Who invented the bicycle

Who Invented the Bicycle?

For most people, the bicycle is the vehicle of choice if you can’t drive a car. Many people don’t know who invented this marvellous machine, though.

Most historians trace its origin back to 1817, when a German aristocrat called Karl von Drais invented a two-wheeled wooden machine that propelled riders with their feet. This invention became popular in England and France and became known as the velocipede. Unfortunately, the machine was soon banned as it became a hazard to pedestrians and was rarely seen after the early 1820s.

Things were quiet for decades, but the bicycle pedals were eventually introduced in 1963 in Paris by Pierre Michaux. It is unclear whether he or his employee, Pierre Lallement should be given credit for the innovation. Lallement moved to the United States, where he patented the idea in 1866. The machines started to be called bicycles by 1869, but many people referred to them as “bone shakers”, which described their clunky movement due to the fact that they had a heavy wooden frame and steel wheels.

In the 1870s brought about the new “ordinary” bicycles, with one big wheel at the front and a small one at the back. The main flaw with these was that they had bad breaking, as the rider could fly off the front with the momentum. Eventually, the English inventor John Kemp Starley designed a "safety bicycle" with two small wheels of equal size, a chain drive, and a set of gears. With the added in pneumatic tyres and better braking system, the bicycle sales and production skyrocketed. Over one million bicycles were created by 1899.