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I 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 - hors
by scott_s 3y ago
I 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!
- kazinator 3y agoRegarding roads: nope! Bicycles and bicyclists came first, then the better roads. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/15/cyclists-paved-way-for-roads https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2011/aug/1... > The hard, flat road surfaces we take for granted are relatively new. Asphalt surfaces weren't widespread until the 1930s. So, are motorists to thank for this smoothness? > No. The improvement of roads was first lobbied for – and paid for – by cycling organisations. Good roads are important to cycling, obviously, and to cycling becoming popular, but lack of smooth roads didn't impede the development of the bicycle. Rather, lack of bicycles impeded the development of smooth roads!
- martopix 3y agoIf the problem was balance, why were tricycles not widespread, then? There must have been other factors.
- scott_s 3y agoI'm not saying balance was a problem - quite the opposite. It turns out balance is not a problem. I'm saying that in a world without bicycles, I don't think it's obvious that balance is not a problem. My point is that I find it quite reasonable that people just didn't even think about a two-wheeled vehicle for a long time because it's not obvious that it will be stable. What people did try to make work was a four-wheeled cart, which I think is in line with a tricycle. I also agree there were other factors - I think there is no single answer to this question, but rather a constellation of factors. My claim is that I believe it reasonable to include people's lack of imagination that two-wheels could work in that list of factors.
- vanattab 3y agoI don't know how prevalent tricycles were but in the article the advertisement for the "saftey bike" says "safer then any tricycles" so there were some. Not sure why they were safer then tricycles of the time. Were these tricycles tall? Found one picture https://www.google.com/search?q=1860+tricycles&oq=1860+tricycles&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAtIBCDUyMzFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&client=ms-android-verizon-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#vhid=AgNGxkrPTzJAOM&vssid=l https://www.google.com/search?q=1860+tricycles&oq=1860+tricy...
- foxyv 3y agoI kind of wonder what it would be like to build a tricycle using pre-1800s technology. What would be the most difficult challenge? Lack of chain drive? Lack of quality bearings? Durability? Materials? Lack of rubber? I bet a bicycle using 1700s tech would be horribly expensive considering the GDP per capita too. Not having rubber tires would make them dangerous as heck too. Traction is a huge factor in vehicles that aren't animal drawn. A horse/ox/human provides a ton of traction and stability to a vehicle when they pull it.
- foxyv 3y agoRiding a horse is HARD. Riding a bicycle is so much easier and safer. I gave up horse back riding after falling for the 4th time and seeing all the paralyzed people at horse shows. Being randomly yeeted 15 feet in the air by a half ton animal because it saw a weird shadow on the ground makes riding a road bike in traffic seem downright tame. 83% of horseback riders are injured while riding. It's literally an extreme sport more dangerous than skiing or motorcycle racing. It boggles my mind to see riders without helmets or other protective gear.