WEBVTT - TechStuff Takes Off The Training Wheels 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.760 stuff Works dot com. He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.840 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.880 and How Stuff Works. And yes, before I get into it, 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:22.720 I still have a cold. I'm still dealing with allergies. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:25.840 In fact, I am recording an episode right after I 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.560 just recorded another episode, so you get the not at 0:00:31.440 --> 0:00:34.720 Jonathan's voice version of Jonathan today. I apologize for that. 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.320 But today I've got the subject that I'm really excited 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:41.000 to talk about. Now. I've done episodes in the past 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.680 about electric bikes, but a listener recently pointed out that 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.080 I'm not yet actually discussed the bicycle itself. And so 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.000 today we're gonna take a look at the bicycle. We're 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.720 gonna take off the training wheels, and we're gonna look 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.160 at this evolution and probably make some queen references. We'll 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.280 see how it goes. But yes, I like to ride 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.200 my bicycle. I like to ride my bike. So where 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.080 did the bicycle come from? We're gonna really focus on 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.640 that today. We're looking at the birth and evolution of 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.360 the bicycle as opposed to the latest engrazed in bikes. 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.520 I'll do another episode about that later on. Well, As 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.559 is the case with many inventions, the answer of where 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.880 the bicycle came from is not really that simple an answer. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.320 The bicycle evolved from a series of different inventions, and 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.080 it would be disingenuous to point to a specific person 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:34.919 as the inventor of the bicycle. Now, I should start 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.560 all of this by talking about the earliest evidence of 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.920 wheeled vehicles in general, but I'm not gonna spend a 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.160 whole lot of time on it, because come on, you 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:47.039 don't need a fourteen series episode about the invention and 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.320 modernization of the wheel. But the actual wheel dates back 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:56.840 to at least in both Asia and Europe, and going 0:01:56.880 --> 0:01:58.960 into more detail would be a bit much, even for me. 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:02.720 The early wheeled vehicles used four wheels for the most part. 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.200 That's not a surprise, as it provides a stable base. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:09.320 Historians discovered a few early two wheeled vehicles dating from 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.239 around that same time, but these were carts and the 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.119 wheels were aligned side by side as opposed to front 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:20.280 and back like a bicycle. Skipping ahead thousands of years, 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.760 let's talk about Geovanni Fontana. He was known as not 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.079 just a fifteenth century doctor of medicine, but also an 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.400 engineer and even in some circles, a magician, though he 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.200 was using a proto form of the scientific method to 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.080 get results and didn't necessarily present his work as that 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.960 of a magical nature. He was replicating what magicians claimed 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.679 they could do using scientific principles and saying, doesn't it 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.919 make more sense that it's done this way? Well. In 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.400 fourteen twenty five he published a manuscript that detailed a 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.920 self driving carriage. By that he did not mean an 0:02:58.960 --> 0:03:03.200 autonomous car, though that would have been incredibly forward thinking 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.160 back in the fourteen hundreds. Rather, he had suggested a 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.600 vehicle that would be propelled by the people inside the 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.760 vehicle itself. Up to that point, land vehicles had to 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:17.800 be pulled by animals or other human beings. Fontana suggested 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.760 that a hand powered vehicle could allow for a new 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.360 method of getting from place to place. His proposal included 0:03:25.440 --> 0:03:29.080 a brief description of a carriage that used ropes and 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:34.080 cogs to transform power from a writer or transfer power, 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:36.280 I should say, from a writer to the wheels of 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.640 the vehicle. So imagine sort of a loop of rope 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:43.480 wrapped around cogs like their pulleys, and if you pull 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.920 on the rope, you transfer the energy needed to rotate 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.920 the wheels of the carriage itself. But that's about all 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.360 the details we have for this proposed device. If Fontana 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.920 actually ever tried to build one of these things, it 0:03:56.040 --> 0:03:59.480 was lost to time. And on a tangential note, before 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.000 I trend for away from Fontana, I have to also 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:06.120 mention that he proposed a sort of proto rocket car 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:09.480 that would be fueled by gunpowder. Now I mentioned that 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.960 