Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

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.

Previously...

Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39774253 - March 2024 (238 comments)

Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25331858 - Dec 2020 (83 comments)

Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443822 - July 2019 (492 comments)

High-quality (higher carbon) steel required for frame, chain and gears was not abundant enough and cheap enough until late XIX century.

I wonder if the idea of the balance required for two wheels was an impediment to invention and use.

for example, I think one-wheeled devices / unicycles are crazy and only someone with a lot of time, energy and motivation will to learn to balance and use one.

But nowadays computers make it possible for normal people to use them without as much skill.

We might have a "why did we wait so long for simple one-wheeled transportation?"

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another analogous musing -- why did we start with main+tail rotor helicopters?

Nowadays 4-rotor quadcopters appeared and have taken over.

> I think the deepest explanation is in general economic and cultural factors.

I would say that this is very on point. Even during the renaissance "inventing" was a hobby for the aristocracy, as the author gets around with Giovanni Fontana. I'm not sure if a bicycle would've been a "cool" invention at the time. Because what would you do with it?

For the majority of people there was very little need for personal mobility in society. I know we have this nice fantasy idea of towns having taverns and getting visitors, but in reality, most towns didn't even get what we'd consider a modern pub until the industrial revolution. Sure there were ale houses, but an ale house wasn't a permanent establishment, it was simply whomever had most recentely brewed beer. You'd bring your own chair, and your own cup. So even if you had a bicycle you would frankly have nowhere to go.

I would imagine the lack of good road infrastructure, and a society built around the idea of being hyper local were large factors contributing to not having much of a need

Cool to see a history of engineering development of something I take for granted. The present game of engineered complexity and incompatibility would make an interesting second part.

A more stark example: why did we wait 2,000 years for the elevator? Archimedes had invented every component necessary in the 200s BC. It took til the 1800s for a dude named Otis to add one extra part that made it practical and safe, and soon they were everywhere.

It’s not at all immediately obvious as to why the bicycle stands upright or turns. The physics is non-trivial and, based on the drawings, offsetting the center of the wheel from the axis of thw wheel being turned was not a thing. But it is this feature, that allows the modern bike to maneuver. Counter-steering is very unintuitive. If you lack the underlying physics or, in fact, personal experience, the bicycle sounds utterly mad. It doesn’t make sense. Which is why people did not work on it.