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Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)
- agumonkey 3y agoSince I started commuting by bike, I really thought that it would never work without flat roads. The value is in keeping kinetic energy as long as possible. Outside of flattened path in the wild it quickly becomes a burden. Today i could ride a primitive wooden wheel bike.
- gruez 3y ago>Since I started commuting by bike, I really thought that it would never work without flat roads. You never rode on dirt roads before? Sure, it's not as efficient as on pavement and you can't use road tires, but it's still much more efficient than walking.
- Closi 3y agoAssume it’s different riding a modern bike with good bearings, brakes, spokes and inflated tires to a wooden-wheel peg bike.
- agumonkey 3y agoyes that's what i tried to mean, if you were a carpenter in the middle ages and assembled a bike like device, you'd be cooked at the first dirt road on a hill (people may even ostracize you for trying crazy non holy things like this)
- WalterBright 3y agoI suspect that nobody thought of a 2 wheel design because nobody thought it would be stable. The hinge between the front and back wheel is crucial. Even today, few bicyclists understand how a bicycle is able to turn and remain upright. None of the early designs seemed to have any brakes, making them quite impractical. Without modern steel and machined parts, a bicycle of wood and iron would simply be too heavy.
- digdugdirk 3y agoThis. Also, horses are the original self-driving transportation, and anyone with the means to buy some newfangled technology like the early bicycle. It's been a hundred years and we're still not better in that regard than the finest of equine hybrid technology, so can you imagine the landed gentry giving that up to... Exert themselves to travel to town? (Queue 'bicycle as feminist icon' comments below)
- pimlottc 3y agoThat should be “cue”
- rob74 3y agoYup... before the industrial revolution, those who could have theoretically afforded a bicycle (and had a need to transport only themselves to somewhere else) could also afford a horse, while all the others not only couldn't afford a bicycle, but also had no need for one. Peasants barely left their village, and if they did, it was to deliver some produce, either to their landlord or to the market, and for that a bicycle wouldn't have helped...
- bawolff 3y ago> landed gentry giving that up to... Exert themselves to travel to town? Landed gentry often love showing off their wealth in ecentric ways, so yes i could imagine that.
- fbdab103 3y agoMaybe there would have been an opportunity for a three-wheel recumbent bike to be developed first? Seems like a lot of easier engineering if you can take stability as a given and just worry about the driver supplying direction and power.
- saalweachter 3y agoEh, doesn't work well with the factors that led to the penny-farthing. The penny-farthing was a direct drive on the front wheel - no chain. It had you positioned on top of the wheel to get as much traction as possible. A primitive recumbent trike would tend towards the same design, like a child's trike, with no chain and a direct drive on the front wheel. And because you'd get terrible traction, with so little weight, you'd be dead in the water until the machining was available to engineer a chain system to connect pedals in front of the cyclist with wheels underneath. I don't think there's any penny-and-two-farthings intermediate to make the recumbent trike work before that.
- WalterBright 3y agoEdison invented the research and development laboratory as a business. The Wright Bros invented the directed research and development program, where: 1. the problems were identified 2. each problem was solved as a separate effort 3. the solutions were combined into a final working project This has been followed ever since. The race to the moon program is probably the finest example of its implementation.
- otabdeveloper4 3y agoThe real answer is "ball bearings". (The medieval wheel was powered by extreme amounts of lubrication.)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- labster 3y agoAccess to rubber from the tropics also seems relevant.
- tokai 3y agoRubber is also not needed. Leather and springs will do the job. https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WW1-Germasn-Bicycle-Victoria-Springwheel-091.jpg https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05...
- tokai 3y agoBall bearings were invented after the bicycle. Belive it or not, but people on a budget would still get bikes without bearings up until the interwar period.
- otabdeveloper4 3y agoEvery pre-modern wagon had a big old bucket of grease hung at the side of it. It was needed to keep the axle continuously lubricated. (Sayings about wheels and grease are preserved to this day.) Theoretically, a two-wheeled transportation contraption could have been made, but having to carry the grease with you would make it pointless.