only because I love how crazy that sounds. I don't 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.040 think he ever made one of those either, because there 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.920 are no reports of Fontana having to be dug out 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.960 of the side of a mountain. A French mathematician ended 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.599 up laying out the argument for human powered vehicles in 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:30.800 a six nine six manuscript titled Recreations Mathematiques a physiques 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:36.919 because it's French. He hypothesized that such conveyances would be 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.320 much more readily available to the general population because you 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.520 wouldn't have to care for an animal. You wouldn't have 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:46.200 to have the space to keep a horse, and you 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.080 wouldn't have to feed it. Plus you could even get 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:53.000 some exercise and some fresh air using such a vehicle. However, 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.240 this was just sort of a armchair philosophizing kind of approach. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.200 He didn't actually build anything. There is interesting story about 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:05.320 a sketch that was attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, and 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:10.680 supposedly that sketch dated back to fourteen three, and not 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.120 only was it a sketch of what looked like a bicycle, 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:15.799 it even had pedals like it was. It was pretty 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.560 much a modern style bike, uh in a in a 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:24.039 sketch format. It's it's undeniably that sort of thing, but 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.600 it is a somewhat crude design. The sketch had remained 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.440 undiscovered and I say that in air quotes until nineteen 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:35.359 seventy four, So it was attributed to fourteen but it 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:38.360 wasn't uncovered until nineteen seventy four. That was when there 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.520 was an art restoration project. Experts were working on Da 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:46.840 Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, and supposedly this particular design was part 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.280 of that and just had not been seen for centuries. 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.479 Historians debated the legitimacy of this sketch, and the general 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.080 consensus is that it's hocum. Here's the weird thing. This 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.080 is not the only example of false attribution to the 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:05.080 bicycle's evolution. Another sketch, this one supposedly dating to fift 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:08.080 thirty four and made by one of da Vinci's pupils, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.920 also appears to be a fraud. So what was going on? 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.159 There are these crazy fake sketches claiming to be the 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:21.520 proto design of the bicycle centuries before it was ever 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.800 really introduced. Well to understand, we need to take a 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:26.960 quick detour and then I'll get back to the actual 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:29.080 timeline of the bicycles invention. But I think this is 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.520 pretty fascinating. So in the early twentieth century, European nations 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:38.320 were becoming increasingly isolated and jingoistic. It became a point 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:43.160 of national pride to champion the various advancements and inventions 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.080 each country could lay claim to. I think of it 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.920 a lot like the way we treat the Olympics at times. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:51.880 How some people will reduce the Olympics to a discussion 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.360 of our country took home twelve gold medals and your 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:58.159 country only took home eight. It's sort of a one 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.479 upsmanship tendency, which I think it's pretty darn tacky because 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.400 it takes attention away from the actual accomplishments, but that's 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.640 just my own opinion. While his tensions in Europe built 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:13.000 toward World War One, more nations were getting involved in 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.760 kind of this one upsmanship. They were scrambling to prove 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.200 that they were the seat of ingenuity and innovation. And 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:25.960 sometimes it meant that some rather um let's say, creative 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:31.640 but undaunted by ethics sorts of people would fabricate evidence 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:36.840 that clever inventions came from their respective homelands. Historians suspected 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.400 that the alleged Da Vinci sketch is one of those examples. 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:43.080 It was a forgery intended to give the honor of 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:48.240 creating the bicycle to Italians rather than to say, the Germans. 