Building a Better Bike: The Evolution of the Modern “Safety Bicycle”

Old technology, Social History, Society & Culture, Sport

THE absence of cars in cities during the coronavirus lockdown has been a boon to cyclists, both for the recreational kind and for commuter cyclists. There has been an “unprecedented surge in popularity” of bicycle traffic—even in the land of the automobile, the United States—with many bike shops reporting a doubling of their average sales…such is the demand now that bike manufacturers can’t build them fast enough [‘Cycling ‘explosion’: coronavirus fuels surge in US bike ridership’, (Miranda Bryant), The Guardian, 13-May-2020, www.theguardian.com; ‘Australia is facing a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ as cycling booms, advocates say’, (David Mark), ABC News, 16-May-2020, www.abc.net.au].

Starley’s Rover (Source: sewalot.com)

The renewed present enthusiasm to take up bike-riding in response to the pandemic recalls earlier periods of “bike-mania”in the West—late 1860s to mid-1870s and the 1890s—as the humble bike was evolving into its modern form. Credit for the basic look of the standard, no-frills bicycle as we we think of it today is generally given to John Kemp Starley for his 1885 invention, the “Rover Safety Bicycle”. The Rover’s similar-sized wheels, chain drive attached to the crankshaft and rear wheel, diagonal frame and relative lightness (20kg) retains the basic design of the modern bicycle [‘Pedal Your Way Through the Bicycle’s Bumpy History’, [Evan Andrews), History, 30-Jun-2017, [www.history.com].

1889 Ladies Rover Safety Bike (Image: bicyclehistory.net)

The Rover was seen as a curiosity at first, but when two years later John Boyd Dunlop manufactured the pneumatic tyre, it was a game changer for the new bicycle. Starley’s prototype and all two-wheelers that followed now had a smoother, cushioned ride on the typically bumpy roads of the 19th century. Being lighter the new bike also went faster [‘How bicycles transformed our world’, (Roff Smith), National Geographic,17-Jun-2020, www.nationalgeographic.com].

Fischer’s pedal-bike: Tretkurbelfahrrad
(Photo: www.schweinfurtfuehrer.de)

The bike by various other names

Most folk are aware that before the modern bicycle there was the penny-farthing – also known as the high-wheeler or by the all-purpose term, the ‘ordinary’. The farthing, whose feasibility owes much to French mechanic Eugène Meyer’s innovation of the tension-spoked wheel, was popular through to the end of the 1880s but prone to accidents❉. The lineage of the modern bike however goes back still further – to the bulky, all-wood laufmaschine (“running machine”), invented by Karl von Drais in 1817 in western Germany. The laufmaschine⌧ was the first mode of transport to utilise the in-line, bi-wheel principle, but slim-lined and graceful it wasn’t! Bereft of pedals, brakes and chains, it was propelled by the rider pushing against the ground. The addition of pedals came with another German inventor, Philipp Moritz Fischer, and modified by a French blacksmith/ inventor, Pierre Michaux, both contributing to the development of the modern bicycle. The 1860s brought a variant on the velocipede known as the ‘boneshaker’ (aptly describing the experience for the rider). Nonetheless, with its stronger and malleable metal frames it sparked the first bicycle craze in France which then spread worldwide. By the 1870s the ordinary was state-of-the-art in bikes with its hollow steel tubular frames and forks, steel rims and solid rubber tyres. By now the bike epicentre had crossed the Channel to England and the new standard became the ‘Ariel’ model designed by James Starley of Coventry (uncle of John K Starley), who added centre pivot steering, tangent spokes and a mounting step [‘A Beautifully Illustrated History of Nearly Two Centuries of Bicycle Design and Technology’, (Tony Hadland & Hans-Erhard Lessing), Slate, 22-Jul-2014, www.slate.com; ‘From boneshakers to bicycles’, Britannica, www.britannica.com].

