Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
by Gibbon1 on Monday July 15, 2019 @09:24PM
(#20446774)
There is an economic component in this. The people who would really want a bicycle had neither time nor money to develop them nor money to afford one. People with time and money would immediately think that horses were more practical. And they wouldn't be wrong.
It wasn't until the mid 1800's that the people who would want a bicycle could afford one if such was available. You had a middle class with disposable income. And simple mechanical contraptions like bicycles were cheaper. Because steel got about 20 times cheaper from 1860 to 1890. And things like chain drives had become industrial commodity items.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
by icelancer on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @02:45AM
(#20447985)
Exactly. You need pressure and necessity to deliver most inventions, especially at scale. Who's going to do all that work when horses were a hell of a lot easier?
It wasn't until the mid 1800's that the people who would want a bicycle could afford one if such was available. You had a middle class with disposable income. And simple mechanical contraptions like bicycles were cheaper. Because steel got about 20 times cheaper from 1860 to 1890. And things like chain drives had become industrial commodity items.