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.680 Spoiler alert, Most historians agree that the bicycle really got 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.960 started in Germany first. Another bogus claim to the invention 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:58.480 of the bicycle dates to See and a fellow known 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:03.200 as Compt. Deceive Rack. Though it maybe that this bogus 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.520 claim was arrived at honestly by mistake, as opposed to 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.960 a hoax perpetuated by someone. The good Count allegedly developed 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.640 a vehicle called the Salt Affair, which by a nineteenth 0:08:14.640 --> 0:08:18.520 century historians description sounded a lot like the basic frame 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:21.360 of a bicycle. According to the description, it had two wheels, 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.160 one set in front of the other. It did not 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.640 have any pedals or brakes or handlebars. It was essentially 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.440 a frame with a saddle on it, a leather seat, 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:34.800 and you would sit on the saddle and you would 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.960 propel yourself with your feet pushing against the ground, and 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.800 you would steer yourself by leaning left or right, and 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.720 that's as best as you could do. As it turns out, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.640 there were vehicles sort of like this, but they were 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.520 all three or four wheeled vehicles, not two wheeled vehicles. 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.480 Many people, particularly French people, adopted the belief that a 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.800 Frenchman had come up with the idea for a bicycle. 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.240 But it appears that was not quite the case. It 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:05.840 may well have been an error in translation or transcription. 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.360 Now I prefer stories that actually have evidence to support them, 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.680 and I am inclined to give the nod of the 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.800 invention of the bicycle, or at least the invention of 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.000 a device that would evolve into the bicycle, to a 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:26.040 certain Baron Carl von Dreiss in eighteen seventeen. He was 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.280 concerned with finding a way for people to get around 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:32.640 due to recent unfortunate events see an eighteen fifteen. A 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.439 couple of years earlier, there was a volcano in Indonesia 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:41.120 called Mount Tambora, and it done blowed up. The volcano 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.439 ejected an enormous cloud of ash into the atmosphere. Now 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.000 that ash cloud had a global effect. It lowered temperatures 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:53.280 across the world. It was kind of like a nuclear winter, except, 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.520 of course, this is a volcanic one. This in turn 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.199 led to massive crop failures in certain regions around the world, 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.439 like in Europe, and that led to other problems such 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.120 as animals like horses, dying of starvation. So there was 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.160 a shortage of horses in Europe at the time. Dryce 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.840 wanted to invent a means of getting around quickly despite 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.400 this lack of horses. The good Baron came up with 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.880 a novel idea, assuming that the previous examples I mentioned 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:23.200 were in fact hoaxes and not just poorly recorded history. 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.640 It was again a two wheeled vehicle, with one wheel 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:28.439 set in front of the other. It had a padded 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.640 saddle to sit upon and a set of handlebars for steering. 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:35.360 There were no pedals and only a single wheel break 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.400 so again, and for real, the writer would push him 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.000 or herself along the ground with his or her feet. 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.520 Let's be honest, it was mostly hymns and he's that 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:47.720 we're talking about because there were lots of laws about 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.160 what women could and could not wear, and most of 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.600 those were not conducive to riding a vehicle of this design. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.720 So what was this thing called? Well, it actually had 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.080 several names. Dryce called it the laos machine, which means 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:05.440 running machine. You gotta love the German language in which 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.880 new words are invented by just stringing existing words together 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.400 and you just end up with a very long new word. 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:14.800 According to the sources I referenced, he used this name 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:20.040 originally for a four wheeled vehicle of his design, but 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.880 he later adapted the same name to the two wheeled model. 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.800 It was known in English as the dry zine or 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:29.880 dry Zine d r A I s I n E. 0:11:30.640 --> 0:11:34.040 In French it was the dry zen oh, and it 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.760 was also called a velocipede. Velocipede would become a generic 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.000 term for these sort of two wheeled vehicles for many 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:42.959 many years. Uh In England, it was also sometimes called 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.600 a hobby horse or and this is my favorite a 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.679 dandy horse because they were expensive, so typically only really 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.280 rich people in nice clothing were striding along with these suckers. 