A lot of the advances of the 1880s involve the "variations on a theme" of the widespread adoption of electric motors, which became reliable and commercially via

A lot of the advances of the 1880s involve the "variations on a theme" of the widespread adoption of electric motors, which became reliable and commercially viable in the 1870s. But electrification is quite a consequential theme! The safety bicycle is a great advance: people had been experimenting with human-powered vehicles for decades before, and the safety bicycle is just a perfect expression of the human-powered vehicle. The design exploded in the 1890s and has remained essentially unchanged for more than a century. The safety bicycle will probably be around in recognizable form for centuries to come.