The Drais Laufmaschine, 1817

1890s, the world gone crazy for the bicycle

By the 1890s demand for the new safety bicycle saw mass production take off. The earlier “high rollers” were now past tense. Bikes were now practical and stable vehicles with gears and brakes, the earlier serpentine-shaped frame replaced by a diamond pattern. By the decade’s end most bicycles were only 11 to 16 kg in weight (Britannica). Another technological breakthrough making riding easier for the cyclist came in 1898 when Briton William Reilly invented the prototype for variable gears, a two-speed gear called “The Hub”. Columbus Bicycles in Hartford, Connecticut, could make a bicycle a minute due to the speed of its automated assembly line – a technological innovation later successfully copied by the automobile industry⟴. The transfer of technology from bicycles could be seen in various ways. Both Henry Ford and the Wright brothers started as bike mechanics before making the switch to the invention and production of other, more advanced forms of transport (Smith).

Sturmey-Archer, 3/4-speed gears (Image: www.sturmey-archerheritage.com)

Instrument of freedom and independence
The bicycle gave the masses mobility, it no longer mattered that the less well-off couldn’t afford to travel by horse and carriage…bicycles were affordable, lightweight and easy to maintain. Ordinary folk suddenly were able to explore the countrysides, visit towns and places – far and near. Just about everyone, it seems, got into the act of riding bicycles – royalty and rulers in places like Russia, Zanzibar and Afghanistan took up cycling; First-wave feminists – Susan B Anthony declared that “bicycling emancipated women more than anything else”; women were especially enthusiastic as the activity allowed them to escape their voluminous and cumbersome Victorian skirts for more practical attire such as bloomers. When the lighter, less unwieldy safety bicycles came along, police in the UK were quick to adopt them in their work. Likewise, the NYC police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt mounted the city police on bikes to apprehend the new “public danger” of ‘scorchers’ (“speed demon” cyclists ) (Smith).

Source: Pinterest

The new craze for bicycles got the nod of approval from the US medical fraternity as well…advocated by doctors as “a boon to all mankind, a thing of beauty, good for the spirits, good for health and vitality” [David McCullough, The Wright Brothers: The Dramatic Story Behind the Legend, (2015)].

The conventional explanation for the demise of the bicycle boom is the rise of the commercially-viable automobile, but other factors may have contributed to the bicycle’s decline, such as the rapid growth of the early mass transit systems such as streetcars and trams which were a more practical alternative to bikes, especially in bad weather (Britannica).

1971 Tour de France (Source: Profimedia)

Endnote: in 2020 with the wholesale disruption to international sport due to COVID-19, the world’s premier event in the cycling calendar, the Tour de France was in a very select group of major sporting events given the green light to go ahead as normal, albeit delayed.

Columbia Bicycles, Connecticut (Source: etsy.com)

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❉ the penny farthings were inherently unsafe hence the name applied to Starley’s improved-design bike, the Rover safety bicycle. Also appearing around this time were the tricycle and the unicycle
⌧ it also went by other names, draisienne and vélocipède, and by the derogatory name, “dandy horse”

⟴ Columbia Bicycles got into the business in the 1870s when its proprietor and bike enthusiast Albert A Pope starting importing Excelsoir Duplex ordinaries from England, the manufacturer also formed the League of American Wheelmen to advocate for better roads in American for bicycling – the “Good Road Movement” of the 1890s [‘Albert Augustus Pope’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]

Wright or Not Right?: The Controversy over who really was “First in Flight?”

Aviation history, Popular Culture, Regional History, Social History, Society & Culture

“They are in fact either flyers or liars”

~ New York Herald (Paris edition), 1906

To the vast majority of people, especially in America, the name Wright brothers and the first mechanically-propelled flight in a heavier-than-air craft have always been synonymous with each other. The reality is that the achievement of Orville and Wilbur’s “First Flight” has always been strongly contested from certain quarters within the aviation industry in the United States – and internationally as well.