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.160 The word velocipede would be used for many such vehicles 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.000 for decades until the term bicycle came around. Now people 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:05.160 liked these when they could ride them on nice, smooth surfaces, 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.360 because a push with your foot would propel you much 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.800 further than just if you were to take a regular step, 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.800 so you travel more ground faster than normal, So you 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:18.679 wouldn't be going at ridiculous speeds, but you could certainly 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:23.040 get across a sidewalk area much faster than if you 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.760 were just strolling, and it had a certain appeal. Dryce's 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.800 invention was a hefty one. It was made out of 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.920 wood and brass and iron shod wheels, plus that leather saddle. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.280 The whole thing weighed around fifty pounds or twenty three 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.640 For a few years, his invention was all the rage 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:44.560 in Europe. Over in England, a coachmaker named Dennis Johnson 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.640 began to market his own variation of Dryce's invention, and 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:52.600 the inspired a few seasons of vigorous sporting events among 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.160 the aristocracy of London, but turned out to mostly just 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.680 be a fad, and excitement died down by the eighteen twenties. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.560 So why did it go out of style so quickly? Well, 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:04.800 it might have had something to do with writing conditions. 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.760 The vehicles worked best on smooth paved surfaces. Now, most 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.280 roads in Europe did not fit that description. They were 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.120 a cobblestone if you were lucky, But sidewalks were frequently 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.000 very smooth, so velocopied writers would stick to sidewalks and 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.480 they would terrorize pedestrians. This might sound pretty familiar if 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.760 you're a pedestrian out there, and I'm sure you've got 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:30.000 your own story or stories of crazed bicyclists barreling down 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:34.360 pedestrian walkways. Anyway, many places ended up passing laws that 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:39.800 would forbid velocipede writers to go on sidewalks, and since 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.400 they were incredibly uncomfortable to ride on rutted roads or 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.720 a cobblestone streets, they faded from common use. Meanwhile, across 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:51.840 the pond, the early invention had debuted in the United States. 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.840 There was a man named W. K. Clarkson Jr. Who 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.600 received a patent for a velocipede in eighteen nineteen and 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:00.800 I would love to tell you more about mention, but 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.280 sadly all records of that particular patent were destroyed in 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:06.640 eighteen thirty six and a fire at the U. S. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.679 Patent Office, And I may have to do an episode 0:14:08.679 --> 0:14:11.480 one day about that particular event, because it definitely had 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.839 a major impact on innovation and invention at the early 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.200 nineteenth century in the United States. Next, we come to 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:25.480 another possible hoax, or at least potential misinformation. There's a 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:30.680 story that a Scottish blacksmith named Kirkpatrick McMillan came up 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.560 with the idea of attaching pedals to a bicycle in 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.680 eighteen thirty nine, which would be decades before anyone else 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.720 had thought of this. Now, these pedals didn't turn gears 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.360 that were connected by a chain the way a modern 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:47.880 bicycle does. According to the story, they were treadle style pedals, 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:51.760 so they were connecting to rods that were in a 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:55.560 position so that they in turn would rotate the rear wheel. 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.160 So solid rods as opposed to a chain drive. You 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.360 can kind of think of the way a locomotive uses 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.720 these sort of rods to turn wheels. If you've ever 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.040 seen pictures of that same sort of idea for these 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.720 particular bikes. The front wheel was steerable, so you had 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.880 to have that be freely turnable left or right. That's 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.480 why it was a rear wheel drive. But some historians 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.200 are skeptical of this account. The stories of McMillan's work 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.440 were first publicized in the eighteen nineties and they came 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:28.800 from a guy named James Johnston, who, as it turns out, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.640 was related to macmillan. There is an account from an 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.920 eighteen forty two edition of a newspaper in Glasgow of 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:40.640 a minor accident involving a quote velocipede of ingenious design 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:45.360 end quote, and Johnston says that article is all about McMillan. 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.160 But since there's no actual mention of macmillan's name in 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:52.560 the article, nor a description of how the velocity design 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:56.280 was ingenious, the matter is not quite settled. In fact, 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:00.760 one bit of evidence arguing against this claim is that 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.440 the article referred to the operator of the velocipede as 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.960 a gentleman. Macmillan, who was a tradesman, would not have 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:15.760 qualified for that distinction in the extremely class conscious United Kingdom. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.080 So it may well be that McMillan was the first 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.760 to attach pedals to a two wheeled vehicle in this manner, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.280 but we just lack the evidence. There's a similar story 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:28.240 that tells the tale of Gavin Dalzel of les Mahago, 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.440 which I'm sure I'm mispronouncing because you get to these 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.480 tiny English names and Scottish names and you get fourteen 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.480 syllables once written out, but you realize that when you 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:42.280 pronounce it it's Fanshaw. Anyway, Dalzel was a cooper in 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:45.720 the eighteen forties. That means he's he made barrels. He's 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.240 a barrel maker, and he was said to have made 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.840 a rear drive bicycle in eighteen forty five based off 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:56.120 of Macmillan's design, though again this is undocumented. Now his 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.640 son would go on to donate one of Dalzell's bikes 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.040 to the Lasgow Transport Museum, but that happened several years later. 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.760 In eighteen sixty three, a French design changed the way 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.040 people got around on these two wheeled vehicles, another entry 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.320 into the velociped category. This design had pedals mounted to 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:15.520 the hub of the front wheel, so there's no chain 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.320 drive or anything like that. The pedals were literally attached 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.959 to the wheel hub. Peddling would drive the front wheel 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:24.480 and provide the power needed to move forward. It was 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:26.240 a bit of a challenge to operate, and on top 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.359 of that, most models were made of unyielding materials and 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.280 had steel wheels or ironclad wheels, so if you were 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.879 to ride one of those on say a couple Stone Street, 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.800 you'd be in for a pretty rough ride. As a result, 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:43.720 those sort of vehicles gained a nickname bone shakers. Some 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.280 large cities began to build special indoor writing academies were 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.000 well to do. Velociped owners could come together and ride 0:17:50.040 --> 0:17:52.720 without worrying about shaking themselves to pieces. And it was 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:55.760 right around this time that the word bicycle began to 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:00.000 enter the common lexicon, slowly replacing velocipede and other names 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.199 for two wheeled human powered vehicles. Now I've got a 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:06.080 lot more to say about the evolution of bicycles, but 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.720 first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:21.240 The first documented rod driven two wheeled vehicle might not 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.040 be the first one ever, but the first one that's 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:28.640 documented dates to eighteen sixty nine. Thomas McCall of Kilmarnock 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.680 was the inventor, but his design didn't gain much popularity 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.640 as the front crank velocipedes did, which were mostly three 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:38.840 or four wheeled vehicles at that time, and they were 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.800 easier to operate. Also, in eighteen sixty nine, there was 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.320 a Frenchman named Eugene Meyer who patented the wire spoke 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.680 tension wheel for bicycles. Wire spoke wheels were first proposed 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.680 decades earlier, back in eighteen o eight, in fact, by 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.320 George Kayley, but that was for a totally different type 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.360 of vehicle. And this gives me a chance to talk 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.080 about how wire spoke wheels work. Only enough, it's more 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.440 complicated than you might imagine. All right, so why would 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.240 we even have a wire spoke wheel? What? What's the 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.240 big deal here? It's largely to provide stability to the 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.720 wheel and connect the rim of the wheel, which is 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:18.480 the outer edge, with the hub of the wheel that's 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.440 the inner edge, the part that rotates around an axle. 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:26.000 The spokes help a wheel support a load such as 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.440 a rider on a bike, without collapsing. Now, the wire 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:32.560 spokes are just what they sound like. They're spokes made 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.600 out of thin wire. You'll have a couple of dozen 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.160 spokes connecting the rim to the hub, and each wire 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:43.040 spoke has to be tightened carefully in a process called 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.959 pretension ing. Now, ideally, you want each of the spokes 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:51.040 to create the same amount of tension on the hub 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.760 in the center. They're all pulling the hub, but from 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:59.360 different directions and at the same strength. So let's make 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.000 an analogy to understand what's going on here. Imagine that 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:04.960 you are standing in the center of a circle of friends, 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:08.760 and each friend is holding a rope, and that rope 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:13.200 connects to a sturdy hula hoop that's at your feet. 