- tokai 3y agoSame sayings about grease and bikes existed as well. Its not theoretically, bikes with plain bearings were made and ridden.
- __mharrison__ 3y agoAnd then we haven't really seen much innovation in 100 years. Maybe recumbents...
- makeitdouble 3y agoThose could be seen as incremental, but from the top of my head the two biggest changes could be: - foldables: they're a real game changer regarding where bikes fit and where they can go. Designs also tremendously improved and the cycling performance is really good nowadays. - electric assist: it's not just adding a motor, a lot of work has happened to make the better of the it, and cargo bikes have become widespread mostly because of this.
- NegativeLatency 3y agoAluminum frames, disk brakes, suspension forks
- loeg 3y agoThere's been lots of innovation in the last 10-20 years, much less 100.
- bee_rider 3y agoLots of the details have changes quite a bit. They might look somewhat similar, but a nice bike nowadays is mostly carbon fiber, and pretty aerodynamic.
- Lio 3y agoYou don't think things like indexed gears, suspension, hydraulic brakes or lighter materials are innovations? Even dropper seat posts are a useful recent innovation IMHO.
- __mharrison__ 3y agoWe just got an ebike. I rode slickrock on it last week and it was delightful. Droppers are overrated (for me). Disk brakes are awesome. Bike weight (for mountain bikes) has probably gone up in the last 30 years. One by shifting is nice and the new front chainrings that keep chains on are cool.
- hx8 3y agoWhy didn't we make a mass manufactured consumer product before the Industrial Revolution? * The Industrial Revolution increased the number of people with disposable income. The potential market for a new thing was seen as much larger post Industrial Revolution. * Inventing was seen as a much more profitable venture with the possibility of manufacturing behind it. There was a wave of entrepreneurs on the latest hype cycle. * Urbanization helped spread ideas faster. The trains helped connect distant people. Part of the marketing of bicycles is seeing people ride them on the street. Busier streets with more visitors only help spread the word. * Previous levels of material sciences limited the quality of the bike
- gabesullice 3y ago> the latest hype cycle I see what you did there
- ctrw 3y agoYes imagine how well a cast iron bike would handle. Or a wooden one. There is a reason why even steel is not used any more in bike frames.
- soperj 3y agoSteel is literally the most common used material in bike frames.
- travisd 3y agoI highly highly highly recommend the book “Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle.” It explores the origin, the various social implications across various cultures (it often became a symbol of perversion due to its association with women’s liberation), and even the modern day e-bike movement. 12/10 book, very well written too.
- zikduruqe 3y agoI'll second this.
- Aaronstotle 3y agoI'll have to check this out
- foxyv 3y agoJust ordered a copy on your suggestion. Looking forward to reading it!
- space_oddity 3y agoThnx for reccomendation, interesting one!
- justforasingle 3y agoI would consider treadmills known to exist as early as 4000BC as an early step towards bicycles. Commonly used for grinding wheat or moving water - possibly even cranes. There both gearing and leg power interact - just gotta apply the force to a set of four wheels and you're halfway there.
- dools 3y agoThe author kind of glosses over the "balance" bit, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the creation of 2 wheeled vehicles coincides with the creation of the first gyroscopes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope
- pubby 3y agoI've heard that the gyroscopic effect in bicycles is rather small. The balance instead comes from the positive angle of the front wheel, creating feedback. If the bike leans one direction, the wheel rotates to counteract it.
- masklinn 3y agoDestin’s inverted steering bike is definitely an argument for that, inverting the steering does not affect the gyroscopic effect, but the bike requires re-learning how to ride.
- dools 3y agoNo, it doesn't make an argument for that. It's no different from inverting your mouse wheel scroll direction. If you're used to doing it one way you have to get used to doing it another way.