Not long after the news spread about the momentous event at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December 1903, the significance of what the Wrights’ had done found itself under challenge, especially as time went on from the European aviation community. French newspapers after 1903 described the celebrated American brothers as bluffeurs (bluffers). Doubts were raised about their achievements when the Wrights failed to release the photo of the Wright Flyer in flight at Kitty Hawk until nearly five years after the groundbreaking 1903 flight … newspapers acerbically asked: “Were they fliers or liars?”, Paris edition of the New York Herald (10 Feb 1906); ‘Wright Brothers: European skepticism’, www.spiritus-temporis.com.

imageThe state of North Carolina has harboured no such doubts, proudly displaying the slogan First in Flight on its car number-plates. Whether you accept the Wrights’ claim to be first in flight, or some other contender (of which there are several), in a sense could depend on what is meant by manned, aeronautical flight. Orville Wright’s first successful if brief powered flight was by no measure the first human flight in history. The genesis of intentional manned air travel can be traced back to the late 18th century with the advent of large hot air balloons (starting with the Montgolfier brothers of France in 1783).

As well, in the 30 years preceding Kitty Hawk, there was a host of aviation pioneers experimenting with monoplanes, biplanes, box-kites and gliders including, 1874: Félix du Temple; 1894: Hiram Maxim; 1894: Lawrence Hargrave; 1898: Augustus Moore Herring [B Kampmark, ‘Wright Brothers: Right or Wrong?’, Montréal Review (April 2013]. These flights however were either pre-power ones, or if motorised, they have been largely discredited as having been either unsustained, uncontrolled or as at the least not sufficiently controlled [P Scott, The Shoulders of Giants: A History of Human Flight to 1919].

The achievements of Orville and Wilbur in their 1903 Wright Flyer moved beyond the brothers’ earlier experiments in motorless gilders, but there are at least two other rival claimants prior to December 1903 whose aeronautical experiments were also mechanically-driven and became airborne albeit briefly – Gustave Whitehead in 1901 and Richard Pearse in 1902/1903. The late 1890s and early 1900s were awash with would-be plane makers, there was a veritable aircraft mania world-wide with people all the way from Austria to Australasia trying to construct workable “flying machines”.

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Richard Pearse

Pearse’s somewhat erratic aircraft experiments in New Zealand, far away from the salient aeronautical developments in the US Eastern Seaboard and Europe, largely flew under the radar (to invoke an obvious pun!). The evidence suggests that Canterbury farmer Pearse’s home-built glider (equipped with tricycle wheels and an air-compressed engine) made at least one (but probably more) flights, but with little control over the craft. What was to Pearse’s credit was that unlike the Wright Flyer which managed only to travel in a straight line on 17 December 1903, the New Zealander was able to turn right and left during his flight on 11 May 1903 [PS Ward, ‘Richard Pearse, First Flyer’ The Global Life of New Zealanders, www.nzedge.com].

Pearse’s low-key approach to his attempts meant that no photographs were taken, although Geoffrey Rodcliffe identifies over 40 witnesses to Pearce’s flights prior to July 1903 [http://avstop.com]. Pearse did not actively promote his own claims for a place in aviation history (unlike the consistently determined and even pathological efforts of the Wright brothers to consolidate their reputation), and he himself conceded that the Wrights’ flight achieved a “sustained and controlled” trajectory, something that he had not. But Pearse did contribute to aviation’s development nonetheless through the creation of a monoplane configuration, wing flaps and rear elevator, tricycle undercarriage with steerable nosewheel, and a propeller with variable-pitch blades driven by a unique double-acting horizontally opposed petrol engine [G Ogilvie, ‘Pearse, Richard William’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (Te Ara) 7 Jan 2014].

