Credit to the Bicycle

Today an estimated one billion bicycles are used throughout the world, but they often don’t get the credit they deserve.  The first 90 years of the bicycle made world-changing engineering achievements possible that extended to modern motorized forms of transportation. What’s ahead for the next?

Freedom Ride

German inventor Karl Drais is usually credited for inventing the first steerable two-wheel vehicle in 1817, the wooden hobby horse. It was propelled by walking or running while the rider sat on its frame. It took three decades of using it upright before a more comfortable form of propulsion with both feet off the ground was developed.  Kirkpatrick Macmillan used a back-wheel drive, connecting rods, and treadle pedals to allow riders to remain upright while riding.

The next adaption, which had pedals on a large front wheel, was called a high wheel, velocipede, or bone shaker. The English version was called a penny-farthing because the size ratio of the two wheels was reminiscent of the two coins. Falling forward, a common accident, was called “taking a header.” In the United States, these bicycles were made at a sewing machine factory under the Columbia brand, and sold for almost ten times as much as sewing machines.

Until this point, bicycle riding was an activity only for rare individuals with skill and patience since they were a challenge to ride, mount, dismount, and stop.

The invention of the safety bicycle finally allowed virtually anyone to ride with relative ease since they had two wheels of same size and riders could stop and start with both feet on the ground. Safety bicycles created a new concept in transportation – the personal vehicle – which was a disruptive technology. It removed costs and the complications of maintaining and harnessing horses or conforming to public transportation schedules, and was such a dramatic new form of freedom that Susan B. Anthony proclaimed that bicycling had done more to emancipate women than anything else. As they spread worldwide, safety bicycles became a symbol of The Gay 90s and more than 3,000 brands were made.

But more important than the bicycle’s effect on the close of the 19th century was its influence on the 20th. The techniques and technology refined for the bicycle enabled developments that reshaped the world.

World-Shaping

The Wright brothers, Glenn Curtiss, Paul MacCready and others used bicycle shops and bicycle-type drive systems as bases for pursuing their pioneering work in human flight. Notable were:

• The prize-winning flying machine for the first observed flight of one kilometer had bicycle heels.
• Lift and drag forces of different wing shapes were compared and measured with bicycles to help design remarkably efficient propellers.
• The first controlled glider flight was achieved by adding stability with a vertical rudder, based on knowledge that bicycles required a steerable front wheel to control its bank angle.
• The air speed record flying 47 mph in 1908 used energy conservation techniques learned from racing bicycles on banked tracks.

 

William Harley built bicycles before teaming up with Arthur Davidson to make motorcycles. Henry Ford’s first internal combustion vehicle, the quadricycle, had bicycle wheels to keep its weight down. In a very real sense, the bicycle was the ancestor of the Model T. As Ford’s mass-production processes became widespread in factories, bicycle prices dropped, but by 1910 the excitement and new freedom of the bicycle was being replaced by the automobile.

Few changes were made to bicycles for half a century other than wider tires and optional three-speed hub gears until the cultural and environmental focus of the 1970’s stared a revival of the bicycle in the United States which saw:

• Racing bicycles with multiple sprockets and shifting erailleurs
• Mountain bicycles with front and back spring suspensions
• 10, 15, 18, 21, or 24-speed ratios

 

Increasing numbers of passionate cyclists, improved machining capabilities, and better materials of the next decade drove more new features to market.

Beyond Bells and Whistles

Fossil fuels will probably not be able to sustain fleets of large, high-speed vehicles into the 21st century. If future generations will continue to have personal transportation, they may need electric vehicles that are much smaller, lighter and slower. Electric bicycles are still rare in the United States, but there are ~120 million in China, and increasing numbers in India and Europe where more people are relying on them for transportation, recreation, and exercise.

Riders with energy-conscious interests are now enjoying new technologies such as rider-controlled electric solenoid-assisted shifting, continually variable transmissions, and computer-controlled shifters and suspensions that adjust according to the conditions of the road.

Considering there are a billion safety bicycles still used throughout world today, perhaps electric bicycles technologies will advance enough to consider them our “hybrid vehicle of the future.” A development like that would bring us almost full circle.

[Adapted from “Credit to the Bicycle,” by Frank Wicks, ASME Fellow, Mechanical Engineering, July 2010.]
 

Until this point, bicycle riding was an activity only for rare individuals with skill and patience since they were a challenge to ride, mount, dismount, and stop.