- masklinn 3y ago> No, it doesn't make an argument for that. Of course it does. > It's no different from inverting your mouse wheel scroll direction. If you're used to doing it one way you have to get used to doing it another way. If you invert scroll direction it does not make the mouse stop working, it only hinders scrolling. But inverting steering has an immediate effect on balance, not just on your ability to take a turn.
- jay_kyburz 3y agoI've been riding an scooter to work for a few years, and the gyroscopic effect of the wheels on a bike do make a big difference. You can't take one hand off the handle bars to use your arm to indicate on a scooter. You will lose control instantly. When I ride my bike I can ride most of the way sitting up and not holding the handle bars at all.
- adr1an 3y agoAlso, horses self-drive you home after a long night drinking beers in the tavern.
- Symbiote 3y agoHardly anyone would use a horse for this. The tavern is within walking/staggering distance of all the houses.
- discreteevent 3y ago> The tavern is within walking/staggering distance of all the houses. In an agricultural area? How would that work?
- confidantlake 3y agoWalking distance is longer when you are used to walking all the time.
- Ekaros 3y agoYou build most buildings pretty close together. And then fields around them in all directions. Conceptually farm house in middle of fields was not really how it was done. Maybe for manors, but those were rich enough to drink at home. And their workers build close enough together or in walkable distance.
- asoneth 3y agoSprawling industrial-scale agricultural areas seems to be mostly a product of motor vehicles. Before that, most farms were run by a family group and the farmhouses were typically within a couple miles of a community center which provided access to a church, school, store/market, inn/tavern, etc. (There were self-sufficient estates and plantations but they seem to be more the exception than the rule.) For example, the town I live in now was founded more than 250 years ago when the families (mostly farmers) who lived at the outer fringe of their town got tired of having to walk 2+ miles to church and school. So they petitioned the government to split off and then built their own church and school.
- notorandit 3y agoNone mentions Leonardo's bike. Weird.
- tokai 3y agoApparently that drawing is a fake.
- nokun7 3y ago> The bicycle, as we know it today, was not invented until the late 1800s. Not sure why the article starts off with an incorrect hypothesis. There is evidence of bicycles in the sculptures in at least one Indian / Hindu temple Southern India. The temple dedicated to "Panchavarna Swamy" - 5 colored god, was built at least 1500 years old. (dated to the early 7th century by historians) Photo of the bicycle in the temple: https://imgur.com/a/M1ZAUFf https://imgur.com/a/M1ZAUFf
- bendews 3y agoThat photo you have provided is from a temple in Indonesia, and the Indian temple story you have summarised is regarded to be false, the carving in question was likely added during renovation during British rule.
- nokun7 3y agoYes, that is possible. Also check this video, which is yet another bicycle carving from India: https://youtu.be/9zHHPCAao4k?si=VIc2XkgAnwf4MOxK https://youtu.be/9zHHPCAao4k?si=VIc2XkgAnwf4MOxK
- arp242 3y agoDoesn't seem true. Or at the very least unverified. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bicycle-2000-year-old-temple/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bicycle-2000-year-old-temp...
- pxeger1 3y agoEven more unbelievable to me is that the idea of wearing a helmet to protect your head while cycling wasn’t invented until 1970
- 082349872349872 3y ago(1953) https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Robic#/media/Fichier:Jean_Robic_en_1953.jpg https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Robic#/media/Fichier:Jean...
- pxeger1 3y agoThis came from the depths of memory but I have no idea how it got there, oops. https://helmets.org/history.htm https://helmets.org/history.htm suggests the first standard for bike helmets was in 1970?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- inglor_cz 3y agoThe intriguing part about that question is that wheelbarrows are a very old technology and people would even transport one another (or their kids) on a wheelbarrow, not just goods. And neither bad roads nor primitive technology stopped them. The idea of moving a burden or a person around using a wheel and human power (no animals) was around for centuries.
