Why wasn't the bicycle invented until the 19th century? It's relatively simple and could have vastly improved transportation centuries earlier than it appeared.
good steel and tooling were probably needed to make it viable
surprising that the Draisine wasn't a novelty earlier though
Steel and rubber. Especially rubber kicked off in only late 18th century.
>>867297
Are there any real alternatives to using rubber for tires?
>>867599
Try using a bicycle with cartwheels, see how fun that would be.
>>867609
Couldn't using a spring suspension/dashpot/shock-absorber make that bearable?
Not necessarily talking about the past here, just in general. I've long with fascinated how far countries could have developed if forced to exist in total autarky, without colonialism and so on (sources of natural rubber are absent from Europe).
>>867744
Traction nigga. I was speaking about traction.
Bikes without rubber is like pedaling on ice.
>>867264
Roads would have been an issue, too. Without inflatable tyres, suspension and light frames, even the best roads in the best cities would have been painful or impossible to use a bicycle on.
>>869630
Could a tricycle design have been more adequate ?
After all, these guys were used to drive carts without suspension or tyres.
>>869716
But you didn't really ride in the carts, you would load goods into them and either haul them yourself with a hand cart, or have an animal pull it.
I doubt if your turnips are going to complain about a bumpy ride.
>>869911
Hm, maybe cart was the wrong word, English isn't my first language.
I meant horse-drawn vehicles with conductor or passenger seats.
>>867264
Your adverbial qualifier (weasal-word?) aside, I reject your description of the bicycle as a "simple" machine. It is a quite complex amalgam of parts, requiring and implying a whole supply chain of replacement parts, and disparate manufacturers with the requisite tooling to mass-produce those replacement parts. Mass availability of bicycles implies the historical buildup of supply chain, disparate manufacturers, labor force, etc - very much like the automobile.
In a past life in manufacturing, I was first-acquainted with notions of independent and dependent demand, bills of material (the 'raw material' - steel, nuts, washers etc that it takes to actually fabricate a given item), etc. Suddenly I wonder how many components are entailed in an exploded view of the average bicycle.
I am interested to have read other anon's asides about rubber, didn't know that. A prince somewhere could have had a boutique bicycle I suppose, but this imaginative sketch of supply chain etc that I am suggesting seems to imply whatever IR waves were most pertinent. I will leave it to other anons to better characterize the historical reality of the bicycle - I didn't want to 'fact'-check wiki, for once, just try my own thoughts.
>>870413
You should take off that fedora. It seems to be cutting off some of the circulation to your head.
>>870420
OTC, you're the one who need to calm down. A bicycle is literally, figuratively and common-sensically, not a simple machine. You just have to think for a few seconds to realize this.
>>867264
Steel spokes.
Steel ball bearings & bearing races.
