THE CYCLE A SHORT HISTORY

This is a very short history and is only to give you a insight into the history of cycles.

The very first cycle made is not known and I am not going to name a date. One off cycles may have been made and no records made. The first cycles were of a type on which you sat on and then used your feet to push your self along. There was no steering on the first cycles, you had to pick the cycle up and turn the hole cycle in the direction in which you wanted to go. These were made from about 1690 ? they were two wheels and a wooden beam with no stealing or handle bars. In 1816 a German added stealing. this was called the draisine.These bikes if they were cycles were called hobby horses or dandy horses.The dates of about 1839 or 1840 of the first cycle is not for me to say. This date is dependent on what you call a cycle? Does it need pedals if so the hobby horse must be ruled out. The name of Kirkpatrick Macmillan a Scotsman who built a lever driven bike about 1840 which was a one off is often given as the first real cycle.The name dalzell was given to an improved model of the cycle. Also a Philipp Fischer made some bikes in Oberndorf some time in the 1850s.One is in the science museum in London I think.1862 saw Karl Kech adding some clanks to a hobby horse.

Then in 1861 in France Pierre Michaux added pedals to the front wheel of a French hobby horse and made the boneshaker This cycle had a solid iron frame with wooden wheels with iron rimes like a wagon wheel. English boneshakers started to made about 1869. These were very simmer to the French cycles.There are differences ask a boneshaker rider. One turn of the wheel moved the bike the length of the wheels circumference The wooden wheels got bigger in the front as the bigger the wheel the farther you went.with one turn of the wheel.

In 1871 the Ariel was made this had tightening spokes. At this time James Starley made lever tricycles. The ordinary or penny farthing has it ofteen known. Penny is also used by club members. The ordinary cycle with its very high big wheel at the front and a small wheel at the back just evolved till the 1880s The wheel just got bigger and bigger, but you needed very long legs to ride the biggest of these, as when the pedal was at its lowest point your leg was nearly strait. The tyres on these bikes were of solid rubber. To get on a small step was placed so that you could scoot along with your foot on this step then when the speed was right move forward onto the seat. then you found the pedals before forward momentum was lost. The getting off was done in the reverse order.

The chain meant the wheels could be smaller and the kangaroo in 1884 was a small ordinary with pedals and a chain. The Rover safety of 1885 was the first cycle as we know them as today, this had the pedals in the middle and a chain driving the rear wheels.This still had soiled rubber tyres. Next in 1888 the tubed tyre was made by made by Dunlop. This had been patented in England in 1845 .The hundreds of different cycles that have been made since then can be seen at one of the clubs rallies. Three wheelers, tamdums, and cycles for deliveries and even for ice cream men. The basic shape may have change little but with better gears and light weight steel tubes for the frames they have got lighter and easier to ride. The tour de France on a boneshaker I think not.