Bicycle chains are really complicated and have tons of moving parts.
Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
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Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#72The arguments given all seem reasonably convincing.
The interesting thing is the kind of argument this blog and some here engage in. That is, one looks at argument X, decides it's not convincing and then pushes argument Y.
It's sort of a single-cause fallacy. Maybe bad roads weren't enough but they contributed. Maybe technological limitations weren't enough but they contributed, etc.
The problem is that combining factors are hard to see and hard to argue for. A factor here (a meta-factor, haha), modeling how all the different factors came together or didn't come together is hard. You'd need a historical look at how the bicycle was invented and a look at how at how could have been invented earlier but wasn't. This goes into how people think, how people design machines, how people allocate resources, etc. Which is to say we'll likely never know how the associated factor contributed and how much.
But we can tell that the vagueness of the situation doesn't stop people arguing.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#73So it looks like there were attempts but they had fatal design flaws and technology (metallurgy) was immature.
One question raised is why didn’t we see a trike come about before the bike?
It’s more stable and propulsion via direct front pedal isn’t as awkward as the front pedal bike.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but I don’t think that was the factor here. Ancient technology was astoundingly precise (see the famous Antikythera mechanism). I think the problem was roads. If you combine bad (or nonexistent) roads with airless hard tires, the result is much much less useful than any modern bike on any modern road. The first bikes were indeed wooden with wooden wheels. No ball bearings, no hollow steel tubes etc. But streets.…
Would a wooden bicycle, with not-very-freely-spinning wheels, and a bone-jarring ride, be worth the considerable expense of purchasing? Would it even be better than walking and/or using a wheelbarrow? Doesn't the thing produced have to rise above a certain level of utility to merit making some copies of it? For human-scale power, I am not sure a bicycle without bearings or pneumatic tires works other than as a curios…
> For human-scale power, I am not sure a bicycle without bearings or pneumatic tires works other than as a curiosity.
Pretty much all modern rideshare bicycles do not have pneumatic tires, FWIW. Ride quality suffers, but it's not an awful tradeoff for short trips with whatever squishy compound they use now.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you saw off a disc-shaped slice from a log of wood, and it rolls a few meters, you experience first hand that a single wheel can balance itself. Some say this is how the wheel was invented in the first place [citation needed].
Right, now stand on said disk. Turns out the you+disk system doesn’t trivially balance...
That's not a fair continuation of the thought, is it? Even balancing on an entire rotating log isn't trivial. The problem here is standing on a small patch of surface that is moving under you.
The required insight for the bicycle is that, counterintuitively, a rolling wheel doesn't fall to either side. The axles, fork, frame, and seat are 'just' the elaborate way of mounting yourself to those rotating discs so that you can move along with them while sitting still.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#76Roads were a necessety for the invention of bicycles. And by roads I mean roads with a certain standard. Another necessety was a certain type of middle class which would actually desire individual transport. If you are a worker why would you prefer a bicycle over a wagon that transports all tools? If you are an aristocrat, why prefering a bicycle over some comfortable carriage, especially when you don’t even know the…
> Roads were a necessety for the invention of bicycles. And by roads I mean roads with a certain standard.
The chicken and egg actually went in the other direction. Bicycles became popular and bicyclists lobbied for better roads.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#77>Yet it was a simple mechanical invention As a mechanical engineer, this statement baffled me. All manufactured technology exists in the context of the manufacturing capabilities available to the designer. The manufacturing tech had to be tremendously complicated before a decent bike could be made. Hollow steel tubes aren't simple. Ball bearings aren't simple. There is a reductionist viewpoint among "theory" people t…
Yes, but I don’t think that was the factor here. Ancient technology was astoundingly precise (see the famous Antikythera mechanism). I think the problem was roads. If you combine bad (or nonexistent) roads with airless hard tires, the result is much much less useful than any modern bike on any modern road. The first bikes were indeed wooden with wooden wheels. No ball bearings, no hollow steel tubes etc. But streets.…
The Antikythera Mechanism was a completely exotic Roman artifact. It was the space shuttle of its time. Not really a fair comparison.
Dually, Romans were known for their extensive roads system. My family home sites directly below the Ancient Roman frontier in Germany, where you can climb a mountain and still find a 10 foot wide stone road they built 2000 years ago mostly intact
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relatedly, my favorite example of "why didn't this get invented before" is wheeled luggage which (from what I've read) wasn't sold until 1989, even though the wheelbarrow (the same basic idea) has been around since prehistoric times. IIRC, the reason it didn't appear sooner was a combination of a) getting reliable castors[1] for wheels that small is a non-trivial problem, and b) there wasn't much demand for it until…
I got fascinated by this when I saw mention of this elsewhere. I'll agree that getting sturdy casters at a reasonable price was definitely part of the problem. As the linked wikipedia article reminded me, 20-odd years ago you'd still come across wonky casters on very expensive supermarket trolleys. I think like the bicycle, it was just combination of factors preventing adoption - and once these had all moved, it was…
But early wheeled luggage didn't have casters, just straight wheels. And those wheeled carts that you see old people dragging home from the supermarket (in some cities) existed long before -- metal frame, sagging canvas bag, works great.
There are lots of other factors though. One was buildings with lots of smooth floors & no stairs, which IIRC was partly about designing to be wheelchair-friendly, and partly about luggage carts.
Another as you say was flying becoming less of an elite thing -- the private jet people today sure as hell don't muscle their own luggage anywhere, so theirs just has to look good in the hotel room.
Another was just savvy marketing: again IIRC, the breakthrough came from marketing them heavily to pilots first, cool people in smart uniforms (who did not have porters) breezing along with smart leather bags. Precisely to break the image of old people dragging their potatoes home.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#79One possibly overlooked factor: the nature of travel has changed dramatically in the last 200 years. Right up until World War 1, my ancestors literally had no reason to ever go more than ten miles from home, and even that was rare. The entire extended family lived within a two mile radius. This was because they were all farmers, and farmers didn't need to travel often. Furthermore, if you did travel, well, you alread…
Indeed, bicycles have generally been transport within cities and close-by. A world where most people lived in rural areas would not be that practical for bicycle travel even now.
Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?
#80Roads were a necessety for the invention of bicycles. And by roads I mean roads with a certain standard. Another necessety was a certain type of middle class which would actually desire individual transport. If you are a worker why would you prefer a bicycle over a wagon that transports all tools? If you are an aristocrat, why prefering a bicycle over some comfortable carriage, especially when you don’t even know the…
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