4 ms·

Bad quality article. There's a simple answer: ball bearings are relatively high tech that requires lots of innovation to come together at the same time.

mc32 7y ago
True for a modern bike, but a brass (whatever metal) bushing would work for a more primitive bike.
- otabdeveloper2 7y ago
  Such a primitive bike is only a novelty, not a mode of transportation. It would be less efficient and more expensive than just walking. (I.e., a toy.)
  - aianus 7y ago
    How could it be less efficient than walking? Unless your region is perfectly flat, you could walk the bike uphill and ride downhill and still save ~50% of the effort of traveling any medium distance.
    - iguy 7y ago
      Only 50% if you count walking around carrying a table as 100% the same as just walking :) That said, my non-expert opinion is that a penny-farthing without ball-bearings would probably still work OK; a rover-style bike with a chain would be much harder. But the ability to make bicycle chain, and the ability to make spokes for wheels, I think these happened about the same time too.
SilasX 7y ago
Relatedly, my favorite example of "why didn't this get invented before" is wheeled luggage which (from what I've read) wasn't sold until 1989, even though the wheelbarrow (the same basic idea) has been around since prehistoric times. IIRC, the reason it didn't appear sooner was a combination of a) getting reliable castors[1] for wheels that small is a non-trivial problem, and b) there wasn't much demand for it until the 80s. [1] These things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster
- jharger 7y ago
  Do you have an article or book you can link to on the subject? I'm very curious why there wasn't much demand for wheeled luggage until the 80's. Is it because people flew less? Because more people checked luggage more often and carry-on was less common? Because airports were smaller?
  - PeterisP 7y ago
    It doesn't apply until the 1980s, but for luggage as for many, many other things it's worth remembering that many technological (and thus expensive) effort-saving and conveniences make no sense if the work and incovenience can 'simply' be handled by servants, poor/cheap laborers or slaves. Much of technology only makes sense if manpower is expensive. In Victorian era, if you can afford to travel where you need luggage, then you definitely can afford people to carry that luggage for you, and those people would have been cheaper than high quality bearings that wheeled luggage needs. It's attributed to Agatha Christie (1890-1976) autobiography that in her younger years she never thought she would ever be wealthy enough to own a car – nor that she'd ever be so poor that she wouldn't have servants; and yet eventually she was in both these conditions at the same time.
- goldcd 7y ago
  I got fascinated by this when I saw mention of this elsewhere. I'll agree that getting sturdy casters at a reasonable price was definitely part of the problem. As the linked wikipedia article reminded me, 20-odd years ago you'd still come across wonky casters on very expensive supermarket trolleys. I think like the bicycle, it was just combination of factors preventing adoption - and once these had all moved, it was an obvious improvement. e.g. The luggage you put the wheel on. My distant memories of family suitcases weren't rigid. Deformable cloth over a flexible outer band of some type. First ones with wheels I saw just had them on one bottom corner and a drag handle on the opposite top corner. Where f'in vile to use, as the whole thing would flex as you pulled (Toppling and attempting to break your wrist). They only really became 'good' when we got rigid luggage (carry on bag with extendable handle or rigid-shell case like Samsonite). But another reason is that previously "You didn't have to move it yourself" In 'the golden age' a porter would put your trunk/case on a wheelbarrow for you. Then these transformed into 'rows of luggage carts in the airport'. Then as the decline continued 'rent-able luggage carts, you didn't have local-change for'... and at this point lack of service for your bag, crossed our ability to make wheeled luggage - and we all bought it.
twic 7y ago
I went looking to see when ball bearings were invented, and came across this wildly detailed history, prepared for NASA in the 1980s: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19810009866.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/198100... It's page 5 before it even gets to the invention of the wheel!

mc32 7y ago

True for a modern bike, but a brass (whatever metal) bushing would work for a more primitive bike.

otabdeveloper2 7y ago
Such a primitive bike is only a novelty, not a mode of transportation. It would be less efficient and more expensive than just walking. (I.e., a toy.)
- aianus 7y ago
  How could it be less efficient than walking? Unless your region is perfectly flat, you could walk the bike uphill and ride downhill and still save ~50% of the effort of traveling any medium distance.
  - iguy 7y ago
    Only 50% if you count walking around carrying a table as 100% the same as just walking :) That said, my non-expert opinion is that a penny-farthing without ball-bearings would probably still work OK; a rover-style bike with a chain would be much harder. But the ability to make bicycle chain, and the ability to make spokes for wheels, I think these happened about the same time too.

SilasX 7y ago

Relatedly, my favorite example of "why didn't this get invented before" is wheeled luggage which (from what I've read) wasn't sold until 1989, even though the wheelbarrow (the same basic idea) has been around since prehistoric times. IIRC, the reason it didn't appear sooner was a combination of a) getting reliable castors[1] for wheels that small is a non-trivial problem, and b) there wasn't much demand for it until the 80s. [1] These things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster

jharger 7y ago
Do you have an article or book you can link to on the subject? I'm very curious why there wasn't much demand for wheeled luggage until the 80's. Is it because people flew less? Because more people checked luggage more often and carry-on was less common? Because airports were smaller?
- PeterisP 7y ago
  It doesn't apply until the 1980s, but for luggage as for many, many other things it's worth remembering that many technological (and thus expensive) effort-saving and conveniences make no sense if the work and incovenience can 'simply' be handled by servants, poor/cheap laborers or slaves. Much of technology only makes sense if manpower is expensive. In Victorian era, if you can afford to travel where you need luggage, then you definitely can afford people to carry that luggage for you, and those people would have been cheaper than high quality bearings that wheeled luggage needs. It's attributed to Agatha Christie (1890-1976) autobiography that in her younger years she never thought she would ever be wealthy enough to own a car – nor that she'd ever be so poor that she wouldn't have servants; and yet eventually she was in both these conditions at the same time.
goldcd 7y ago
I got fascinated by this when I saw mention of this elsewhere. I'll agree that getting sturdy casters at a reasonable price was definitely part of the problem. As the linked wikipedia article reminded me, 20-odd years ago you'd still come across wonky casters on very expensive supermarket trolleys. I think like the bicycle, it was just combination of factors preventing adoption - and once these had all moved, it was an obvious improvement. e.g. The luggage you put the wheel on. My distant memories of family suitcases weren't rigid. Deformable cloth over a flexible outer band of some type. First ones with wheels I saw just had them on one bottom corner and a drag handle on the opposite top corner. Where f'in vile to use, as the whole thing would flex as you pulled (Toppling and attempting to break your wrist). They only really became 'good' when we got rigid luggage (carry on bag with extendable handle or rigid-shell case like Samsonite). But another reason is that previously "You didn't have to move it yourself" In 'the golden age' a porter would put your trunk/case on a wheelbarrow for you. Then these transformed into 'rows of luggage carts in the airport'. Then as the decline continued 'rent-able luggage carts, you didn't have local-change for'... and at this point lack of service for your bag, crossed our ability to make wheeled luggage - and we all bought it.

twic 7y ago

I went looking to see when ball bearings were invented, and came across this wildly detailed history, prepared for NASA in the 1980s: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19810009866.pdf https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/198100... It's page 5 before it even gets to the invention of the wheel!