Slow cycling [Numbers Don't Lie]

Some technical advances such as bicycles are delayed by either a failure of imagination or a concatenation of obstructive circumstances. Two centuries ago, on 12 June 1817 in Mannheim, Karl Drais, a forester in Germany’s grand duchy of Baden, demonstrated for the first time his Laufmaschine (running machine), later also known as a draisine or hobby-horse. But the design was too heavy and clumsy and that there weren’t yet enough suitable hard-top roads. Only in 1866 did Pierre Lallement get his U.S. patent for a bicycle propelled by pedals attached to a slightly larger front wheel. The entire 1870s and the early 1880s were dominated by high-wheelers with pedals attached directly to the axles of front wheels with diameters of up to 1.5 meters (5 feet), to provide a longer distance per pedal revolution. Only in 1885 did two British inventors, John Kemp Starley and William Sutton, begin to offer their Rover safety bicycles with equally sized wheels, direct steering, a chain-and-sprocket drive, and a tubular-steel frame. And although cars changed enormously between 1886 and 1976, bicycle design remained remarkably conservative. The first purpose-built mountain bikes came only in 1977.