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.000 You're standing right in the middle of that hula hoop. 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.640 At a signal, all of your friends pull on their 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.919 ropes and they all exert exactly the same amount of force. 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.679 The hula hoop will rise up around you, but it 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.440 won't touch you because everyone is pulling on it from 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:33.760 all directions at the same amount of force simultaneously. So 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.560 that's what a bicycle wheel is doing with the hub. 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.199 Those spokes are all pulling on the hub simultaneously and 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.159 with the same amount of force. Now Here enters a 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.840 tricky question when you place a load on a bicycle wheel, 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.840 such as you know when you get on a bike. Uh, 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.359 so you and your regulators all mount up on bicycles. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.480 When you do that, that deforms the wheel slightly. The 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.560 increased weight causes the bottom of the wheel to flatten 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.200 out just a little bit. So the question is does 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.280 the hub stand on the wire spokes that are below it, 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.280 as in the ones that lead straight down to where 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:16.320 the ground is, or does the hub hang from the 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.399 spokes that are above it connecting it to the rim. Now, 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.119 remember each of those wires is tightened so that it 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:29.000 has tension, deforming the bottom of the wheel, which means 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.360 that you're slightly pushing the rim inward. Reduces that tension 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.600 because you are applying a compressive force. If this were 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.160 a table instead of a bicycle, and the spokes were 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:44.400 the table legs, we'd say the table legs were experiencing 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.439 compression and we're holding up the table, and that the 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:52.760 table was standing on its legs. But with wheels it's 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.760 not quite so simple. The wire spokes beneath the hub 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:01.040 experienced compression, but it's not enough to return the wires 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:05.120 to their pretensioned state. So, in other words, the wires 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:09.399 below the hub still have tension on them, just not 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:11.560 as much as they did before the wheel had to 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:15.480 carry a load. Some argue that if the spokes still 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.040 have tension, which means technically they are still pulling on 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.199 the hub, they're just not pulling as hard as they 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.040 were before the compression was applied, they cannot be said 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.840 to support the hub. So the hub cannot stand on 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.160 those spokes. You can't stand on something that's pulling downward. 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:38.399 It's because standing on references like a push, so you 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.600 can't push if the forces a pull. So these folks 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:44.720 argue you'd have to say the hub hangs in place 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:47.760 from the spokes around it, rather than stands on the 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:51.320 spokes below it. Other people argue that this stance doesn't 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:54.040 make any sense, and that the hub does in fact 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.000 stand on the wire spokes beneath it, and some of 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:00.800 them have used a lot of math and computer simulations 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.800 to back up their arguments. In some cases, I think 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:07.640 you could just say that this is semantics, that one 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:12.560 side and the other aren't really arguing opposites, but rather 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:16.080 they are working from different perspectives and definitions in an 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.760 attempt to describe the same thing. I think it is 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:22.600 fascinating that something is seemingly simple as a wire spoke 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:26.119 bicycle wheel could evoke such a fuss in the first place, 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:27.760 and there really is a fuss. If you want to 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.159 go down a rabbit hole, you can start doing searches 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.000 on how wire spoke wheels work and see the incredible 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:39.240 arguments between people who insist that the hub stands on 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:44.479 the spokes or that the spokes hang the hub. Now, 0:23:45.160 --> 0:23:47.400 all we really need to know is that the wheels 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:52.240 work and that they made bicycles lighter. That's really important 0:23:52.280 --> 0:23:56.280 because there using these thin wires, you don't have to 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.359 use massive amounts of materials to build working wheels. That 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.520 reduced weight of the bicycles and made them more attractive, 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:04.520 because up to this point you were still talking about 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:08.600