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Gustav Whitehead

G A Whitehead was a German migrant (born Gustave Weisskopf) living in Connecticut who started experimenting with gliders (variations on the glider prototype design developed by aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal) in the mid-1890s, at a time when Wilbur and Orville were still making and repairing bicycles in Dayton, Ohio. The case in support of the flight made by Whitehead on 14 August 1901 in what must be noted was an improbable-looking, bat-shaped, engine-propelled glider at Fairfield near Bridgeport, was first taken up in 1935 (in an article in an industry magazine, Popular Aviation, entitled ‘Did Whitehead Precede Wright In World’s First Powered Flight?’)回. Whitehead’s claim lay dormant until the 1960s when army reservist William O’Dwyer, took up the German-American engine-maker’s cause and did his upmost to promote his “flying machine”.

A surprise rival to the Wrights’ crown 
Supporters of Whitehead recently received a further boost through the research of Australian aviation historian John Brown who discovered a photo (lost since the 1906 Aero Club of America Exhibition) purporting to be of Whitehead’s № 21 Gilder in flight. Largely on the basis of this, Brown was able to convince the premier aviation journal, Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, to recognise Whitehead’s claim over that of the Wrights’ as the first powered and navigable flight in history [“An airtight case for Whitehead?”, www.fairfield-sun.com, 24 August 2013]. Doubts remain however about the Whitehead thesis. Brown’s reliance on the newly-discovered photo remains problematic, the image even ultra-magnified is indistinct and inconclusive of anything much. In any case the providence is questionable, there is no irrefutable evidence yet unearthed linking it to Whitehead’s 1901 flight. [“The case for Gustave Whitehead”, www.wright-brothers.org]

Whitehead & his № 21 Glider

Footnote: The newly-acquired kudos of Connecticut arising from Jane’s recognition of Whitehead, has led to the amusing suggestion from some Connecticuters, that the state’s number-plates now be inscribed (at the risk of some serious grammatical mangling), Firster in Flight“, as a counterfoil to North Carolina’s “First in Flight”❈.

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Santos-Dumont’s biplane

Santos, breaking through for Europe (and Brazil)
A case has also been made for Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian aviator-inventor as the first to fly a mechanised aircraft – the 1906 Paris flight of his 14-bis biplane (Condor # 20). Supporters of the Brazilian aviator argue this on the grounds that it, not the Wrights 1903 flight, represented the first officially witnessed, unaided take-off and flight by a heavier-than-air craft. Brazilians, whilst acknowledging that the Wright Brothers conducted a successful flight earlier, argue that Santos-Dumont should be given pre-eminence because the 14-bis‘ take-off was made from fixed wheels (as was Pearse’s flight in NZ incidentally) rather than catapulted into the air from skids as happened with the Wright Flyer in 1903 [‘The case for Santos-Dumont’, www.wright-brothers.org]. The patriotic Brazilians, always ready to embrace a national hero, sporting or otherwise, have gone to great and amusing lengths to register their pride in Santos-Dumont’s achievement. Many Brazilian cities have an Avenida Santos Dumont named in honour of the aviator. In a characteristically Brazilian vein of jocularity, some Brazilians have taken a “stretch-limo” approach, rendering the street name into English thus: Santos Dumont the True Inventor of the Airplane and Not the Wright Brothers Avenue [V Barbara, ‘Learning to Speak Brazinglish’, New York Times, 8 November 2013].

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Hargrave at Stanwell Tops

Hargrave down under: providing lift
More seriously, Santos-Dumont’s 1906 successful, powered flight in Paris (dismissed by the Wrights as a series of “long hops”) owed a large debt to Lawrence Hargrave, Santos’ Condor biplane being based on Hargrave’s box-kite construction. Not just Santos but many other aviation pioneers, including the brothers Wright, all benefitted from Hargrave’s conscious decision not to patent his designs. The Australian inventor has an under-recognised role in the history of aviation, but he contributed massively to the first successful airplane through the development of three critical aeronautical concepts – the cellular box-kite wing, the curved wing surface, and the thick leading wing edge (aerofoil). The world’s first commercial aircraft built by Frenchman Gabriel Voisin incorporated the stable lifting surfaces of Hargrave’s box kites. In addition, Hargrave invented the radial rotary engine which drew great interest from Europe and was later used extensively in military aircraft [‘The Pioneers: Aviation and Aeromodelling – Independent Evolutions and Histories’ (Lawrence Hargrave 1850-1915), www.ctie.monash.edu.au].

