The Safety Bike: The Beginning of Travel by Road
Walter Gay
Individual Historical Paper
Junior Division
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No proceeding technological innovation, not even the internal-combustion engine,
was more important to the development of the auto mobile as the bicycle.
~James Flink, Automobile Historian (Hurst)
In the 1890’s the Safety Bike took the global market by storm. There was a bike
boom in progress and everyone wanted one. Suddenly the streets were filled with
hundreds of peoples on bikes. Men were not the only ones who were on the bikes.
Women were also riding along with poor people and black people. The invention of the
safety bicycle was a turning point it technological and social history.
“Before the Bicycle became the “King of the Road,” it was the “Prince of the
Parks” ~Wiebe Bijker (Bijker)
Before the invention of the safety bicycle, the world was a very different place
then it is now. The ordinary bicycle or the “Penny Farthing” was the bike that dominated
the market in the 1870s. The ordinary bike’s most noticeable feature is the extremely
large front wheel. That is on the ordinary bike so that it could reach higher speeds. It
could reach higher speeds because the pedals were attached to the wheel, so the larger the
wheel the more distance you can achieve with fewer rotations. They were not meant as a
form of practical transportation, but a way for the Aristocratic Men to impress their lady
friends. They would ride around Hyde Park, not going anywhere in particular. The name
“Penny Farthing” was actually meant as an insult. It was called that because of how the
wheels size difference was relative to that of a the two British coins the penny and the
farthing. They were also known as “Boneshakers”, because of how rough the ride was.
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The ride was so bumpy because the early tires were made of wood, and covered in iron.
Eventually they changed them to solid rubber, but that did not make that large of a
difference. The Penny Farthing was supposedly invented in the mid 1860’s by a father
son duo of French carriage makers, Pierre and Earnest Michaux, who worked together as
engineers in their free time. Their ordinary bikes, and most others, were known to be
extremely dangerous, because hitting a single bump in the road would knock the rider off
and they would land right on their head. Men mainly used them; these men were usually
in the upper class and also had to be very acrobatic. (Fiedler) They were used in many
races and had a few clubs based on them. But overall they were not very popular. In
1875, there were not very many other forms of private transportation available to the
general public. Cars were not common, and the ordinary bicycle was an object of
ridicule. Also around this time, America’s economy was not looking very good, America
recently had a major civil war, there were very few high quality roads, and bicyclists
were just a small minority with little political power.
In 1885, John Kemp Starley created the first commercial safety bicycle. (Fiedler)
He called it the Rover Bike. From a young age, Starley had been interested in engineering
and had worked at his uncle’s bike shop as an apprentice. John and his uncle James
Starley were two of the most important inventers in English history, yet their legacy is
often forgotten. James Starley was an engineer who took in John from a young age.
(James Foremen-Peck) According to Starley Bikes .com,
“ The main principles which guided him (John Starley) into making this bicycle
were to place the rider at the proper distance from the ground, to place the seat in
the right position in relation to the pedals and to place the handles in such a
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position in relation to the seat that the rider could exert the greatest force upon the
pedals with the least amount of fatigue.”
His Rover Safety Bike was one of the first bikes to be chain driven, allowing the two
wheels to be the same size and the seat to be much lower then it originally was. This was
vitally important because the high front wheel is the main reason the Penny Farthing was
so dangerous. (Perry)
This major breakthrough was one of the main reasons for the safety bike’s success. In
1904 the Rover Company, John Starely’s company which produced the Rover Safety
Bike, switched its manufacturing to making cars. This became such a good business that
the company dropped its bike manufacturing all together. John Starley died in 1901, at
the age of 46. On the day of his funeral, every bike shop in Coventry closed for the day to
honor him. Attending his funeral were 20,000-bike enthusiasts who came out to celebrate
his life. John’s brother James patented the tangent spoke wheel, an invention that would
later be borrowed by the motorcycle, automobile, and the plane. (Starley Bikes)
Also with the invention of the safety bicycle came the pneumatic tire. The
pneumatic tire was created by John Boyd Dunlop, the founder of the Dunlop Pneumatic
Tyre, Company. (Woodforde) The pneumatic tire was another reason the safety bicycle
gained popularity as it made the riding much gentler. The pneumatic tire is still in use
today in cars, bikes, motorcycles, and planes. Overall the safety bike was much improved
from the earlier bicycles in many ways.
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“By the middle of the 1890’s it was obvious to all that a cycling boom was in
progress. People of every social class wanted a bicycle and existing factories
found themselves unable to keep up with the demand.”
~John Woodforde, Author of The Story of The Bicycle (Woodforde)
The 1890’s were a great time for bicycle enthusiasts. New bike shops were
everywhere. There were 83 different bike shops within a one-mile radius of Lower
Broadway in New York City. (Perry) There were hundreds of new bike clubs popping up
in every city, large or small. There was a bike club in Boston that acted as a hotel and
repair shop to all of its members. (Perry) Many people had thought that the safety bicycle
would never over take the ordinary, but by the 1890’s the ordinary bikes were obsolete. It
was obvious that the safety bike was a superior model. There were over 100,000 bikes
exported from the U.S. alone in 1896. (Scientific American) But the biggest event that
was that people were riding their new safety bike everywhere. According to Eben Weiss
“Once the safety bike dropped, cycling absolutely exploded. It was the thing to do.”
