that could be well over a metre high. It was fast, but the rider sat so high that a sudden stop could throw them over the handlebars.
CThe decisive change came in the 1880s with the ‘safety bicycle’. A chain linked the pedals to the rear wheel, and gears allowed small wheels to turn quickly, so both wheels could be of similar, moderate size. Riders sat lower and could put their feet on the ground. When air-filled rubber tyres were introduced at the end of the decade, journeys became far more comfortable, and the basic shape of the bicycle has changed surprisingly little since.
DCheap, reliable bicycles had social effects that went well beyond transport. They allowed working people to travel further to find jobs and to leave crowded cities at weekends. Many historians also link cycling to changing attitudes towards women’s independence, since a bicycle gave women a way to travel alone, and practical clothing for cycling became more acceptable.