- Closi 3y ago> The quality of roads is relevant, but not really the answer. Bicycles can be ridden on dirt roads or sidewalks. I mean this is true with a modern bike, but a primitive bike with wooden wheels, no spokes, no gears, no suspension and questionable brakes would be pretty awful on a trail.
- paganel 3y agoPlus, there were no sidewalks to begin with, the road in my grandma's village close to the Carpathians Mountains still hasn't got one (they've only paved over what it used to be the village road about 10 years ago). And people tend to forget rain and hence mud when it comes to the state of pre-modern roads, there's no way one could have ridden a bicycle through a lot of mud and rain puddles. Being high up there in a horse-driven coach meant that you were also avoiding all that mud hassle.
- Ekaros 3y agoAnd also to remember that roads were more of trails or something you might seen on field or in forest. Not the nice flat surfaces created with road drags we think of dirt roads as.
- culebron21 3y agoOne point this article misses is the size of the cities. Until mid-1800 cities were at most 1-1.5 km long, usually just 2-3 streets. Just look at old maps of Manchester. The only exceptions were the capitals like London, which were an order of magnitude more populous, but still only 2-5 times bigger in distance. The primary means of transportation was not horse, but feet. You could walk to a destination on the other side of an average city of those times in 15 minutes, so a bike wouldn't bring big gains in time. Only in 2nd half of 19th century, cities began growing, and transportation became a problem.
- kqr 3y agoWhat about on the countryside? Villagers traveled to church and other villages regularly. That can easily take a couple of hours by foot – and by horse, at a normal pace – but would go significantly faster on bicycle. I know there are reasons they didn't have bicycles, but I don't think "going by feet is equally good" is one of those reasons.
- JR1427 3y agoYou need a pretty good road surface for early bicycles, so that might be a factor for why they didn't emerge sooner in the countryside.
- martyvis 3y agoAnd while in large cities, the need for horses had subsided, anyone living a distance from a rural village on a farm would have horses in any case for work which could also be used for visiting town.
- masklinn 3y agoThat’s really not true, you needed a pretty large farm to have both the need and income for a horse. The horse itself cost at least a third of a labourer’s yearly income (which was not really disposable), and that does not include a sufficiently large pasture or equivalent fodder. Not only that, but those horses would have been work implements, like a tractor today, you would usually not get those horses out to go to church or see your family a village over. If only because most of the time the horse would be at work in the fields anyway.
- em1sar 3y ago[dead]
- elric 3y agoIt's not obvious that a bicycle would be in any way better than a carriage. So it makes sense that people tried to improve carriages instead of single riders. If you ignore the pollution aspects of cars, and the problems caused by the sheer number of them, they are a superior mode of transport to bicycles. If I were a 1400s inventor, a 4 wheel carriage with pulleys would seem much more attractive than a 2 wheeled contraption which leaves me exposed to the elements.
- JR1427 3y agoI wonder if much is know about the origins of wooden Chukudu scooters of Congo [1]? The wikipedia article states that they date back to only the 1970s, but there does not appear to be any technology reason why they couldn't long pre-date that, and they apparently work well on dirt roads that have probably been around for a long time. One article [2] claims they have been used "for centuries" but a quick Google did not find any evidence to back that up, but it does seem plausible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukudu#:~:text=5%20External%20links-,History,materials%20of%20nearly%20US%2460 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukudu#:~:text=5%20External%2.... [2] https://oneminutexplore.com/the-chukudu-a-timeless-marvel-made-of-african-wood/ https://oneminutexplore.com/the-chukudu-a-timeless-marvel-ma...
- saalweachter 3y agoI wish the articles gave more details on the axles.
- martyvis 3y agoI got a laugh out of this set of published things that were blamed on bicycles as they became the "in" thing. https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1561848479470694403 https://twitter.com/paulisci/status/1561848479470694403
- zeitgeistcowboy 3y agoIt’s because vulcanized rubber tires weren’t available until the 1840s. There is no sub for inflatable tubes and rubber tires. Without it the ride would be very very bumpy for a light frame with two wheels.
