Hello,
I recently got a job at a bicycle shop in New Jersey. Along with my interest in modern bicycles, I was curious if there were equivalents in ancient times. I had heard from some peeps that back in the eighteen hundrends there were these things called “hobby horses” but I know that wheels have been around for much longer than that.
Did ancient cavemen or egyptians tool around on some very ancient version of bicycles?
I’m not absolutely sure, but I’m pretty sure that’s a no.
It was hard enough to develop bikes in the 1800s when there was at least some manufacturing and machining technology. But there was nothing close to that tech long before that.
there were unicycles in Bedrock.
wood wheels, wood axles, lots of friction needing lots of power. not good for fast single person transportation.
History of the bicycle. In short, the oldest bicycle-like vehicles are from the early 19th century, about 200 years ago. There have been claims that a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci drew a design for one in the late 15th century, but it is probably fraudulent (and even if real, it was probably never built, like most Leonardo’s own “inventions”).
If you think about it, although we’ve had wheeled vehicles for millennia a bicycle is very different. It has to be both strong and lightweight, something which before the industrial revolution was essentially impossible. Also to make it self-propelled again required metals and machining precision that didn’t exist. The only easy way to human-power a vehicle is to have a servant pull it like an animal (i.e. like a rickshaw).
It’s not a coincidence that the Wright brothers started out as bicycle makers. Strong & light and self-propelling technology (with an engine this time) all overlap into aircraft.
Bicycles never gained any popularity, except as a curiosity, until there were roadways level and even enough to ride on. Although the principle was known for a long time, they were impractical for travel cross-country or on rough and unmaintained roads or those with a steep profile.
The above answers are fairly good.
A bicycle has to be lightweight but strong; the metallurgy to handle that is fairly recent. Cast Iron was heavy and brittle. Hand-working steel would be a major amount of labour, just to fashion one wheel. We don’t realize how much we put a modern bike through - the load on the axles, the forks; worse yet with uneven roads, the jarring and potential for breakage would be worse. Welding is a relatively new technology, so before that frames would have to be cast or bolted, meaning much heavier metalwork.
Anyone who’s ridden with a flat tire can immediately tell the difference an inflated rubber tire makes for a bike ride. Without tire technology, a bike would be much less comfortable, and the jarring and chance for breakage of the wheel and frame much worse.
A lot of the operational parts of the modern bike rely on ball bearings and grease, and then screw-on or press-fit pieces to hold those bearings in place. The easy free-wheeling of a modern bike wheel (which significantly reduces the work needed to ride) relies heavily on bearing technology. It wasn’t until the civil war that factories could reliably make pieces for, for example, a standard rifle so you could swap one piece for another. before that, most such tech was hand-fitted together so each product was a custom job. Precision metal-work is fairly recent.
Every wandered the older areas of an old town where they have decoratively left the old cobblestones exposed? Now imaging riding that on a clunky, heavy bike without inflated tires. Not fun at all. Out in the countryside, many roads became mud with the first rain and were almost impassable. Ever tried to cycle through deep mud? Roman roads were nicely drained, and paved with flagstones, but would still be relatively uneven and lumpy by modern standards.
Remember the silly-looking penny-farthing bikes, with those 6-foot front wheels? They were made that way because to get to a decent speed with direct-attached pedals, you needed a huge front wheel (or really fast feet). One of the biggest advances of the late 1800’s was bicycle chains, made from stamping and press-fitting fine metalwork. Making one of those chains by hand would be even more time-consuming for a master metalworker than making the wheels. Somewhat earlier versions had crank-pedal drive, where the pedals pulled rods that turned cranks on the back wheel like a steam engine - or the hobby horse (or Flintstone) drive, where you used your feet on the ground and coasted.
If a really good old-time craftsman were shown and allowed to fiddle with a modern bike, he probably could have built an almost acceptable substitute - minus the inflatable tires and chain drive. A fine glued laminate wood bike might actually work; you can see in the news every so often someone has a wood or cardboard bike as a novelty engineering design. But… would any such design stand up to anything more than smooth sailing along a very flat road?
We don’t realize the force we put on bikes. Consider how much stress you put on the pedal assembly by standing on the pedals; or standing up to pedal. Consider how deep the gouge in you calf would be if that pedal crank snapped in mid-run? What keeps the pedal crank turning the axle it’s on? one thin 1/4-inch bolt? That’s got to be some pretty reliable metalwork.
http://equipdisciples.org/missions/followup/bike.htm
I saw these on some travel program once… Basically, they allowed the rider to transport heavy loads. This is not exactly the same idea as what we use bicycles for. Also, they took advantage of a very long downhill. People loaded up their wood bike, rode it down the hill into market in the morning, and then pushed the empty bike back up in the evening. One again though, they require smooth roads (asphalt or fine gravel).
I think they were called “horses”
Or wheelbarrows. Which did exist in ancient times.
I’ve always thought (minus even so much as Wikipedia enlightenment) that the bicycle was essentially a French creation of the 19th Century, but perhaps that’s just when they became popular for touring.
That brings up this question: Do you know what a “velo pistol” is and how it was used?