Boneshaker

So sometimes around 1863 or 1866, and possibly on November 20th, Pierre Lallement invented the pedal bike. Depending on which reliable source you choose for the date, none the less he definitely invented the bike. The year the patent was issued
was 1866, but no doubt he had done the inventing stuff well before then.

He originally earned his living making baby carriages. He was in his teens then and living in France. The story goes that one day he say a dandy horse and thought it was real neat but kind of flawed. A dandy horse was a German invention (circa 1818) that looked alot like a modern bike except there were no chains or pedals. The two wheeled machine was propelled by the rider who "walked or ran" the horse along the ground with their legs and feet. Steering was the same as a modern bike. The rider sat a bit lower than a bike so the stride was more like a natural one, not the tippy toe kind you do when you are following a friend on foot when your on your bike.

Lallement put the crank and pedals on the front wheel, gave the rider a slightly sprung saddle and voila! a bike.

But fame and fortune elluded him. He was no business man and when he went to America in 1865 his fortunes didn't change. The actual patent was registered in the States the following year but he never found any backers and eventually returned to France two years later to find the European bicycle craze winding down. Seems cyclists found the cast iron frames, wooden seats and iron wheels uncomfortable. Funny. But the real killer was the complaints from pedestrians and horse propelled vehicles.

Lallement missed the boat and died quite young at the age of 47. If he had hung on a few years he would have been lauded as a true pioneer because the next craze in 1890 did hang around. That's when the "safety bicycle" was invented. (Why do I get that discomfort when I hear words like safety? Was the safety razor safe?)

What made it safe-ish was chain drive and gear reduction hubs that reduced the diameter of the wheels AND rubber tires that reduced the number of accidents by lowering the constant pain cyclists were in and allowed them to concentrate on the road.