'When I see a man on a bicycle,
I no longer despair for the human race'

H.G. Wells

(He was learning to ride a bike when writing War of the Worlds. On with the history...)

1490 - Leonardo Da Vinci
There's talk of a drawing of a bicycle in one of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks. Recent evidence suggests it's a hoax, and certainly not drawn in the 1490s, as it's in pencil, which wasn't invented until 1564.

Leonardo Da Vinci's bike. Or is it? Click on the picture for a closer look.

The young Leonardo Da Vinci (Only one complaint about this picture so far)

1790 - Look, no pedals
The Celerifere (as they called it in their typically French way) had two wheels and was a toy of the French nobility around this time. Handy for getting to executions on, your Fencemaster supposes. This was followed by the Draisine in 1816, which still didn't have pedals, but a steerable front wheel.

When the Draisine was introduced in England, it became known as a velocipede. A Scottish blacksmith added pedals in 1838, connecting them to the back wheel with a metal bar.

Silly-looking French bloke on a Draisine.

1867 - The year Wilbur Wright was born
What do you mean 'nothing to do with bicycles'? Not only did the Wright brothers run a successful bicycle repair shop, they made bicycles too. Their sister also spent time running the repair shop to support her brother's aviation antics.

In 1871, the year Orville Wright was born, several newspapers denounced bicycles as un-American, calling them 'dangerous and foolish'. One newspaper quoted a clergyman as saying, “You can’t serve God and skylark on a bicycle.”
(As good a recommendation as any - your Fencemaster).

Nevertheless, bicycles grew in popularity. Tricycles and 'high wheels'followed. The high wheel had a metal frame, a gigantic front wheel and a tiny rear one-a concept later incorporated into the design of tailwheel airplanes. By the year the Wright Brothers opened the Wright Cycle Shop at their home in Dayton, more than 100,000 high wheels had been sold.

The Wright stuff On the morning of December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright took their powered flying machine to Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Orville piloted the first flight that lasted twelve seconds. That was the first demonstration of sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot. On the way to the hills, they bumped into a mate of theirs, John T. Daniels, a photographer. This was also the pioneering days of the camers, and John had a new one he had been working on. He went along with them to test his camera. That's why this astonishing photograph of the first ever powered flight exists... I have read recently that the picture was taken with Orville's camera, and the Library of Congress has quite detailed information about how Orville positioned the camera and developed the print himself. It's still a good story either way... (Your Fencemaster is obsessed with aviation, as well as the fence)

1890 - All creatures great and small
We now have two wheels of equal size. a chain, and gears. Around this time a Scottish Vet (living in Ireland) made some rubber tyres to improve his son's bike.
His name was John Boyd Dunlop.

A Dunlop tyre. Possibly similar to the one John Dunlop made for his son's bike, or possibly not.

1896 - Women on the move
'The bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world.' - Susan B Anthony.

What was she on about? Well, prior to the development of the bicycle to this stage, a woman could not go tout and travel very far at all unless she was accompanied. The corset and bustle were almost immediately killed by the bicycle and women began to dress much more sensibly (still keeping their legs covered of course).

Many historians point to the bike as the beginnings of suffrage and women's rights movements. (Mrs Fencemaster reads everything she can find about the women's movement).

1900 and on - Paving the way
In both the US and the UK roads were improved to make cycling easier, literally paving the way for the motorcar. Many technical developments designed for bikes, from Dunlop's tires, through to lights, suspension, gears, brakes, and so on, were adopted by the car industry and have not changed greatly since.

The bicycle, seemingly relegated into second place, a victim of its own success is, nevertheless, the primary transport choice of the human race.

• There are around 1.6 billion bicycles in use throughout the world.
  
  
• 100 million Americans are regular cyclists.
  
  
• 100 thousand New Yorkers cycle to work everyday.
  
  
• In Delft, almost 50 per cent of all journeys are made by bicycle.
  
  
• Cycle 12.5 miles to work in London (on the day of a tube strike) and an upper-class 'inherited half of London' land owner makes you wish you had never bothered.