8/4/2026 at 4:05:32 AM
I think the author is missing another major factor: the early bicycle doesn't solve any problem satisfactorily.A velocipede at best saves you a bit of energy going flat or downhill, with relatively little increase in speed, with a relatively high capital expense. Compared with walking and horses, it doesn't help much.
You have to get all the way to the safety bicycle (with pneumatic tires) before you have something that beats walking for someone that is not a cycling enthusiast.
It's a bit like the question of why the steam engine wasn't invented earlier. It was invented to pump water out of coal mines. Being 2% efficient (for the original model) didn't matter, since it was only used to mine its own fuel. I don't think we'd ever get to modern steam and later internal combustion engines without coal deposits making the initial prototype feasible, and then funding continual improvements.
By that sort of logic, we are lucky that European aristocrats were bored and enjoyed scary proto-bicycles, or we'd still not have them today. The final safety bicycle is practically a Segway by comparison with four wheel carriages.
by avidiax
8/4/2026 at 5:45:22 AM
There is even a bigger factor, the environment, Bicycles are only as good as the roads you're riding them on.Off-road bicycle is a far more sophisticated and modern invention that builds on massive supply chain and production capabilities to be produced competitively compared to price of horse of yester-years.
by asdfsa32
8/4/2026 at 9:13:12 AM
for rough roads, fat-tires are the way to goby sysguest
8/4/2026 at 10:21:39 AM
How rough before even that's not enough, and were typical roads at the time of this quality?Also, consider when vulcanised rubber and inflatable tires were invented.
by ben_w
8/4/2026 at 11:06:11 AM
> we are lucky that European aristocrats were bored and enjoyed scary proto-bicyclesThere is a lesson there that is relevant today because our economy has forgotten it: to have innovation you need people to have spare time.
by inigyou
8/4/2026 at 5:50:19 AM
Apparently buttons in buttonholes as a clothing fastener were not a thing until 1300 ce. Maybe that fact is false but, if true, it's crazy to me it took until 1300 ce to think of putting a "button" through a hole.Maybe the issue is the defintion of "button" but still.
There's this non-serious book, "How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler", which describes things you could introduce if you were beamed back in time. Things you could actually make and just took people to think of (vs like a smartphone that requires high-tech). "Buttons" was one of them.
by socalgal2
8/4/2026 at 5:55:25 AM
The problem is the seams. Seam durability has been the driving force in a lot of "obvious" clothing inventions over the ages, and is why things like medieval crotchless hose were around for so long.by crooked-v
8/4/2026 at 12:15:12 PM
Inflection point of technologies: - [pneumatic tire] -> bicycle.
- [battery, touch screens, high bandwidth networks] -> mobile phones
- [transformer architectures, massive datasets] —> “ai” as we know it today
by xtiansimon
8/4/2026 at 7:15:51 AM
I think you are partly right, but I also think the mechanical advantage of the bicycle, even the velocipede, was significantly underestimated. You say it saves "a bit of energy going flat or downhill" but some quick calculations suggest it is twice as energy efficient just balancing along, and 3 to 4 times more efficient pedalling. These advantages aren't always realised, especially over shorter distances, but I would have thought they would be quite clear over any longer distances, or when carrying a heavy load. Perhaps this is where initial unreliability became an issue though, as the advantage of saving energy on a long journey bt bicycle would be outweighed if it was prone to breaking down, given it would be unlikely to find someone who could repair in those early days.I think a fundamental inability to intuitively grasp the potential mechanical efficiency of the concept must have been a major barrier though.
by jdmitch
8/4/2026 at 11:07:18 AM
That sentence was about the pedal-less velocipede. It basically holds up your butt while you walk, and can coast a bit.by inigyou
8/4/2026 at 3:45:23 PM
> It basically holds up your butt while you walkThere's also a second major benefit. Some amateur theory: There are two main advantages to wheels generally: A) Hold up your butt (support weight), and B) reduce friction with the ground, preserving momentum. Wheels move weight.
Walking A) puts weight on your legs, and B) is series of high-friction interactions with ground - on each step you would almost stop if you didn't expend energy to propel yourself forward to the next step (depending on how fast you're walking). You forward momentum is mostly wasted on each step.
Compare carrying something heavy walking and in a wheelbarrow: The wheelbarrow bears the weight and also uses forward momentum much more efficiently. The wheelbarrow was a high-impact innovation.
But the wheelbarrow still requires you to walk! So put your own butt in the wheelbarrow and using a crankshaft, pedals, and some gearing (and maybe a second wheel), propel your own weight forward too. Now you have a cargo bike. :)
by mmooss
8/4/2026 at 8:47:16 AM
Transport museums in the UK are fascinating because they are full of machines that didn't solve any problem satisfactorily. My local museum has the bicycle well represented along with much else of the times, early lawn mowers, sewing machines and everything else.The boss of Trek says the product (the bicycle) has been fit for purpose for a century. I think he is right, even though I am not riding anything before 1989, when indexed gears, decent brakes and many user improvements came along thanks to Shimano, a favourable Yen and the mountain bike 'fad'.
As for 'beats walking', the pre-war roadsters with nickel plated steel, hub gears, lights, a pump, mudguards and big springs in the seat, on OG Dunlop cotton sidewall tyres, I would take the bicycle any day over walking, particularly if the streets are full of horse manure.
This was the biggest time for cycling in the UK, the car took over after the war. Meanwhile, in the USA, the car had ousted the bicycle, street car and train to a huge extent, putting them on life support.
Back to the transport museum, the amount of experimentation for things like brakes is wild, with many unlikely designs after WW2, when I expected something more recognisable. Then there was no innovation from Europe apart from minor iterative improvement until the Japanese showed everyone how it is done, with Shimano being the dominant player, with Suntour as the plucky underdog. Innovation was then like the latte 90s for PC's, everything would be out of date within six months and you would need to upgrade.
There was nobody with a master plan, guiding the cycling boom along, it was just a convergence of shared interests, with 'mountain biking' being a response to bicycles no longer being welcome on the roads.
BMX also played a part, as that 'fad' resulted in chro-moly 4130 steel frames, welded in the Taiwanese Province (tm) rather the usual lugs and brazing used in the West. The BMX factories provided the capacity and they had the tooling for mountain bikes, so that played a part in the 'secret plan' to engineer a boom (as if).
In the context of mountains of machinery and incredible innovation of peak Industrial Revolution, and my personal recollection of the MTB boom, I don't believe there is a 'lived silver thread' that explains all, only historians can weave together a narrative that sort of makes sense.
Incidentally, the bicycle is still the cradle of innovation. Clothing is an interesting area, typically, in a given era, cycle clothing, including shoes, helmet, sun glasses, gloves and 'lycra' is on a different technology level to anything the likes of Nike or Adidas are doing. Hydro-formed aluminium, carbon fibre and much else is far more advanced on two wheels than on four, where the vehicle weight is 100x lighter.
by Theodores