So, the bicycle wasn't invented until the 19th century... why?! At first all it was was 2 wheels and a seat. No chain, no gears, no pedals.
Even if you wanted to create a modern bike using greek/roman technology, couldn't you just use a handmade iron gear and a chain out of leather? So it would be more of a friction device instead of a traditional metal gear/chain, but it'd still work.
Seems like this could have really revolutionized transportation... i mean, it certainly would have been more beneficial to the ancients than to people during the industrial revolution. :/
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This is definitely taking us into alternate history, but let's run with it...
The main problem is in the details. A bicycle of rthe kind that became a genuinely useful vehicle in the 1880s and 1890s and eventually revolutionised urban transport is a miracle of turn-of-the-century high tech. It needs high tensile strength alloys for its chains, very reliable and light spokes for its wheels (bicycle wheels do not stand on their spokes, they are suspended from them - very nifty design), vulcanised rubber for tyres and mass-produced steel for the frame. What had come before were wooden toys of almost no use.
The Romans could have built an early velocipede (and for all we know someone did, really), but that kind of machine is only good for limited fun even on level, hard metalled surfaces and completely useless on unpaved roads. They lacked the technology to make a bicycle that would have been useful to them.
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Volker Bach
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You touched on a major point, but only briefly.
They could easily have made one, crude, but operable, but the whole cobblestone type roads would make the lifespan very short.
Using the crude materials mean the bearing surface sees a LOT more stress from the additional wieght, combine that with the constant impact of riding a rough surface like most roads and it becomes pretty dang hard to get any useful life out of it.
Thats one reason why wagon wheels are so big compared to a modern wheeled vehicle, it makes the jarring on the road less damaging then moving the same load on a smaller diameter wheel.
Chris McVey
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hey guys
these "questions" are a little funny.
Have any of you, of us, ever had an original idea? If yes then you musy admit that people just don't wake up one morning and say "today I am going to have an idea!", or "today I am going to make an invention! I am going to invent the bicycle!". Or "today I am going to turn this toy steam engine into a real, powerful, revolutionary STEAM ENGINE!"
Jeffery Wyss
"Si vos es non secui of solutio tunc vos es secui of preciptate."
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Has anyone here seen the show, "Connections"? It was a BBC series that originally aired in the 1970s, and again in the 1990s. The host picked a modern invention, lets say the bicycle. He would take you through all the interconnected discoveries through history that made an invention possible. It was really quite fascinating.
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I certainly remember it well, and it's a pity that it's not rebroadcast on a regular basis. It was fascinating and it made one think (never a bad thing, esp. these days!) :roll:
Iulia Sempronia (Sara Urdahl)
Officium ante Proprium Bonum
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Quote:So, the bicycle wasn't invented until the 19th century... why?! At first all it was was 2 wheels and a seat. No chain, no gears, no pedals.
Not only the bicycle as such, but even more generally the whole principle of putting two (or more) wheels one after another was totally unknown before Karl Drais' invention of the
Laufrad in 1817! No kind of transport vehicle in the widest sense before - carts, wagons, carriages, wheelbarrows, etc. - had had its wheels arranged in such a way. That was really a revolutionary idea. :!:
Stefan (Literary references to the discussed topics are always appreciated.)
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Probably more interesting is where were all the bearings? There is some evidence that there was a kind of needle bearing in a Germanic context in the first century.
The picture of which of course I can't unbury at the moment...
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
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[Roman inventor] hmm. If you put one wheel behind the other and sit on them, you fall over. Everyone knows that. [/Roman inventor]
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having invented the bike, they would have then to invent the cycle lane
Mark
