The Origin Of Bicycle tells the fascinating, entertaining & extraordinary story behind the Bicycles all around us. Your questions like Who invented Bicycle or Who invented Modern Bicycle will be answered here. In addition to that, I am giving here with all the updates about Bicycle accessories, Bicycle prices, and Bicycle gadgets also.
Who invented First Bicycle?
A bicycle is a simple machine but its design is not perfect. In fact the development of this “ Iron Horse” which enabled thousands of ordinary men & women to escape from the dust of Victorian towns & discover the joys of countryside occupied most of the 19th century,
The first person who realizes that it was possible to construct a balanced two-wheeled vehicle was Baron Karl Drais on Sauerbronn, a German Engineer who showed his wooden design in 1817 in Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens. The following year an English coach-maker, Dennis Johnson, copied the design to produce an iron model.
More than two decades later, a Scottish blacksmith called Kickpatrick Macmillan developed swinging pedals that operated cranks driving the vehicle’s rear wheel. But his design failed to catch on & the next breakthrough did not occur until 1861 when the French coachbuilder Pierre Michaux & his son Ernest produced a “ velocipede” named from the Latin for “swift-footed” . The large front wheel had revolving pedals attached to its hub, while a simple break acted as a control on the rear wheel.
Big Wheels
With this principle of construction the bigger the front wheel farther the velocipede could travel for each turn of the pedals. The concept was taken to an extreme by James Starlet, foreman at the Sewing Machine Co. of Coventry. His 1870 model had the rider touching the ground dangerously on a wheel measuring up to 1.5 meters ( 5 Feet ) across, with a miniature rear wheel trailing behind. Nicknamed the penny-farthing from the sizes of the wheels, it created the first cycling boom. Tricycle versions were made for those of a nervous disposition & for women, who found it hard to manage with their long skirts.
The horse that never says ‘No” as the penny-farthing was dubbed in the USA was used for outing, racing & a round-the-world trip. The adventurer Thomas Stevens set off on his machine from California in April 1884 & covered 21,725 km before returning in December 1886. By this time, the penny-farthing’s popularity was being challenged by the Rover ‘safety’ bicycle, which was produced in 1885 by John Kemp Stanley. James Stanley’s nephew, The Rover laid the foundations for the modern bicycle: two wheels of equal diameter, with the rear one driven by a chain that was turned by pedals set between the wheels & a diamond shaped steel frame.
The first element was the pneumatic tire – an instant hit on its launch in 1888 when it was advertised with the boast “ vibration impossible”. With the application of gears, developed in France in 1880 to minimize the effort needed to pedal over varied gradients & terrains ‘ bone shakers ‘ were things of the past.
The bicycle also played a part in loosening women’s clothing. In the late 19th
century some female cyclist adopted loose trousers gathered at the ankle, named “ bloomers” after their advocate Amelia Jenks Bloomer of New York. Cycle racing began in 1868 with the Englishman James Moore winning a track race at the Park St. Cloud in Paris. He won the first road race a 134 km trek between Paris & Rouen, the following year.
A SOFTER RIDE
One Day in 1887 the Irish vet John Boyd Dunlop watched his son Johnnie bounce uncomfortably on a tricycle. Dunlop fashioned a tire from a garden hose, filling it with water. He improved the design by using rubber inflated with air. The pneumatic tire was a great success but the idea was not new – the civil engineer Robert Thompson had first patented it in 1845.
MOTORCYCLES START UP
The bicycle is the most fuel-efficient mode of transportation yet invented but the cyclist cannot escape the necessity of exerting muscle power. In 1868 just a few years after they had developed their rotary pedal velocipede, Pierre & Ernest Michaux attempted to resolve this drawback by attaching a small steam engine to its rear.
However, the first bicycle powered by petrol engine was built in 1885 by the German engineer Gottlish Daimler whose main attention was focused on the invention of the motor car. The motorcycle acquired its classic layout, an engine low in the frame midway between the wheels & controlled by twist grips on the handlebars, at the instigation of two Paris journalists, the brothers Eugene & Michel Werner. Their motocyclette was exhibited at the 1897 Paris Salon.
Development of the motorcycle was rapid, & was accelerated considerably by the establishment of such races as the Tourist Trophy (TT), first held on public roads on the Isle of Man in 1907.
At the first motorcycle race, a 152km course from Paris to Nantes & back organized by the Automobile Club de France 1896, all but one of the competitor’s road three-wheeled models. But the two-wheeled variant soon proved best for maneuverability & the invention of the sidecar in 1903 by a W.G. Graham killed off the strikes, which had often been built for more than one person.
In the early 1950s, the NSU company in Germany produced mopeds, small-engined machines started by pedaling. Motor scooters, which had more powerful engines & ‘skirts’ around the front the front to provide protection from the weather, had first appeared in Italy in 1946 when the Piaggio company introduced its Vespa. The Lambretta was launched by a rival company in 1947. By the 1960s ‘ mods ‘ who favored scooters & ‘ rockers ‘, who preferred motorcycles had become distinct & often violently opposed, youth groups in Britain.
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