Bicycles | Can’t Sleep? Take a Ride Through Cycling History

Benjamin Boster (0:01)

Welcome to the I Can't Sleep Podcast, where I help you drift off one fact at a time. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster, and today's episode is about bicycles.

Thank you, Heidi Hardig, for sponsoring today's episode. She wants to say, Happy Birthday to my Steve.

Happy Birthday. Happy Birthday, Benjamin Boster. or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist or bicyclist. The bicycle was invented in Europe in the 19th century. By the early 21st century, there were more than one billion bicycles. Bicycles are the principal means of transport in many regions. They are also popular for recreation, and have been adapted to use as children's toys. Bicycles are used for commuting, shopping, fitness, military, and police applications, courier services, bicycle racing, and artistic cycling. The basic shape and configuration of a typical upright or safety bicycle has changed little since the first chain-driven model was developed around 1885 However, many details have been improved, especially since the advent of modern materials and computer-aided design. These have allowed for a proliferation of specialized designs for many types of cycling. In the 21st century, electric bicycles have become popular. The bicycle's invention has had an enormous effect on society. Both in terms of culture and of advancing modern industrial methods. Several components that played a key role in the development of the car were initially invented for use in the bicycle, including ball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain-driven sprockets, and tension-spoked wheels.

The dandy horse, also called Dresdien, or Laufmaschine, running machine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels in tandem, and was invented by the German baron Karl von Dreis. It is regarded as the first bicycle, and von Dreis is seen as the father of the bicycle. But it did not have pedals. Von Dreis introduced it to the public in Mannheim in 1817, and in Paris in 1818 The riders sat astride a wooden frame, supported by two in-line wheels, and pushed the vehicle along with their feet while steering the front wheel.

The first mechanically-propelled two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick Macmillan, the Scottish blacksmith in 1839, although his claim is often disputed. In the early 1860s, the Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lamont took bicycle design in a new direction by adding a mechanical crank drive with pedals on an enlarged front wheel, the Velocipede. This was the first in mass production. Another French inventor named Douglas Grasseau had a failed prototype of Pierre Lamont's bicycle several years earlier. Several inventions followed using rear wheel drive, the best known being the rod-driven Velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869 In the same year, bicycle wheels with wire spokes were patented by Eugène Meyer of Paris. The French Velocipede, made of iron and wood, developed into the penny farthing, historically known as an ordinary bicycle, a retronym since there was then no other kind. It featured a tubular steel frame on which were mounted wire-spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. These bicycles were difficult to mount, dismount and break, due to their high seat over the large front wheel. In 1869, Roelly Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry sewing machine company, which soon became the Coventry Machinist Company, brought a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England. His uncle Josiah Turner and business partner James Starley used this as a basis for the Coventry model in what became Britain's first cycle factory.

The dwarf Ordinary addressed some of these faults by reducing the front wheel diameter and setting the seat further back. This, in turn, required gearing, affected in a variety of ways, to efficiently use pedal power. Having to both pedal and steer via the front wheel remained a problem. Lawson and Shergold solved this problem by introducing the chain drive, originated by the unsuccessful bicyclette of Englishman Henry Lawson, connecting the frame-mounted cranks to the rear wheel. These models were known as safety bicycles, dwarf safeties, or upright bicycles for their lower seat height. Although without pneumatic tires, the ride of the smaller wheeled bicycle would be much rougher than that of the larger wheeled variety. Starley's 1885 Rover, manufactured in Coventry, is usually described as the first recognizable modern bicycle. Soon, the seat tube was added, which created the modern bike's double-triangle diamond frame.

Further innovations increased comfort and pressure in a second bicycle craze, the 1890s golden age of bicycles. In 1888, Scotsman John Boyd Dunlop introduced the first practical pneumatic tire, which soon became universal. Willie Hume demonstrated the supremacy of Dunlop's tires in 1889, winning the tires' first ever races in Ireland and then England. Soon after, the rear freewheel was developed, enabling the rider to coast. This refinement led to the 1890s invention of coaster brakes. Derailleur gears and hand-operated Bowden cable pole brakes were also developed during these years. But were only slowly adopted by casual riders.