Opinion

Why bicycles are the most underrated invention of mankind

Why bicycles are the most underrated invention of mankind

The Economist

In 1896, one of Joseph Pulitzer's most influential newspapers, The World, reported a classic tabloid story on the destruction of a family. "Henry Clitting and his wife once lived happily together… But now they have gone to court to separate, and all because of her bicycle," the newspaper wrote.

Clitting was upset because his wife was "taking long bike rides, neglecting her homework." One day, after she returned from a somewhat long bicycle ride, her husband "took an ax and struck her bicycle many times, destroying it", ending his marriage with the bicycle.

This story comes from a collection of fragments from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, collected by Jodi Rosen, a New York-based journalist, who has published his new book on bicycles.

He promises to reveal the "history and mystery" of the most famous form in the history of human transport, in addition to his 2 legs. More bicycles are produced each year in China alone, than cars worldwide. Globally, almost half of households own a bicycle, far more than they own a car.

As Rosen argues in the book “the cities and towns where we live, our economies, our laws are designed for cars; "We travel by plane between continents, and yet we live on a planet full of bicycles."

But even though every economics student knows how Henry Ford brought automotive to the masses, and how that development changed society, far fewer people realize how transformative cycling has been as an invention.

For example at the end of the Victorian Era, it enabled young women to live alone, allowing the beginning of an era of sexual liberalization long before the contraceptive pill was invented. As Rosen recounts, bicycles also transformed war.

During the Boer War, African scouts began using them in striking attacks against the British. 70 years later, the communist Vietcong relied on bicycles to move supplies across the jungle and defeat the U.S. military.

In Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, protesters carried banners on bicycles. In response, the Chinese communist government printed hundreds of bicycles under tank chains. Shortly after that, China began encouraging the use of cars at the expense of bicycles.

Motorcyclists who "occupy" the roads, who roll their tires on the asphalt and emit smoke from behind with their motorcycles, may not understand it, but they also owe cyclists for their favorite means of travel.

This is because air-inflated tires were originally invented to be used by bicycles, not cars. Ford's first car was called the "four-wheeler". Meanwhile, it was the American Cycling League that lobbied for the construction of the first nationwide road network in their country.

Originally published on Bota.al