A machine built by mechanics
Most of the people who shaped the early bicycle were not famous scientists. They were carriage makers, blacksmiths, sewing machine mechanics and small-town workshop owners who liked to improve things they could build and test themselves. That is part of why the history is messy: many of them worked without publicity, and the records that survive are patchy.
This article follows a handful of those people. It is about who they were and what they are credited with, not a parts-by-parts account.
Karl von Drais, the official with a workshop
Karl von Drais held a position in the forestry service in the German state of Baden, and he liked inventing. His two-wheeled walking machine of 1817 is the starting point of most bicycle histories. He is also remembered for other devices, including a typewriter-like machine and a hand-powered railway vehicle. His walking-machine fashion was short-lived, and he did not profit much from it.
His contribution was the basic idea: two wheels in line, a steerable front wheel, and a rider who balances. He did not add pedals. For a long stretch afterward, other people copied or adapted his design without improving it much.
Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a story told long afterward
Kirkpatrick Macmillan was a blacksmith in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. According to accounts published decades later, he built a machine in the late 1830s that was driven by pedals and rods linked to the rear wheel. Stories describe him riding a long distance and being fined after colliding with a child.
The difficulty is that these accounts are late, and no surviving machine can be confirmed as his own work. Many historians treat the tale with caution, though some regard it as plausible. It stays in the record as an example of how local heroes were credited after cycling became popular.
Pierre Michaux, Ernest Michaux and Pierre Lallement
The 1860s are the most debated period. Pierre Michaux ran a carriage and repair business in Paris, and his son Ernest is often named in connection with putting cranks and pedals on the front wheel. The family firm made and sold many machines, and they became a fashionable item.
Pierre Lallement, a French mechanic, told a different story. He said he had built a pedal machine in France and then moved to the United States, where he received a patent in 1866. He worked in Connecticut for a time, and his later life was not especially prosperous. The question of who deserves priority has never been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and it depends on how one weighs patents, memories and surviving machines.
James Starley, the sewing machine mechanic
James Starley was a mechanic from Sussex who moved to Coventry, England, an area then known for watches and sewing machines. He worked on sewing machines before turning to cycles, and the skills carried over: fine metalwork, small adjustable parts and attention to production. He is often described as a founder of the British cycle industry. Among the ideas associated with him are the Ariel high-wheeler of around 1870, improved wheels with tensioned wire spokes and a differential gear for tricycles. Not every detail of the credit is agreed, because several makers were working on similar improvements at once, and wire drawing and better steel were making lighter wheels possible.
His nephew John Kemp Starley later built the Rover safety bicycle of 1885. The family therefore links two key stages of bicycle history.
Harry Lawson and the promoters
Not every pioneer was a mechanic. Harry Lawson was a promoter and businessman, and he is linked to an 1879 chain-driven bicycle design called the Bicyclette. He later became known for attempts to build a large cycle and motor industry through company mergers and patent claims. His record is mixed, and some of his business ventures failed. His story is a reminder that bicycles were also a business, and promoters sometimes got more attention than the people who made the machines.
What the pioneers had in common
Looking across these people, a pattern appears. Many came from trades that already worked with metal, wheels or fine mechanisms. Their machines were improved in small steps. A blacksmith might copy an existing machine, then change the cranks; a carriage maker might add rubber or iron tires; a mechanic might rethink the wheel.
Some of them later worked on other forms of transport. A number of cycle firms moved into motorcycles and early motor cars, and a bicycle shop became the starting point for the Wright bicycle workshop and the airplane experiments that followed. When engineers first tried to build horseless carriages, the cycle trade supplied tubing, wheels and skilled workers.
Reading the credit claims carefully
It is easy to turn this story into a list of “firsts,” but the evidence rarely supports that. Priority claims were often made years later, sometimes by relatives, and promotional literature was not always careful. A fair summary is that Drais is well documented for the walking machine, the Michaux workshop and Lallement are both connected with the early pedal machines, and Starley is closely associated with the shift from experimental machines to a manufacturing industry. Macmillan remains an interesting but weakly documented figure.