- tokai 3y agoPneumatic tires are from 1888. People rode without them for half a century. They even rode without solid rubber tires. https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/WW1-Germasn-Bicycle-Victoria-Springwheel-091.jpg https://onlinebicyclemuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05...
- ErigmolCt 3y agoI'm thinking bicycle has not finished its development yet
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoRoads. Bicycles are murder on bad roads. You could invent them earlier but probably not convince anybody to ride them?
- nakedrobot2 3y agoThe Romans had roads... So did the Greeks, who also produced the Antykethera mechanism (precision machining)
- Ekaros 3y agoBut not the roads very suitable for bicycles. Even modern bikes are not exactly nice on many stone roads. Now remove air-tires and every little bumb will be felt.
- ekaryotic 3y agoI've read that penny farthings are great for bad roads though. One article mentioned they lost control and wheeled over a kerb without a murmur. you couldn't do that on a safety bicycle.
- Mordisquitos 3y agoNotably, cyclist associations were instrumental in advocating for road conditioning in the late 19th century and early 20th, both in the UK [0] and the USA [1], and maybe elsewhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_Improvement_Association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_Improvement_Association [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Roads_Movement
- analog31 3y agoMy theory: People had nowhere to go. They had a reason to transport goods, but not themselves. They lived on the farms where they worked, or within walking distance of factories, church, etc.
- paxys 3y agoIt's always tricky to speculate on cause vs effect. Did bicycles come about because people needed to travel longer distances, or did people start to travel longer distances because they had better modes of transportation available to them?
- lynguist 3y agoI think it’s an omission to not include the vast improvements that happened to the bicycle after 1888. It wasn’t finished by 1888 with the safety bicycle. 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.
- analog31 3y agoIndeed, 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.
- maCDzP 3y agoI work as a civil engineer in road construction. I was certain that it was the roads that drove the development of bikes, not the other way around. It’s cool that the bike movement had a role in building roads. And that a political movement can drive technological change.
- eru 3y agoYes, when bicycles were young people took trains to travel between cities (or boats). So no one was really interested in roads all that much.
- TacticalCoder 3y ago> So no one was really interested in roads all that much. Romans had roads thousands of years before trains were invented. They had "things on wheels" too: horse-pulled (or human pulled) carriage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads FWIW there are many places in Europe where pedestrian, bicycles, cars and whatnots are still using these very same roads, made of pavement, the exact same way romans were building it. I use these in the old city center nearly daily.
- bluGill 3y agoRight, but those roads were useful enough to be worth then effort to build for the Romans. However they were not enough more useful than a dirt track to be worth building in general. There were much less roads built after the fall of Rome, as Rome was able to find the labor to build them at get enough benefit. The rest of the world wasn't connected enough that great roads made much a difference to enough people that they were worth building. Once roads exist the rest of the world will use them, but they wouldn't build them. In the US some roads were built in the early days, but canals and later the railroad had enough advantages over road transport (both can haul far more bulk) that for most roads were not worth building and the dirt track was fine. Towns would build roads in town because mud was annoying enough, but farmers (the majority of the population) didn't travel often enough that the cost (labor) to build a road was worth it - they just stayed on the farm when it rained.
- colloydi 3y ago>Fully elucidating these economic and cultural factors is a major future project of this blog One rule of thumb seems to be that a new technology needs to be not merely better but ten times better than the alternative(s) for it to go viral. For instance, James Dyson built a washing machine with twin contrarotating drums. It was significantly better than conventional machines, but not ten times better when all costs were accounted for, e.g. the increased price and its unconventional larger size.
