THE BICYCLE

The bicycle, a simple, affordable, clean and environmentally fit sustainable means
of transportation. It would seem, that the bicycle, as well as many other inventions,
has taken part since forever from the technological inventory of the humanity.
However, this vehicle has just less than 200 years of existence.

The Laufmaschine

In the terrible European summer of 1816, volcanic ash clouded the sun and snowfalls
killed the crops. The titanic eruption of Mount Tambora in far-off Indonesia had
plunged the whole world into a frigid gloom. In Germany, horses were slaughtered
for the food they could provide and the prolific inventor Karl Drais of Karlsruhe in the
south-west of the country turned his mind to an alternative.

In 1817, we had the Laufmaschine (running machine) – which became known as the
Draisine – a transport solution that has gone on to become today’s bicycle and
provide cheap mobility, independence and freedom to millions of people around the
world.

Drais wasn’t the first to put two wheels in series, but he added steering and the
concept of the bicycle was launched.

His design was feted in Paris and soon there was the ‘velocipede’ and the many
‘hobby horse’ variations that became the mobility fad of their time. These in turn
sparked clever minds to devise the improvements that have continued to this day.

Pedals were added in 1864 in the Paris workshop of carriage maker Pierre Michaux
and the fad took off again. These bicycles were known as improved velocipedes, or
popularly called ‘boneshakers’ for their rough ride.

The need for speed spawned the Penny Farthing in 1870, whose wheel size
determined the ‘gearing’ of the bike. The longer your leg, the higher the ‘gear’ you
could push and the faster you could go. Riders of these machines were on occasion
called ‘scorchers’ for burning along the roads and paths, striking terror into
pedestrians and horse riders.

Pneumatic tyres

It is inconceivable in the modern age, but there was a time when cyclists rolled – or
rather bumped – around on what were little more than refined wagon wheels with
iron bands wrapped around wooden wheels.

Solid rubber would replace metal, but progress really began when John Dunlop
designed a pneumatic tyre to be filled with air in 1887. His Dunlop Tyre Co soon
followed and the world’s cyclists thanked him as increased speed and comfort
became the norm.

Across the English Channel, one Édouard Michelin came up with the idea of the
removable tyre in 1891 that would allow for the removal and repair of a separate
inner tube. The clincher tyre most of us ride today was effectively born.

Quick-release skewers

When Italian racing cyclist Tullio Campagnolo found himself struggling in a race in
the cold back in 1927 after being unable to remove his rear wheel due to numb
hands, he vowed to come up with a better system than wingnuts for holding the
wheel in place.

Three years later he had designed the quick-release skewer. The original design
was not much different to the ones we use today: a steel skewer through a hollow
axle with a nut at one end and a cam lever at the other.

Aluminium wheel rims

Just as steel frames were replaced with aluminium frames for a reduction in weight,
so too were steel rims on bike wheels replaced with the lighter metal – a
technological revolution introduced by Mavic with its Duralumin rims in the 30s.

STI levers

The arrival of Shimano’s STI (Shimano Total Integration) system in 1990 heralded
one of the most fundamental changes in race bike design we have ever seen.

The passing years have added a sepia-tinged sheen to the days of down-tube
shifting, but the reality is that the birth of integrated braking and shifting levers
changed the way we ride for the better.

A new century

In the early twentieth century the bicycle was credited for enabling perhaps the
greatest scientific innovation of the century. It was while riding his bicycle, Albert
Einstein says, that he conceived his General Theory of Relativity. Now that’s an
insight that has virtually added an extra dimension to our understanding of the
universe. What other great realisations can this machine deliver?

The bicycle continues to be a vehicle of independence, enterprise and health for the
developing world. A bicycle allows access to health care, education and the wider
community and its affordable transportation is an economic opportunity because a
bike means you can travel twice as far, twice as fast and carry four times the load.
Today, far from being replaced by motor vehicles, bicycles remain vital as a tool to
combat the lifestyle diseases that are making us sick and sad in larger and larger
numbers in the developed world. For healthy recreation and, most effectively, for
active transport, every person benefits from a bicycle at their disposal.

REFERENCES
History of the bike. (2018, May 28). Bicycle Network.
https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/tips-resources/inspiration/history-of-the-bike/
Portus, S. (2021, June 10). Game changers. BikeRadar.
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/cycling-innovations/
TECNOLOGÍA: LA BICICLETA. HISTORIA Y EVOLUCIÓN. (n.d.). Natureduca.com.
Retrieved June 17, 2023, from https://natureduca.com/blog/tecnologia-la-
bicicleta-historia-y-evolucion/
United Nations. (n.d.). World bicycle day | united nations. Retrieved June 17, 2023,
from https://www.un.org/en/observances/bicycle-day