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It was almost 40 years until "velocipede" came into common usage as a generic term, with the launch of the first pedal-equipped bicycle, developed by Pierre Michaux, Pierre Lallement and the Olivier brothers in the 1860s. The Michaux company was the first to mass-produce the velocipede, from 1857 to 1871. That French design was sometimes called ...
1886 Swift Safety Bicycle. Vehicles that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels arranged consecutively, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German draisine dating back to 1817.
Wooden dandy horse (around 1820), a patent-infringing copy of the first two-wheeler Original Laufmaschine of 1817 made to measure.. The dandy horse, an English nickname for what was first called a Laufmaschine ("running machine" in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, [1] or swiftwalker, [2] is a human-powered ...
A bicycle or tricycle where the rider is placed in a laid-back position, feet first and sitting in a seat instead of on a saddle. Usually used for ergonomics or aerodynamics. All world land speed records are held by (enclosed) recumbent bicycles, but these bikes are not allowed in races governed by the UCI.
The first to surpass 200 km/h was the Frenchman Jose Meiffret in 1962, when he reached 204 km/h (127 mph) behind a Mercedes-Benz 300SL car on a German motorway. [30] Allan Abbott, a cycling enthusiast and motorcycle racer, elevated the motor-paced bicycle speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats, reaching 223 km/h (139 mph) in 1973.
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in Europe. By the early 21st century there were more ...
European city bike Children riding a bike in Ghana. Cycling, [1] also known as bicycling [2] or biking, [3] is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles.
In the early 1860s the first true bicycle was created in Paris, France, by attaching rotary cranks and pedals to the front wheel hub of a dandy-horse. The Olivier brothers recognized the commercial potential of this invention, and set up a partnership with blacksmith and bicycle maker Pierre Michaux, using Michaux's name, already famous among enthusiasts of the new sport, for the company.