- rsynnott 3y agoIIRC it was _not_ significantly better than conventional machines; "Which" found that it had the same performance as a mid-range Bosch. Dyson's gadgets which really were significantly better than the contemporary competition tended to succeed, despite a cost premium. Notably the vacuum cleaners, of course.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoLoads of bike shedding here.
- chiffre01 3y agoBicycles require a number of technologies, mass produced steel for example, that weren't really around until the 19th century. However something like the flying shuttle probably could have been invented centuries earlier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_shuttle
- westcort 3y agoI think the eruption of mount Tambora, in 1816 and ensuring famine was the main impetus for the creation of the bicycle. Think from the perspective of the future: Q: "Why didn't they just use solar cells to power their cars instead of using gasoline?" A: "They had almost unlimited access to an energy-dense fuel called petroleum they mined from the earth." My point is we can imagine many technologies that would serve our needs with much less energy use. https://rootsofprogress.org/why-did-we-wait-so-long-for-the-bicycle#:~:text=In%20this%20connection%2C%20it%20has,many%20parts%20of%20the%20world https://rootsofprogress.org/why-did-we-wait-so-long-for-the-....
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- csours 3y agoI don't have time to research and write a good comment right now, but metrology and tolerancing is super important to the modern bicycle. Look up Henry Leland and the progress made in metrology, and look at the time period he worked in. How much variance can you have in a bike chain and still have a bike worth using? I think that would make a VERY good interactive museum experience.
- photochemsyn 3y agoI think this one explains why the mass adoption of the bicycle took so long. Before the era of precision manufacturing, each mechanical device had to be hand-assembled by an expert machinist who fine-tuned crude parts into a working device - meaning there were no drop-in mass-produced replacement parts. This would make maintenance and construction impractically expensive.
- dncornholio 3y agoI love fucking bicycles! In the Netherlands, they make the roads safer, they make the neighbourhoods saver, they make people more healthy, they reduce crime, they make people drive more careful. Just by having a lot of people on bicycles instead in closed cars, it creates a whole different society then if everyone would be in cars and I love it.
- scott_s 3y agoI think the author should give more credence to it not being intuitive that people could easily learn to balance on a bicycle. The other examples he gave - horse, canoe - are stable without a rider. If you put a canoe in the water, it will stay upright. Horses, obviously, are stable without a rider. A bicycle without a rider will fall over. I don't think it's obvious that putting a human on a long, two-wheeled vehicle will make it more stable than that vehicle is on its own. I think it's also not obvious that most humans can quite easily and quickly learn how to balance a bicycle.
- kazinator 3y agoLong before bicycles, people observed that rolling wheels (e.g. coins) are stable above a certain speed, falling over when they slow down. (This is actually true of bicycles, for a similar reason: like a single wheel, they steer in the direction of a fall, and that counteracts the fall, because if you steer left, you fall right and vice versa.) The possibility that a two-wheeled vehicle could be stable when moving should have manifested itself to some of the brightest minds in European science as far back as at least the Renaissance.
- pas 3y agomost of the mystery disappears as one notices the absence of good quality roads and low-friction (fine) mechanics (as both are hard requirements for an "economical" human-powered vehicles - as even untrained everyday folks are relatively good at endurance running/walking and carrying a light backpack, but carrying ourselves plus a vehicle over bad terrain makes it not worth it) we like to think how amazing the wheel is, but ... what's amazing is a road network. and what's ridiculous is that some empires spent their might on making flat slabs and putting them in a big pile, while others used some of theirs to make roads, but it took so many years to combine the two :) and that's why railroads appeared before bicycles basically. oh, and see also one of the earliest known built road things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track#/media/File:Sweet_track.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track#/media/File:Sweet_... it's about 5800 years old!
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- maxglute 3y agoCTRL+F for locks and found nothing relevant to bicycle secuirty. I assume there's some locking or valet system going on
- dang 3y agoRelated: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25331858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25331858 - Dec 2020 (83 comments) Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443822 - July 2019 (492 comments)