5 ms·
Would a wooden bicycle, with not-very-freely-spinning wheels, and a bone-jarring ride, be worth the considerable expense of purchasing? Would it even be better
by sk5t 7y ago
Would a wooden bicycle, with not-very-freely-spinning wheels, and a bone-jarring ride, be worth the considerable expense of purchasing? Would it even be better than walking and/or using a wheelbarrow? Doesn't the thing produced have to rise above a certain level of utility to merit making some copies of it? For human-scale power, I am not sure a bicycle without bearings or pneumatic tires works other than as a curiosity.
- loeg 7y ago> For human-scale power, I am not sure a bicycle without bearings or pneumatic tires works other than as a curiosity. Pretty much all modern rideshare bicycles do not have pneumatic tires, FWIW. Ride quality suffers, but it's not an awful tradeoff for short trips with whatever squishy compound they use now.
- mikepurvis 7y agoYeah but the alternative in antiquity wasn't "whatever squishy compound", it was wood, perhaps with a metal strap around it, like a carriage wheel.
- atoav 7y agoWhich is why in the early wooden “bikes” (you were sitting on a wooden bar and pushing with your legs) they made the bar “squishy” by adding some sort of saddle or some adapted spring dampers or sth.
- loeg 7y agoUnderstood.
- DoctorOetker 7y agoIt's interesting that wood is considered impractical for a bicycle... but somehow practical for a carriage? Carriages used to have suspensions (made from some elastic whale bone I believe). If someone would attempt to build a bicycle in a time of carriages with carriage wheels, I would then expect this person to also copy (at least in analogy) the suspension systems for carriages of that time, if not on the first try at least on the second...
- CydeWeys 7y agoThat's not really accurate. Docked bikeshare systems in US major cities use real pneumatic tires. Citibike in NYC, whatever Ford Bike in SF is called now, Capital Bikeshare in DC, and more. It's just some of the cheap dockless purveyors that use non-pneumatic tires, and these companies have been dropping like flies. The docked bikeshares by contrast are still (slowly) expanding with their superior, but admittedly more expensive, bicycles.
- B1FF_PSUVM 7y ago> be worth the considerable expense of purchasing Anyone with the means to pay would much rather use an animal-pulled cart instead of literally making an ass of himself. Or just ride a horse like a gentleman. (Until the 'mad dogs and Englishmen' craze hit.)
- atoav 7y agoI think bicycling was really not relevant, because the peasants would probably rather take a mule or a wagon to carry stuff around and the aristocrats would rather take a comfortable carriage. There was basically no rich middle class which had the time and money to fool around with individual transportation, and the other classes had either no real reason to want this or it was pure luxury.
- Someone 7y agoGoogling “bicycles in Africa” gives me plenty of examples of peasants who, I guess, would rather use a mule or wagon, but cannot afford one, and are much helped with a bicycle. I also would think such people existed elsewhere in the world centuries ago.
- ncmncm 7y agoBicycles in Africa can exist only as output of the massive industrial base elsewhere. Chinese wheelbarrows are the real endpoint of pre-industrial transportation.