Bike Building - A Brief History of Bike Design and Innovation

Bike building history has a fair number of interesting details you might not expect. A gentleman named Baron von Drais crafted a wooden seat between two wheels in 1817 and started pushing himself around his gardens. So it began.

When you think of very old bikes the picture that probably comes to mind is of a very large front wheel with pedals attached. Interestingly, that was already a third or fourth generation of a design that started more like today's bike. The original design was two wheels of the same diameter and a seat in the middle. But that first iteration had no propulsion system beyond the Baron pushing his feet against the ground.

From there, bikes went on to go from a wooden design to metal with pedals attached to the front wheel. The size of the front wheel grew as builders deduced that the larger wheels could propel you further per rotation. The big problem with this tall bike design was that with the rider so high that the center of gravity lent itself to sending the rider head first over the handlebars far too often.

While two wheel bikes were for the men, women were riding the more innovative design of the day. Tricycles were actually the first bikes to have innovative features like hand brakes, rack and pinion steering, and suspension systems to smooth the ride.

As metallurgy afforded builders with the strength to work up chains and sprockets, the innovations from the tricycle made their way into bicycle design and we started to see the bikes that are familiar to us today.

Another interesting fact is that kids bikes didn't come into production until after the first World War. The department store chains were the big dealers at this point with Sears and Montgomery Ward leading the way. The designs of this early period often had elements to make them look more like the cars and motorcycles of the day to appeal to kids. Those elements added a lot of weight but kids didn't mind as long as they looked cool.

Today, there are bikes for every niche market you can think of and the innovations are still coming. The round about history of bike building is still unfolding with innovations that are starting to link the rider to the bike with electronics usually reserved for motor vehicles. In fact, with the world becoming more conscious of the environment, small motors are in fact making their way into bikes.

Tomorrows bike won't be untouched by the rise of computers, that much is certain. The science of propulsion and physics are benefiting from that rise as much as every other area of engineering so bikes will no doubt see more change to come.

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