Illawarra’s place in the pioneering story of manned flight: Hargrave started off constructing ornithopters (“mechanical birds’ utilising a ‘flapping’ method) before experimenting with designs based on kites. Hargrave’s cellular or box kites provided the basis for a rigid, stable aeroplane. In 1894 at Stanwell Park in the Illawarra region, south of Sydney, Hargrave tested his own four-kite device which got the inventor airborne for a distance of five metres, the world’s first ”flying contraption” to achieve aerial lift from a fixed-wing [‘Aviation in Australia Hargrave’s flying machines’, State Library of NSW, www.sl.nsw.gov.au].

B9C14B4E-2F15-4173-8F1F-C15C67C67B07

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Jane’s magazine’s decision in 2013 to jettison the Wrights’ primacy and endorse Whitehead’s claim to be the first powered flight is in marked contrast to the position of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the subject. The key to understanding the Smithsonian’s rigid, on-going refusal to countenance the Whitehead case, or even to have an open mind on it (the Smithsonian dismissively refers to it as the “Whitehead Myth”), has its roots in the testy relationship that prevailed between the Wrights and the Institution. From the start the Smithsonian did not immediately and unconditionally embrace the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk achievement. Instead, the Institute sought to elevate Samuel Pierpoint Langley‘s unsuccessful Aerodrome craft on an equal footing with the Wright Flyer (at one point Langley was Secretary of the Smithsonian – a clear suggestion of a conflict of interest within the Institution). In retaliation the Wrights refused to display their 1903 “First Flight” aircraft in the Smithsonian. Orville, after Wilbur’s early death, eventually shipped it off to England where it was exhibited in the Science Museum in South London instead [‘History of the 1903 Wright Flyer’, (Wright State University Libraries), www.libraries.wright.edu].

The intriguing twist in this story occurred in 1942 when the remaining Wright, Orville, relented on the Smithsonian ban, but only after a deal was struck. The Smithsonian recanted its long-standing statement that Langley’s Aerodrome was the first machine capable of flight in favour of the Wrights’ claim. In return the Washington DC Institution was allowed to hold and exhibit the 1903 Wright Flyer. The rider which contractually committed the Smithsonian stated that if the Institute ever deviated from its acknowledgement that the Flyer was the first craft to make a controlled, sustained powered flight, then control of the Flyer would fall into the hands of Orville’s heirs.

On display at the Smithsonian (National Air & Space Museum)

Critics of the Institute believe that the Smithsonian’s indebtedness to the Wrights’ legacy (the fear of losing the historic Flyer to the estate executors) prevents it from recognising the merits of Whitehead’s pioneering achievement irrespective of the weight of evidence put forward [J Liotta, ‘Wright Brothers Flight Legacy Hits New Turbulence’, www.news.nationalgeographic.com]. Clearly this is a powerful disincentive to the Smithsonian objectively assessing the merits and new evidence for any rival claims to the Wrights (not just Whitehead’s) which may be unearthed.

The Wright stuff 
There were numerous aviation pioneers, engineers and technologists experimenting with new forms of aircraft at the turn of the 20th century, so what was it that made the Wright brothers stand out from the others? The preservation of identifiable photographic evidence and documentation of the December 1903 attempts certainly contributed to the strengthening of the brothers’ argument for being “First”. Another factor is that the brothers scrupulously consolidated and cultivated their reputation as the foremost air pioneers. Clearly the Wrights had an eye on history which contrasts with the less calculated approach of their rivals (especially Whitehead and Pearse). The Wrights vigorously defended the accomplishments of their Flyer against that of competing airships. They also went to great efforts to protect their technologies against intellectual theft … the propensity of the Wrights to resort to lawsuits when they felt their interests (eg, patent preservation) was threatened, pays testimony to this.

