The oldest bicycle?

[oldtom]

While exploring a bit of Scotland recently, I came across this contraption which may or may not be the oldest bicycle ever - I have read similar claims previously in other countries but at least the museum does place a question mark against the claim about this one.



Innovative it may have been back then but I don't think I'd like to travel very far aboard anything like that!

Neither would I wish to be one of those aboard this multi-cycle..........




Great transport museum though for anyone passing through Glasgow and it really is well worth a visit, not least because admission is free! There's a tall ship moored on the river right outside the main entrance and that's free to visit and explore too.

Tom

 

[cosybike]

There are also some old bikes at Drumlanrig castle in the borders in the bike museum. I think the Germans have a good claim for early bikes. The Scottish guy was the first to be fined for causing fear and alarm or something.

Sent from my Lenovo YT3-850F using Tapatalk

 

[anotherkiwi]

From Wikipedia:

The "Dandy horse", also called Draisienne or Laufmaschine, was the first human means of transport to use only two wheels in tandem and was invented by the German Baron Karl von Drais. It is regarded as the modern bicycle's forerunner; Drais introduced it to the public in Mannheim in summer 1817 and in Paris in 1818.[18][19] Its rider sat astride a wooden frame supported by two in-line wheels and pushed the vehicle along with his or her feet while steering the front wheel.[18]


Michaux's son on a velocipede 1868
The first mechanically-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle may have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839, although the claim is often disputed.[20] He is also associated with the first recorded instance of a cycling traffic offense, when a Glasgownewspaper in 1842 reported an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a little girl in Glasgow and was fined five shillings.[21]

In the early 1860s, Frenchmen Pierre Michaux and Pierre Lallement took bicycle design in a new direction by adding a mechanical crank drive with pedals on an enlarged front wheel (the velocipede). Another French inventor named Douglas Grasso had a failed prototype of Pierre Lallement's bicycle several years earlier. Several inventions followed using rear-wheel drive, the best known being the rod-driven velocipede by Scotsman Thomas McCall in 1869. In that same year, bicycle wheels with wire spokes were patented by Eugène Meyer of Paris.[22] The French vélocipède, made of iron and wood, developed into the "penny-farthing" (historically known as an "ordinary bicycle", a retronym, since there was then no other kind).[23] It featured a tubular steel frame on which were mounted wire-spoked wheels with solid rubber tires. These bicycles were difficult to ride due to their high seat and poor weight distribution. In 1868 Rowley Turner, a sales agent of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company (which soon became the Coventry Machinists Company), brought a Michaux cycle to Coventry, England. His uncle, Josiah Turner, and business partner James Starley, used this as a basis for the 'Coventry Model' in what became Britain's first cycle factory.[24]

 

[flecc]

I always thought the hand-me-down I was given when I was 10 was the world's oldest bicycle. It sure looked like it.
.

 

[Danidl]

I always thought the hand-me-down I was given when I was 10 was the world's oldest bicycle. It sure looked like it.
.

.well the bike I acquired at a Garda (Police ) auction of abandoned or recovered bikes for 30 Bob, approx 1.2 £ , in 1969 might have have given it a run for its money...

 

[anotherkiwi]

I always thought the hand-me-down I was given when I was 10 was the world's oldest bicycle. It sure looked like it.
.

My three uncles were bachelors when I was 12 so my first was brand new! And now 50 years on I will have another new one!

 

[Danidl]

My three uncles were bachelors when I was 12 so my first was brand new! And now 50 years on I will have another new one!

Great it's always wonderful to get a new uncle.

 

[flecc]

Great it's always wonderful to get a new uncle.

Make that sometimes wonderful.

I reputedly had fifteen uncles, but I only ever met four, and none of them ever gave me a present. One was a solicitor and tried to cheat me when I was an adult.

So it doesn't surprise me that Uncle is the generic name for pawnbrokers.
.