Today we are convinced that it is the simplest means of transport, but in reality the bicycle is among the most complex. If we look at its long history, its many changes and the arrival of the motor (via eBikes), we realise that the two-wheeler has had an uphill development over the centuries, arriving only 500 years after its birth at its current form. It is hard to say who the father of this multifaceted means of transport is. If we look at the first two-wheeled means of transport, then the reference name is Gian Giacomo Caprotti, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, better known as Salaì, who designed the first bicycle prototype in the 16th century. If, on the other hand, we want to get closer to our idea of a bicycle, here comes Harry John Lawson’s “Safety”. It was 1876 and the Englishman had the intuition to make the enormous wheels of the bicycle then in vogue smaller (those big vehicles with the front end up to a metre and a half high) and then to add chain drive. Sure, it was stiff, but then John Boyd Dunlop came along and everything was “smoother”, to put it in English. His tyres smoothed out any roughness, and it’s no coincidence that the first prototype was mounted on his son’s tricycle.
Bikes from the origins to the future: the evolution in ten models
Bicycles have a lot more history than people think, even if they took on the form we know from the twentieth century, of which they are one of the most iconic vehicles. And in the future we can see further changes, with the beginning of their electric era.
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- Alessio Lana
- 27 March 2021
Alongside cars and motorbikes, the 20th century was also the century of bicycles. Thanks to Dunlop and Lawson, designers went wild and created works of art. In 1946, the Bowden Spacelander, a “space bicycle”. Literally. It exploited the star rush of the time to promote its curvilinear shapes that smacked of the future. In reality, it was hardly futuristic, with a carbon fibre frame that broke easily, and in the end only 500 were sold, but today it is highly sought after, with several reproductions. Just like a work of art.
Just say Bianchi and you think of steep climbs, sweat, victories and glory. It was 1949 and the bicycle factory in Milan (the full name was F.I.V. Edoardo Bianchi, or Fabbrica Italiana Velocipedi) was busy creating some of the most famous two-wheelers of all time, the means by which Coppi imposed his name and skill on the world. Made by hand, it had a 5x2 speed transmission, cable gearing with “spring” operation, wooden rims and a double water bottle fixed on the handlebars. It weighed over ten kilos and yet made immortal the cry “A man only is leading the race, his jersey is blue, his name is Fausto Coppi”.
Let’s fly to California to meet a bike model that is hard to forget, the Schwinn Sting Ray. It’s the early 1960s and Californian kids have started transforming their two-wheelers to make them look like the motorbikes they see more and more often. This is where the American factory got the idea for a pedal-powered two-wheeler that looked like a chopper, perhaps accessorized with fringes on the handlebars and that extra-large seat that allowed a comfortable ride and is nicknamed “banana”. The real gem, however, was the lever gearbox: never again without it (until the early 90s at least).
Let’s stay in California, where another model emerged in the 1970s that was destined to remain: the BMX. Given the ups and downs of history, if motorbikes were born from bicycles, the BMX took the reverse route, inspired by motocross bikes (the name stands for “Bicycle Motocross”). Behind these two wheels, which are now very small and light, there were always Schwinn Sting Rays that were thrown at full speed on dirt tracks in Southern California. Evidence of this can be found in On Any Sunday, a 1971 motocross documentary that opens with kids strapping on bikes and speeding down a dirt track.
A bicycle needs to be light (tell that to Coppi) and so Teledyne brought the Titan to the market in 1974. The name says it all, this was one of the first two-wheelers with a titanium frame and its manufacturer didn’t let the facts slip: to promote it he focused on its weight “two thirds of the weight of the others”. In fact, the frame weighed two kilos. A record.
California continued to dominate two-wheeled fashion in the 1980s. It was in 1981 that Specialized introduced the Stumpjumper, the first mass-produced mountain bike. Previously these reinforced frames were available from a few craftsmen at exorbitant prices, but the legendary founder of the brand, Mike Sinyard, decided to go for it. “This is not a new bike, but a whole new sport,” reads one of the first advertisements for his vehicles, and history proved him right.
It looked nothing special, but in the 1990s the PA-02 was by far the most popular vehicle. Born in 1950 in the Chinese factory Flying Pigeon, 500 million units were produced, outperforming any other existing vehicle. It was so important in the life of the Middle Kingdom that Deng Xiaoping, Mao’s successor, defined prosperity as ‘a Flying Pigeon in every household. Under Communism, a bicycle cost 150 yuan, the equivalent of two months’ salary, and yet waiting lists were so long that you could wait years to get one.
More than a bike, it was an arrow born to cut through the air and break records. The Lotus 108 had all the credentials of a two-wheeled supercar. Created in 1992 by designer Mike Burrows and the British car factory, it was a carbon monocoque designed for the track and had the lowest drag coefficient ever seen on a bike. It made its appearance at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where it led Britain’s Chris Boardman to win gold in the pursuit and subsequently go on to break numerous records. In fact, he smashed them. However, these have been invalidated by the UCI, the International Cycling Union, which since 2000 no longer recognises records set with “special bicycles”.
Milan is back in cycling history with another iconic model, the Colnago C40. In the mid-90s the Milanese manufacturer proved to the world that carbon frames are the future. It was 1995 when Franco Ballerini rode the C40 to victory in Paris Roubaix, marking the first ever podium for a carbon bike in this race, something that would be repeated four more times over the next five years. In short, it worked. In 1996 Pavel Tonkov’s C40 won the Giro d’Italia, starting the famous duels with Marco Pantani.
The more the merrier, they must have thought at Surly when presenting the Pugsley, the first mass-produced fat bike. The oversized tyres weren’t merely a fad: they enabled it to travel easily on sand and snow, opening up new routes for those who were tired of the “usual” off-road. This bike marked the first step in a movement that continues to this day, but in the meantime has developed along two strands. On the one hand, there are those who want a fat bike to ride through unexplored lands, and on the other, there are those who adore it for its aggressive, exaggerated look and don’t care about the greater effort required of their legs. After all, now fat bikes are also electric.
This bike is missing something. More than one. It’s easier to say what’s missing from the Reevo Hubless E-Bike than to point out its technical features. The Reevo E-Bike is the first electric two-wheeler with no spokes or hubs, no chain and no forks. The motor is integrated into the wheel and its twin rims work their magic: one is attached to the frame, the other holds the tyre in place and rotates it via bearings. Connected and equipped with an app, it also has an anti-theft system with a fingerprint reader. Many people shouted at the announcement that it was a hoax (or a scam), but that didn’t stop 1,789 backers from paying at least €1,934 to get hold of one.