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- Hacker News
- It’s not at all immediately obvious as to why the bicycle stands upright or turns. The physics is non-trivial and, based on the drawings, offsetting the center of the wheel from the axis of thw wheel being turned was not a thing. But it is this feature, that allows the modern bike to maneuver. Counter-steering is very unintuitive. If you lack the underlying physics or, in fact, personal experience, the bicycle sounds utterly mad. It doesn’t make sense. Which is why people did not work on it.by belZaah
- The more interesting question is, why did it take even longer for the unicycle. Doesn’t have many of the issues bicycles had to solve.by whoamii
- Previously...
Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39774253 - March 2024 (238 comments)
Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25331858 - Dec 2020 (83 comments)
Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20443822 - July 2019 (492 comments)
by tomhow - >And historically, roads didn’t improve until after bicycles became common—indeed it seems that it was in part the cyclists who called for the improvement of roads.
I don't know about other countries, but in the UK it was the cyclistists that led the call for tarmaced roads.
by benj111 - The Smithsonian has a great book called "Wheels and Wheeling" that covers the early history of bicycles. Fascinating stuff.
https://repository.si.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/02b8e94...
by dllu - Incredible to think that barely ten years after bicycles were somewhat perfected as useful, Wright brothers started testing their early plane designs.by kopirgan
- I think the author is missing another major factor: the early bicycle doesn't solve any problem satisfactorily.
A velocipede at best saves you a bit of energy going flat or downhill, with relatively little increase in speed, with a relatively high capital expense. Compared with walking and horses, it doesn't help much.
You have to get all the way to the safety bicycle (with pneumatic tires) before you have something that beats walking for someone that is not a cycling enthusiast.
It's a bit like the question of why the steam engine wasn't invented earlier. It was invented to pump water out of coal mines. Being 2% efficient (for the original model) didn't matter, since it was only used to mine its own fuel. I don't think we'd ever get to modern steam and later internal combustion engines without coal deposits making the initial prototype feasible, and then funding continual improvements.
By that sort of logic, we are lucky that European aristocrats were bored and enjoyed scary proto-bicycles, or we'd still not have them today. The final safety bicycle is practically a Segway by comparison with four wheel carriages.
by avidiax