A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle. It was popular in the 1870s and 1880s, with its large front wheel providing high speeds, owing to it travelling a large distance for every rotation of the legs, and comfort, because the large wheel provided greater shock absorption.
Bicycle messengers are people who work for courier companies carrying and delivering items by bicycle. Bicycle messengers are most often found in the central business districts of metropolitan areas. Courier companies use bike messengers because bicycle travel is less subject to unexpected holdups in city traffic jams, and is not deterred by parking limitations, fees or fines in high-density development that can hinder or prevent delivery by motor vehicle, thereby offering a predictable delivery time.
Albert Augustus Pope was a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in the Union Army. He was an importer, promoter, and manufacturer of bicycles, and a manufacturer of automobiles.
A utility bicycle, city bicycle, urban bicycle, European city bike (ECB), Dutch bike, classic bike or simply city-bike is a bicycle designed for frequent very short, very slow rides through very flat urban areas. It is a form of utility bicycle commonly seen around the world, built to facilitate everyday short-distance riding in normal clothes in cold-to-mild weather conditions. It is therefore a bicycle designed for very short-range practical transportation, as opposed to those primarily for recreation and competition, such as touring bicycles, road bicycles, and mountain bicycles. Utility bicycles are the most common form globally, and comprise the vast majority found in the developing world. City bikes may be individually owned or operated as part of a public bike sharing scheme.
Vehicles that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels arranged consecutively, and thus the archetype of the bicycle, was the German draisine dating back to 1817. The term bicycle was coined in France in the 1860s, and the descriptive title "penny farthing", used to describe an "ordinary bicycle", is a 19th-century term.
A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being safer than the high wheelers they were replacing. Even though modern bicycles use a similar design, the term is rarely used today and is considered obsolete outside circles familiar with high wheelers.
Kirkpatrick Macmillan was a Scottish blacksmith. He is generally credited with inventing the treadle bicycle.
John Cotton Allis is an American cyclist who entered into international road cycling competition in the 1960s. He was one of the strongest competitive cyclists in the United States in the early 1970s, winning the United States National Road Race Championships in 1974. He is an inductee of the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.
David Joseph Herlihy was an American historian who served as the president of the American Historical Association. He wrote on medieval and renaissance life, and was married to fellow historian Patricia Herlihy. His study of the Florentine and Pistoiese Catasto of 1427 is one of the first statistical surveys to use computers to analyze large amounts of data. The resulting book examines statistical patterns in tax-collecting surveys to find indications of social trends.
Pierre Lallement is considered by some to be the inventor of the pedal bicycle.
Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, known as Annie Londonderry, was a Jewish Latvian immigrant to the United States who in 1894–95 became the first woman to bicycle around the world. After having completed her travel, albeit mostly by ship, she built a media career around engagement with popular conception of what it was to be female.
The bike boom or bicycle craze is any of several specific historic periods marked by increased bicycle enthusiasm, popularity, and sales.
John Thompson Keen was born on 25 February 1849 at Broadway in the county of Worcestershire, England, and lived in Surbiton, Surrey from the age of five. He gained an international reputation both as a professional sports cyclist and a manufacturer of bicycles.
The Massachusetts Bicycle Club (est.1879) was a cycling club in Boston, Massachusetts.
The American Star Bicycle was invented in 1880 by G. W. Pressey and manufactured by the H. B. Smith Machine Company in Smithville, Burlington County, New Jersey. It was characterized by a small wheel in front to avoid the problem of tipping forward inherent in other high wheelers. A Star bicycle was photographed being ridden down the steps in front of the United States Capitol in 1885 to demonstrate its longitudinal stability, and Star bicycles were used for the sport of bicycle polo in the mid-1880s. Pressey sued Smith in 1887 for royalties. The name "Star" was attributed to the double star arrangement of the spokes.
The International Cycling History Conference (ICHC) is an annual event devoted to applying academic rigor to the history of bicycles and cycling. The first conference was held in Glasgow, Scotland in 1990. The proceedings of each conference are published afterwards.
Elsa von Blumen, real name Caroline Roosevelt, was an early American female cyclist in the late 19th century.
Louise Armaindo, born either Louise or Louisa Brisebois or Brisbois (1861–1900), was a Canadian strongwoman, trapeze artist, competitive walker, and high-wheel cyclist. Throughout the last decades of the 19th century, she was known as "the champion female bicycle rider of the world."
The University of Florida Cycling Club is a cycling club and student organization of the University of Florida. The club was established in 1985 as an off-shoot of the Gainesville Cycling Club. The organization has won numerous Southeastern Collegiate Cycling Conference and National Collegiate Cycling Association championships.
