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Bicycle development over the years
 by Fahrrada benteuer
http://www.bicycleadventure.com

Bicycles have been a form of transport for a little less
than two hundred years. This does not seem a long time
for a form of transport so obviously simple.

The first type of bike missed an essential feature of todays
machines - it had no pedals! Instead the cyclist used their
feet to push directly off the ground, so the action looked a
bit like a run. Despite this, these machines (called
'Daisines') were popular both in North America and in
Western Europe.

Some would argue that the history of the bicycle can be
traced even further back - way back in 1493 a model was
sketched out by a student in that fifteenth century ideas
workshop that was Leonardo Da Vinci's studio. But like so
many ideas from Da Vinci's stable, it was never pursued and,
as far as we know, no attempts were made to build it.

The first pedal-powered bike to enjoy success was the
'velocipede', a French invention known to English speakers
as a 'bone shaker'. It had pedals fixed to the front wheel
so you could ride it without touching the ground. The common
name, bone shaker, was due to it's wooden wheels that must
have transmitted every bump into the road straight to the
rider! Despite this they were enormously popular throughout
the 1860's and in the US schools to teach velocipede riding
were set up.

The next model of the bike was created in 1870 and called a
Penny Farthing. It looked strange as it had a huge front
wheel. Here the makers were more concerned with utility
than aesthetics. They had realized that in order to make
the bike really useful they had to increase its speed and
only increasing the size of the wheel could do this. There
was no gear so the rider depended on the ability of every
stroke of the pedal to take it further. This did increase
the speed and the bikes did fly like rockets but the jerks
and the shakes too got worse. It was difficult at times to
stop the bicycle. One was prone to fall and that too from
a great height.

Which is why in the 1880s the first bike to resemble a
modern road bike was christened the 'Safety Bike'. It had a
chain which allowed the pedals to be placed where they are
today, which was better for balance. Towards the end of the
decade a man called Dunlop, who was working as a veterinary
surgeon in Scotland, invented the air filled tire. By the
1890s the bicycles would be easily recognizable to today's
riders.

The golden age of the bicycle started from the fag end of
the nineteenth century. Owing to great demand from North
America and Europe, many factories making items such as
sewing machines started producing bicycles too to meet the
burgeoning demand. The last frontier in bicycle design, the
gearing system, was made in the initial years of the
twentieth century. The modern bike was now born.

Today, thanks to the advancement in the engineering science
the bikes are smoother, lighter and more dynamic than the
original ones in the nineteenth century. They might be
different but the basic structure remains the same. Designs
and requirements even now keep changing. In 1980's the BMX
became a craze. In the nineties it was the mountain bike,
which took the world by storm. However sophisticated a bike
may become it cannot be totally disassociated from the
original invented in the nineteenth century.

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