The Wrights, unlike most of the competition, kept on improving the quality and capability of their airplanes (at least up until they got bogged down in patent litigation), eg, the development of “wing warping” helped control the aircraft through enhanced aerodynamic balance. [D Schneider, ‘First in Flight?’, American Scientist, 91(6), Nov-Dec 2003]. The patents issue and the brothers’ preparedness to play “hardball” with their rivals led them into questionable ethical terrain, eg, their refusal to acknowledge the influence on their designs of pioneers who came before them, such as the Anglo-Australian Hargrave [‘The Pioneers’ op.cit.].

Kill Devil Hills (Nth Carolina) (Image: www.visitob.com)

The credence given to the Wright brothers’ claim to be the first successful flyers should perhaps come with an asterisk, signifying it as heavily qualified, as in David Schneider’s all-inclusive, tongue-in-cheek description: “First in Sustained, Piloted, Controlled, Powered, Heavier-than-air Flight of Lasting Technological Significance” [ibid].

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Many in the public at large would hold with tradition and still attribute the crucial breakthrough in aerial navigation to the Wright brothers…but can we really say that in that start-up era of aeronautics that any one of the countless attempts by aviation pioneers was absolutely the definitive one? The differences between what Whitehead, Santos-Dumont, Pearse, the brothers Wright and Herring achieved with their best efforts seems to be one of degree, not kind.

Augustus Moore Herring, the darling of Michigan aviation enthusiasts, managed a flight of only 73 feet and no more than 10 seconds in duration, no more than an extended hop according to National Air and Space Museum curator, Tom Crouch, but it registered as a lift-off nonetheless [TD Crouch, A Dream of Wings]. “Bamboo Dick” Pearse’s optimal flight in Temuka, NZ, travelled a mere 50 feet or so and abruptly ended 15 feet up in a gorse-hedge! The last and best attempt of Orville in the Wright Flyer on that December day in 1903 lasted 59 seconds and travelled some 852 feet in distance. Gus Whitehead’s best try on 14 August 1901 was half a mile according to him, but it was poorly documented, lacked verification and any pellucid images of the feat.

Did any of the documented early flights per se achieve “sustained and controlled flight”? Human conquest of the sky didn’t happen in one quantum leap, surely it came about in a series of small, measured steps, each building on the one before. It is more meaningful to see the development of viable flying machines as something that happened incrementally, an aerodynamic puzzle put together piece-by-piece. It was an international effort, the culmination of the accumulated efforts of gifted pioneering aeronautical designers such as George Cayley, Octave Chanute, Samuel Langley, Lawrence Hargrave and Otto Lilienthal whose experiments made it possible for the Wrights and others to experiment with flight, coming closer and closer to the realisation of successful manned, powered flight.

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PostScript: Pittsburg 1899
In a documentary shown on national ABC television (Australia) John Brown made the case for an even earlier attempt at powered flight by Gus Whitehead, which occurred in the city of Pittsburg in 1899. Brown does not contend that this flight by the German-American should be recognised as the first successful attempt because it was not controlled – to the point that the aircraft actually crash-landed into a brick building, Who Flew First: Challenging the Wright Brothers, (DTV 21, ABC 2016).

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回 freelance writer Stella Randolph was responsible for maintaining interest in Whitehead’s aviation pursuits, researching and writing The Lost Flights of Gustave Whitehead in the 1930s
❈ then there’s the claims of Ohio and specifically Dayton to their part in aviation history, the Wright Flyer being manufactured in Dayton

◖◗ See also the related article on this blogsite (October 2016) – “The Wright Way, the Only Way: the Aviation ‘Patent Wars’ and Glenn Curtiss”