Cycling history

It has been a long journey from rolling boulders and tree trunks around, to gliding about, feet off the ground, on a couple of wheels held together by a neat little collection of sticks in triangles.

Developing the balancing act

For thousands of years we transported ourselves and our few tools using the most efficient machine of all: our bodies and a pair of shoes. No-one knows how we first thought of balancing on two wheels Maybe someone noticed how a child's play hoop stays upright, and how skaters could cross lakes by balancing on sharpened deer antlers.

Two Wheels Good

Perhaps the inventor of the bicycle was Baron von Drais, in Germany, around 1820. He was Master of the Forests, and used his 'running machine' to inspect his forests, and to get from town to town more quickly. He realised that a single steerable front wheel made it possible to balance. He did not think of pedals: the rider pushed against the ground with his feet. No-one understood how good his bike was, and he died very poor.

Ready for take-off

Along came the pedal. French inventors put pedals into the front wheel, like on modern bikes for very small children. In France they were called velocipedes. We call them boneshakers today. Each time you turned the pedals round once, the wheel went round once. So people quickly realised that if you make the wheel bigger, you went further along the road with each turn of the pedals. You went the same distance down the road as the CIRCUMFERENCE of the wheel. As time went on, those front wheels got bigger and bigger. Bikes with very large front wheels were called high bicycles. We now call them penny farthings. They were quite dangerous machines, since you were sitting very high up above the wheel, and could go flying over the top if your front wheel hit a rock or a hole in the road.

The chain arrives

In 1885 James Starley, who made bicycles in Coventry, had the bright idea of having pedals between the two wheels, with a chain going to the rear wheel: just like on your bike today. This meant the end of the enormous front wheel. Suddenly bikes were safer, and easier to ride. Almost everyone could learn to cycle, if they could afford a bike: they were very expensive. The bike chain also meant that you could have gearing, by changing the size of the two rings which the chain connects. By 1890, air-filled (pneumatic tyres) were fitted to bikes, which made them much more comfortable, and allowed you to go a lot faster.

Bicycles allowed people to travel to distant villages and meet new people. It allowed millions to travel to work cheaply and independently. It allowed women to take more control of their lives: they went cycling without men to accompany them. The bicycle, and the tricycle, became part of people’s work: carrying letters, parcels, shop deliveries, and factory goods.

It allowed people to travel afar, discovering the world at a sociable pace, passing through crowded cities, distant communities and unvisited countryside. Harming no-one, damaging nothing.

The bicycle is a human-scale miracle machine, and the adventure of pedal power has only just begun!