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One of the great wonders of human history is how the humble bicycle was not invented until the 19th century, while the basic principle — a two-wheeled vehicle — was created 5,000 years beforehand. That's a very long R&D gap.
It took the greatest natural catastrophe in civilization to finally spur the leap from cart and chariot to the bicycle — the explosion of Tambora (Indonesia) in 1815.
The largest recorded volcanic eruption, Tambora killed 71,000 people directly and created a “volcanic winter” in 1816, the “year without a summer,” resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century.
Crops failed and livestock starved across the Northern Hemisphere. Not only the food supply, but also Europe's whole transportation network was devastated.
This led a German civil servant, Karl von Drais, to think of a mechanical replacement for the horse. Patented in 1817, his design was basically a load carrier: Two wheels hitched inline to a wooden plank which the rider straddled and propelled by walking or running while pushing and steering with the handlebars. Soon they were used for recreation also and became known as “speedwalkers.”
Karl von Drais' brainchild evolved into the “velocipede,” with saddle and pedals added to the front wheel. In London, it was scoffingly known as the “hobby horse” or “dandy horse,” after a children's toy and the rich dandies who mostly rode them.
The most well known was the “penny farthing,” named after a large coin next to a very small coin, which is what this dangerous contraption resembled. Capable of great speed with its huge front wheel — if you were able to actually mount the thing and get it going — it was just as difficult to stop safely. Many ended up crippled or worse.
Incredibly, however, an English adventurer, Thomas Stevens, traveled around the world on this death trap, beginning in 1884. He carried a .38 revolver and clothes and gear strapped to the long curving spine of his penny-farthing. He was a guest of honor of the Shah, hounded by bandits and bureaucrats in other regions, but he made it, with a few steamship detours, without breaking his neck.
After the “safety bicycle” was invented — the design we know now, with two equal-sized wheels — it soon became a factor in social progress, especially in the suffragette movement, giving women unprecedented mobility in their shocking “bloomers.”
Susan B. Anthony said: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
In 1895, a Latvian immigrant to America, Annie Londonderry, became the first woman to cycle around the world on a 21-pound “men's” bike. Unlike Amelia Earhart (or Magellan), she made it. Restricting mobility is the first principle of any kind of oppression; witness the Saudis and their absurd restriction on women driving.
The bicycle, too, enabled a “children's revolution” — kids were free to escape their elders' gaze, ride down to that far creek under the willow trees and plant their first kiss, read naughty magazines, or smoke their first cigarette. Let freedom ring!
In the '70s, the BMX bike was developed, enabling daredevil teenagers to go further from the paved neighborhood and test their agility in dangerous stunts. A decade later, the adults were inspired by this frolic to come up with the mountain bike and experience an early second childhood with even more dangerous stunts.
There is one more revolution the bicycle is well suited for: Liberating us from our extravagantly expensive, crippling, violent dependence on foreign oil. Fifty-seven percent of our oil consumed is imported. Transportation accounts for 27% of our total energy consumption, and 19% of family budgets.
If more of us cycled regularly — not only for recreation but also for commuting, shopping and general mobility — it would lower demand for energy (and thus lower prices) and help balance our budgets, while promoting a healthier population and reducing skyrocketing health care costs. That's really a win-win all around.
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Part 2 of Kelly's “Bicycle liberation” continues on these pages July 29.
Travis Kelly is a web/graphic designer, cartoonist and writer who recently relocated to Grand Junction from Moab.
It took the greatest natural catastrophe in civilization to finally spur the leap from cart and chariot to the bicycle — the explosion of Tambora (Indonesia) in 1815.
The largest recorded volcanic eruption, Tambora killed 71,000 people directly and created a “volcanic winter” in 1816, the “year without a summer,” resulting in the worst famine of the 19th century.
Crops failed and livestock starved across the Northern Hemisphere. Not only the food supply, but also Europe's whole transportation network was devastated.
This led a German civil servant, Karl von Drais, to think of a mechanical replacement for the horse. Patented in 1817, his design was basically a load carrier: Two wheels hitched inline to a wooden plank which the rider straddled and propelled by walking or running while pushing and steering with the handlebars. Soon they were used for recreation also and became known as “speedwalkers.”
Karl von Drais' brainchild evolved into the “velocipede,” with saddle and pedals added to the front wheel. In London, it was scoffingly known as the “hobby horse” or “dandy horse,” after a children's toy and the rich dandies who mostly rode them.
The most well known was the “penny farthing,” named after a large coin next to a very small coin, which is what this dangerous contraption resembled. Capable of great speed with its huge front wheel — if you were able to actually mount the thing and get it going — it was just as difficult to stop safely. Many ended up crippled or worse.
Incredibly, however, an English adventurer, Thomas Stevens, traveled around the world on this death trap, beginning in 1884. He carried a .38 revolver and clothes and gear strapped to the long curving spine of his penny-farthing. He was a guest of honor of the Shah, hounded by bandits and bureaucrats in other regions, but he made it, with a few steamship detours, without breaking his neck.
After the “safety bicycle” was invented — the design we know now, with two equal-sized wheels — it soon became a factor in social progress, especially in the suffragette movement, giving women unprecedented mobility in their shocking “bloomers.”
Susan B. Anthony said: “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel...the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
In 1895, a Latvian immigrant to America, Annie Londonderry, became the first woman to cycle around the world on a 21-pound “men's” bike. Unlike Amelia Earhart (or Magellan), she made it. Restricting mobility is the first principle of any kind of oppression; witness the Saudis and their absurd restriction on women driving.
The bicycle, too, enabled a “children's revolution” — kids were free to escape their elders' gaze, ride down to that far creek under the willow trees and plant their first kiss, read naughty magazines, or smoke their first cigarette. Let freedom ring!
In the '70s, the BMX bike was developed, enabling daredevil teenagers to go further from the paved neighborhood and test their agility in dangerous stunts. A decade later, the adults were inspired by this frolic to come up with the mountain bike and experience an early second childhood with even more dangerous stunts.
There is one more revolution the bicycle is well suited for: Liberating us from our extravagantly expensive, crippling, violent dependence on foreign oil. Fifty-seven percent of our oil consumed is imported. Transportation accounts for 27% of our total energy consumption, and 19% of family budgets.
If more of us cycled regularly — not only for recreation but also for commuting, shopping and general mobility — it would lower demand for energy (and thus lower prices) and help balance our budgets, while promoting a healthier population and reducing skyrocketing health care costs. That's really a win-win all around.
------------------------
Part 2 of Kelly's “Bicycle liberation” continues on these pages July 29.
Travis Kelly is a web/graphic designer, cartoonist and writer who recently relocated to Grand Junction from Moab.
