Bicycle History
The modern vehicle phrase starts being used at 1869. Several precursors of this machine were called velocipedes, it’s a French name came out in the late 18th century.
Crude two-wheeled vehicles pushed using the feet were common in the second half of the 17th century. The celerifere was invented in 1690 by a Frenchman, at that time it was a wooden beam to which the wheels were sturdily attached to. This vehicle was without a handlebar, and the rider was seated on something like a pillow on the beam and he or she was pushing and steering this vehicle using his or here feet against the ground.
Anyway, the first vehicle with two wheels and a steering device was designed by a German nobleman in 1816. This bike, named the draisine (after the inventor), it come with a handlebar that placed on the frame, which enable the rider to turn the front wheel.
The rest of the improvements were developed later the inventors from France, Germany, and England. The early models of this machine were known as the hobby horses in England; the expensive pedestrian curricle that was invented in 1818 was particularly called the dandy horse.
The draisine was heavier than the curricle and the curricle had an adjustable saddle and elbow rest. In the USA It was patented in 1819 but without much interest. Kirkpatrick Macmillan of Scotland adds the driving levers and pedals to a machine of the draisine type in.
These changes allow the rider to adjust the machine with the feet off the ground. The driving mechanism is a short cranks fixed to the back wheel hub and connected by rods to long levers, which were attached to the frame close to the head of the machine. The connecting rods were joined to the levers at about one-third of their length from the pedals. The machine was moved by a downward and forward push of the foot. A new model of this machine that was improved by Scotsman, introduced to the people in 1846, it was widely used in England, and was called the dalsell.
The immediate precursor of the new bicycle was the French crank-driven, loose-pedaled velocipede that became common in France in the 1855. The frame and wheels were from wood. The tires were iron, and the pedals were hugged to the hub of the front wheel, which was little bit higher than the back wheel. Because of its effect on a rider pedaling on a hard road or a cobblestoned street in England they called this machine the boneshaker.
The solid rubber tires mounted on steel rims were introduced to the first time in a new machine in 1869 in England; it was the first to be patented under the modern name bicycle. In 1873 Jamse Starley, and English inventor, manufacture the first machine combining most of the features of the so-called ordinary, or high-wheel, bicycle. The front of Starley's machine was as much as three times as large in diameter as the back wheel.
The changes and improvements of the next 15 years contained the ball bearing and the pneumatic tire. These inventions, along with the use of wildness steel tubing and spring seats, brought the common bicycle to its best point of development. The extreme vibration and instability of the high-wheel bicycle, anyway, motivate inventors to turn their attention to reducing the height of the bike. In 1880 the safety, or low, bike was developed. The size of the wheels was almost the same, and the pedals, hugged to a sprocket using a gears and a chain, drove the back wheel.
The first time that safety bicycle was generally adopted by manufacturers in the USA. The enhanced safety machine had wheels of the same size, hollow steel tubing, coaster brakes, adjustable handlebars, and other enhancements. American bikers increased very much in numbers and became strong supporters of a nationwide movement for enhanced roads. In 1899 the American production of almost 1 million bikes a year was valued at more than $31 million. Still by 1909, with the invention of the motorcycle and the automobile, the U.S. bicycle industry was almost nonexistence.
In the 1960s and'70s, as air pollution from automobile exhaust became great interest, and the energy crisis get worse, the popularity of the bicycle increased too much. Some places provide bike lanes and special bike paths. An emphasis on physical fitness in the 1970s and '80s added to this popularity, and about 82 million bicycles were in use in the USA in the mid-1980s. Most common was the lightweight ten-speed touring bike, modeled after European racing models, with cable-and-caliper hand brakes and narrow, high-pressure tires. For recreation, the all-terrain bike, with waffle-tread tires and a heavier frame, was rugged, safe, and maneuverable.
