Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
by analog31 on Thursday March 21, 2024 @08:05AM
(#39777484)
Indeed, and most of us focus on the adoption of the bicycle as a practical mode of transportation, but the earliest bikes were not. So the evolution of the bike had to go through a phase when it was a toy, being refined as a toy. Just the act of managing a bike was the purpose of riding the earliest ones. Then people started going on recreational rides. Then recreational riding finally created demand for a safer bike. And a safe, manufactured bike, turned it into transportation.
The uniform, smaller size of safety bike wheels also enabled adoption of pneumatic tires.
Only by the 1860s the fast iteration of bicycles (together with substantial innovations in machine production) started and then went hand in hand with cars and motorcycles.
Some huge innovations after the safety bicycle were the derailleurs which continued to be iterated upon well after WW2, when the bicycle as we know it was finished.
The bicycle is not simple or obvious at all.