There are more bicycles in the world than cars. It is estimated that there are one billion bicycles in the World. China has about 400 million of them.
The earliest form of a bicycle was a wooden plank mounted on two wheels with a cushion to sit on invented by Comte Mede de Sivrac in 1790. This was improved in 1817 by the German baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn, who added handlebars that allowed his cycle to be steered. They were both propelled Fred Flintstone style.
These early cycles were called velocipedes. The word bicycle arrived only in 1868.
It wasn’t the automobile that inspired cobblestone streets to become asphalt. It was the bicycle. The League of American Wheelmen in the US, lobbied county surveyors and politicians to build better roads for biking.
In the 1890s, there was concern that a woman straddling a bike saddle combined with the motion required to pedal a bike, would lead to arousal. The women didn’t believe that nonsense and the bicycle helped them to become more independent. Susan B. Anthony once said bicycling did “more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”
Let’s quit talking and go on a long bike ride in Thailand…
