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A comment on Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012). Parent comment

Re:Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) by adrianN on Saturday October 29, 2016 @01:24PM (#12825057)
Bicycles would be pretty hard with the metallurgy of ancient rome, I think. Introducing soap is very easy in comparison.
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Re:Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) by eveningcoffee on Saturday October 29, 2016 @07:50PM (#12827199)
Bicycle actually needs very few metal parts, if any.
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Re:Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) by pja on Sunday October 30, 2016 @09:38AM (#12829713)
But the parts they do need are quite high up the tech stack: decent quality bearings being the most obvious.
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Re:Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel (2012) by Houshalter on Sunday October 30, 2016 @11:53AM (#12830444)
Do they absolutely require it though? Looking at images of the first bicycles, they seem quite crude: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Draisine... The earliest ones don't even have pedals.

The Romans had wheels and carts that seemed to work. It doesn't seem like a huge leap to put a human on them.

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