(Weiss) Not just the upper classed gentlemen were suddenly ridding bikes, but poor
people, black people, and most importantly women, were all riding their new safety
bikes. (Londonderry) Suddenly parks were filled with people of every class, race and
gender riding their bike. The 1896 bike fair in Madison Square Garden could not hold all
of the people and vendors that showed up. (Londonderry)
This had other effects too. Movie theaters even had to move closer to cities
because people did not want to bike too far. (Scientific American) Whiskey sales were
down as now people had to drive themselves around. (Scientific American) The Dunlop
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Pneumatic Company was suddenly valued at 5 million British pounds. (Perry) The
American bike trade was doing especially well in the global market as the American
bikes were known as extremely high quality compared to the bikes of other countries.
And not only in America and England, people in underdeveloped countries were riding
bicycles. It was especially helpful there because cheap transportation that could ride on
primitive road had never been heard of before now. After the invention of the safety bike
people in Africa and Asia could get around their local community quicker then just by
walking. People were riding so much that their tire wore out so the rubber industry even
had a small boom. (Perry)
It even effected the government. Politicians even took up the side of cyclists to
win the favor of what had become a very large group of people. And, there were two
U.S. patent offices at the time. There was one for bicycles, and one for everything else.
Many famous people had investments in the Safety Bike including, Albert Pope, A.G.
Spaulding, and John D. Rockefeller.(Perry) It was a very good time to be a cyclist on a
safety bike, as they ruled the road.
The Safety Bicycle had many lasting effects on the world, enough to consider it a
turning point. The first reason is obvious. The safety bicycle led to many technological
innovations. The main innovation is the invention of the pneumatic tire. These were an
extremely important invention that was necessary for people to take up the safety bicycle.
They make riding much more bearable. This was a big improvement from the
“Boneshakers” from the earlier decades. When the pneumatic tire was invented all of the
safety and comfort problems went away. We still use them today in cars, motorcycles,
planes, and bikes. Without them all vehicles would need massive shocks in order to drive.
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Another technological innovation the safety bicycle was the advancement of the safety
bicycle was the advancement of the chain driven vehicles. (Hurst) That was what let them
decrease the size of the front wheel, which is the biggest improvement of the safety
bicycle. The chain is still used today on many different vehicles and is essential to being
able to drive just about anything. Without the advancements of the chain and pneumatic
tires, cars would not be where they are today. Some other advancements of the safety
bike were that it led to higher quality metal, ball bearings, and better chains and gears.
The improvement of metal quality was because people were always looking for and still
are looking for, the lightest and strongest metal possible. The improvement to ball
bearings was also very important because of how often it is still used in modern vehicles
wheels. (Hurst)
Another advancement that the safety bicycle led to was the improvement of road
quality. While carriages could drive on the muddy streets of the time, the New Safety
Bikes could not as its wheels would get stuck in the ruts. And while this may seem like a
set back, there were so many people who were riding safety bikes that it became
inevitable that they would get their way and have the roads paved. Many small bike clubs
were petitioning and started what was known as the road improvement drive. The road
improvement drive was a large push for higher road quality by many different groups.
(Hurst) The improvement of roads was extremely important for cars, something that is
often forgotten.
Another major turning point about the safety bike was the ability for any one to
get to a personal engagement quickly. Before the safety bike if you did not have a horse
or carriage you pretty much just had to walk. For the first time anyone could get
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anywhere they wanted with relative speed and ease. On a bike you use 1/5th the energy
you use walking to get the same distance. (Woodforde)
Another part of that is its impact on the women’s rights movement. The safety
bicycle was very important in that movement because before it, women had no way to get
where they wanted to go. The safety bicycle changed that because now women could buy
a bike with what little money they had, and go wherever they wanted. Peter Zheutlin, a
journalist for the Boston Globe, said, “A woman with a bicycle no longer had to depend
on a man for transportation and she was free to come and go at will.” Without the safety
bike the women rights movement would not have been nearly as successful as it was.
(Londonderry) Men would probably not have driven their wives to meetings that were
threatening their absolute and total control of everything. The safety bicycle also helped
women change from having to wear corsets and ball gowns, to being able to wear more
moderate clothing. Susan B. Anthony said, “Why, pray tell me, hasn’t a woman as much
right to dress to suit herself as a man.” (Londonderry) For decades this had been fought
over, but the safety bike turned the tide and it started to become okay for women to wear
more moderate clothing.
One more reason that the safety bike was a turning point is how many people
immediately took to it. People loved that now they could go where they please easily and
affordably. Many historians believe that it started what is known as car culture. Robert
Hurst said,“ They (bike riders) planted the seed, watered the ground, and tended to the
seedling that became our unrestrained car culture. Car culture is when everyone takes to
something and it becomes part of mainstream society. The safety bike was the first time
this had really happened with any vehicle. In the 1890’s, everyone was talking about
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bikes. According to John Rae, a former professor and headmaster of many universities,
“(The safety bicycle) created an awareness of the flexibility and convenience of travel by
road.” (Hurst) Before the safety bicycle it was believed that trains were the only way to
move around at high speed for more than just the upper class. Now everyone knew that
anyone could go anywhere they wanted. The safety bike was the first piece of personal
transportation that really took over the market. It also had lasting influences on the world
economy. It was used in both world wars as a way of quick transportation for the foot
soldiers. The safety bike is still the most used bike today. It has changed very little since
the 1920s and is accepted as the best possible way to make a bike.
The safety bike was a major advancement in history. It was first recognized as the
main bike in the 1890’s and is still in use today. It was the first affordable personal
transportation available to people of all classes and genders. It was truly a turning point in
history.
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