Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

This just isn't true. The Wright Brothers solved fundamental problems in aviation that no one else did.

The three axis control mechanism is still what every plane uses today. They literally had to invent that notion. Adverse yaw is something that every single pilot learns about and handles.

They discovered the notion of stalling (literally they were the first to identify the notion and use the term) and the relationship between angle of attack and stalling. This is the sort of thing that will 100% kill you immediately when you fly, but if you know what to do it's part of routine training.

And that's just the start of it. You should read "What the Wright Brothers Did and Did Not Understand About Flight Mechanics—In Modern Terms" by Fred E.C. Culick

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/What-the-Wright-Brothe...

This has nothing to do with being American or not.

There were many cycle touring clubs, and this was how men met women without their mothers being around!

The trains connected communities as never before and what we call the 'A roads' that connect towns had nobody using them, simple as that. Why would you go on an arduous journey that would take all day when the train would get you there in twenty minutes?

At the time there were no local authorities to look after the roads, it was each parish to its own, with the locals doing the work. Toll roads were the solution to the problem of maintenance, and toll roads were the 'A roads'. When they no longer had customers, due to the trains, they were done.

As for the bicycle and the reopening of roads, this had a lot to do with men chasing women, before the bicycle you were somewhat restricted to the gene pool in your village, with the bicycle there were neighbouring villages. It wasn't all about getting to the factory for work, there was this huge leisure/dating aspect to early cycling culture.

Trains were 10x faster than horses and men - at walking speed - on rough roads. The toll roads just withered and died. Confronted with a mountain, the train would just blast through, whereas the road would be a treacherous mountain pass, no tunnel, cutting or massive bridge provided. Trains were rocket ships.

Before that, canals had their own quirks of geography, with much of it to do with feeding or resting horses. The signs are for the next horse stop, not the nearby town.

With many a British town the town centre can be dated by when the canal arrived and when the railway arrived, since the buildings in the town centre start in local stone, then you get slate from the canal arriving and then brick, because the train made it to town.

It is incredible that so much of the final mile was by horse and cart. Only with 21st century goggles on does your idea of induced vehicular traffic make sense, trains were just too good.

I'll just note if there's one thing I've learned from studying a lot of history writing, it's that being a good writer has little correlation with establishing a ground truth. Indeed, there may be a negative correlation. You're almost certainly more likely to perceive somebody who can craft a compelling narrative as a "good writer". Compelling narratives are entertaining and satisfying. Reality can be a lot more boring. I find that a very significant portion of history writing takes a few tiny scraps of real information from primary sources (which could itself be embellished!) and extrapolates to what society must have been like, and does so in a way that makes it sound interesting.

This is not a commentary on Carlton Reid specifically. I have not read his writing. But I think this is a general principle to be aware and careful of. The reality is that in most cases we don't have a comprehensive historical record, especially for anything predating the 20th century, and history writing involves a lot of plausibly but not necessarily truthfully filling in the gaps. People telling you "this is what society was like" sates your curiosity a lot better than "we don't really know tbh".

I tried to verify that a couple of years ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42709428 . It does not seem to be true.

https://www.wright-brothers.org/Information_Desk/Just_the_Fa... says "Wilbur and Orville were in the vanguard of those manufacturers that offered right-hand threads on one crank arm and left-hand threads on the other" but not the inventors.

I was also able to find earlier uses of left-handed threads for bicycles, like in this 1881 book, at https://archive.org/details/indispensablebic00stur/page/14/m...

"The Centaur Crank is first screwed up to a shoulder on the axle with right and left-handed threads, so that the pressure of the foot tends to make it all the more secure ; whilst, to prevent its loosening by “ back-pedalling,” a slightly tapered conical pin is driven through both crank and axle, and secured with a nut."

Do you know the patent number? I searched the USPTO but found no bicycle related patent by either of the Wright brothers.

There is a lesson there that is relevant today because our economy has forgotten it: to have innovation you need people to have spare time.