Why Was the Bicycle Considered a Radical Invention?

I love my bicycle.

The inventor, Starley should be credited

Maybe seen as green mode of transport but in congested cities such as London is a death trap there is no room for bicycles.

A couple of bicycle building brothers named Wilber and Orville Wright also had a pretty significant impact on society.

The early design for women allowed them the freedom to ride while wearing dresses. But, the early design for men was rather tall with a straight top tube. One could not straddle the bike with both feet flat on the ground. Although attention was given to women’s needs and safety, but not to men. That early design should have been named, “The Ball Crusher.” One slip off the pedal or saddle, and your days of fathering children were over.

The Wright Brothers were bike builders, and they used that knowledge to design the Wright Flyer.

The efficiency of a standard adult bike is amazing. ONE revolution of the the crank(what pedals are attached to) moves the rider approximately 21 feet. A human adult mans step is +/- 3 feet.
Walking speed is about 3 mph. A bike, casually moves along at 12-15 mph. 4-5 times walking.
Plus, you can coast. Amazing.

I’m still using old bicycle ☹️

I like the statement that it is a symbol of freedom, unfortunately in the Western world it was taken over by the sports mentality, so that most bikes that are on the shelves are designed to function in high end sports activities, and are poorly designed to be the freedom machines of the masses.

150 years ago it was just the second way to privately move several times faster than walking for untrained, average in general, people, after horse riding - but much more cheaper than horse and available in dense cities. So it was really radical invention, breakthrough and progress.

Since then power available for people rose drastically with all electricity, internal combustion engines and so on. But pushbike fans still stuck in time.

Two bicycle builders went on to build airplanes. (The Wright brothers.)

Early bicycles weren't affordable for most working people. In the 1890s, a mid-range mass-produced bicycle would typically cost $75 to $125. This is equivalent to approximately $2,200 to $3,600 now. A factory worker was likely to make $10 to $15 a week, which was a lot more than a farm worker earned. The "Good Roads Movement" in the United States started about 1880. It was created by farmers and bicyclists to push governments to bring our roads up to European standards of the day. Its success had a lot to do with making it practical to operate early automobiles. If most roads had stayed as bad as they had been in 1870, cars would have had a much more difficult time getting anywhere.

In Physics , a bicycle has no mechanical advantage.
I was surprised when I heard this

Superficially it seems as if the bicycle should have had a three hundred year golden age before cars were invented. Unfortunately bicycles needed a lot of the same technology as cars to be successful. They needed reasonably good steel, reasonably good machining and ball bearings at a minimum. They also needed passable roads, which were in short supply until cars forced the issue.

I remember reading Petrov-Vodkin memoirs of his bicycle trip from Moscow to Italia in the beginning of 20th century. They're nice and have their kind of perspective on that time.

I live on my mountain bikes. Can't imagine not.

I don't see this women liberation. Women could travel by horse, by horse carriage, by train - exactly the same like men.

a very well covered subject.