The Bicycle – From Humble Beginnings

Who invented the bicycle? Well, historians aren't really sure. The story of the bike is a somewhat muddled affair, and the first claims just keep on getting more and more obscure.

The first person to claim that they invented the bicycle was Comte de Sivrac. This claim was based upon a two-wheeled bicycle-like contraption called the "célérifere" that, supposedly, appeared in 1791 at the Palais-Royal in France. This invention was said to have two wheels, a wooden frame (imagine the blisters!), and no type of steering. Sound interesting? Well, maybe that's because it was all a fragmented portion of fiction conjured up by a journalist called Louis Baudry de Saunier - that's right, this "bicycle" never existed. As incredible as this may seem, bicycle history simply has a way of gathering false testaments throughout time.

The next person to "create" a bicycle was a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci. Around the 16th century, someone discovered a drawing that Giacomo Caprotti (da Vinci's student) had drawn. This picture was found in a church, and it depicted an angel riding a bicycle. Quite recently, Hans-Erhard Lessing attempted to show that this drawing was nothing sort of an imaginative sketch, though some people believe that the sketch was, indeed, real - where else would Caprotti have come up with the idea of a two wheeled machine? If you were to ask an Italian, they would tell you that da Vinci, or his disciple, invented the bicycle in 1493 ... though this is debatable.

Now then, let's move on to those claims that have been proven to be true. If we are to look for the first real, tangible, proof of the earliest bicycle, we would have to travel to Germany. A man named Baron Karl von Drais invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine") in 1818. This invention was often called the "hobby-horse" or "dandy horse" and it was manufactured, sold, and constructed (from wood, no less) throughout Germany and France. Though everything checks out for the Baron, the word "bicycle" is, yet another, part of bicycle history.

The actual term "bicycle" was developed in France during the 1860s (around the time of the imaginary célérifere). The bicycle, as we know it, did not really start to appear until the 1960s when mountain bikes became immensely popular. Soon after the first mountain bike was fashioned, nearly everyone within the United States had one.

Bicycle history has never really ended, nor has it slowed down, and many countries tirelessly try to claim that one inventor or another created the first bicycle. Still, the title of "bicycle inventor" can only be attributed (for now) to Baron Karl von Drais and his hobby-horse that hailed from Germany.

Aazdak Alisimo writes about bike shops for BikeShopsUSA.com.