Two booms before the real one
The bicycle had two false starts before it became a lasting machine. The first was a wooden walking machine in the 1810s. The second was the pedal velocipede of the 1860s. Both attracted crowds, then faded. Looking at them together shows how the basic idea of balancing on two wheels in line was proved, and how much work remained before it became practical.
Drais and the walking machine
Karl von Drais, an official and inventor in the German state of Baden, built a two-wheeled machine that he called a Laufmaschine, or “running machine.” He is reported to have taken a public ride in Mannheim in 1817, and he obtained an exclusive privilege for it in 1818. The machine is now commonly called the draisine, after him.
It was made largely of wood, with two wheels of similar size in line, a steerable front wheel and a padded seat. The rider sat on the seat and pushed along the ground with their feet, striding or gliding. It had no pedals and no brakes in the modern sense; the rider’s feet slowed the machine. Steering was done through a pole, or tiller, attached to the front fork.
Drais’s central discovery was that a rider could balance on two wheels in line by steering into a lean. It may seem obvious now, but at the time most people expected wheeled vehicles to need three or four wheels to stand upright. A rider moving at a modest speed on a smooth road could cover ground faster than a walker with the same effort.
Why it appeared when it did
A popular explanation links the draisine to a shortage of horses. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 is thought to have disrupted weather in the following years, and the harvests of 1816 were poor in parts of Europe, raising the price of feed for horses. This idea is often repeated, but it is a theory and the evidence connecting the machine directly to it is limited. Drais himself was also interested in other mechanical devices, and he may simply have been exploring the idea.
Drais’s name lived on in another form. A small hand-powered rail vehicle is also called a draisine, and he is reported to have built one in the 1840s, in the era of early railways. In the 1820s, inventors in Britain were also trying steam-powered carriages, so the problem of personal road transport was widely discussed.
Dandy horses in England
The machine spread quickly. Versions were made in France and Britain, where Denis Johnson, a London coachmaker, patented his own version in 1818 and produced a lighter, improved model that was sold as the “pedestrian curricle.” The machines became fashionable among young men and were nicknamed hobby horses or dandy horses, with cartoonists enjoying the sight of fashionable riders. Riders sometimes used sidewalks, which led to complaints, and towns introduced rules restricting their use on pavements.
The fad faded within a few years. The machines were heavy by modern standards, roads were rough, and pushing along the ground was tiring. Few people had a use for them, and the novelty passed. For several decades after that, the draisine was a curiosity.
The wheel gets pedals
The next important change came in the 1860s, when pedals and cranks were fixed to the front wheel of a machine similar to the draisine. The French carriage maker Pierre Michaux and his son Ernest are often credited with popularizing the idea, and the mechanic Pierre Lallement received a US patent in 1866. Who deserves priority is disputed, so this article concentrates on what happened afterward.
The new machines were called velocipedes, a word meaning “fast foot.” They had a wooden or iron frame, wooden wheels with iron tires, and cranks on the front wheel axle. Because the pedals turned with the wheel, riders could no longer coast with their feet up. The rough ride earned the nickname “boneshaker.”
The velocipede craze
In the late 1860s, interest in velocipedes grew quickly in France, Britain and the United States. Makers and agents promoted them, and riding schools were set up, sometimes in large halls where people could practice on a smooth floor. Newspapers wrote about the new fashion. An 1869 road race from Paris to Rouen, won by an English rider named James Moore, is often cited as one of the first organized bicycle races.
The craze did not last. The velocipedes were heavy and tiring, roads were unsuitable, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 disrupted business in France. Interest dropped, and many riding schools closed. The same pattern of enthusiasm followed by decline had happened with the draisine fifty years earlier.
What the two booms proved
Even though both fashions faded, they kept the idea alive. The draisine proved that balancing on two wheels in line was possible. The velocipede proved that a person would pay for a pedal-driven machine. In Britain, especially in Coventry, the skills of watchmakers and the makers of sewing machines were turned to the problem of making the velocipede lighter and better, leading to the high-wheeler of the 1870s.
Neither machine could be called a modern bicycle, and neither resolved the questions of comfort, speed and safety. Those questions occupied inventors for the next two decades. The draisine and velocipede are best seen as the experimental first steps, tried by enthusiastic amateurs and craftsmen, before the more practical designs followed.