1817 Draisienne Bicycle
edited by David Barth, 6 June 2011.
Courtesy The Forney Museum of Transportation at 4303 Brighton Blvd., Denver,
Colorado 80216. Photos were taken in June 2011.
This is a very rare, unrestored, 1817 Draisianne bicycle. It was also called a "hobby horse." The Draisienne was invented in 1816 by Baron Karl Von Drais of Sauerbrun, Germany. He was a landscape
gardener for the lands and forests of the Grand Duke of Baden. He used the device as a seat he could move along the grounds that he tended. He called it a
"make speed." It has two wheels on a frame, with a leather seat, much like bicycles of today. The rider propelled the bicycle with his feet. Going down steep
hills was dangerous because the bicycle had no brakes, and going up steep hills was difficult.
These foot-powered bicycles were also called velocipedes, from the Latin "velox pedis" which means swift of foot.
The next evolutionary step was to connect pedals to the front wheel and add a brake, as with the Forney Museum's "bone shaker" example from 1866. Bone shakers
were in vogue from around 1860 to 1869. The front wheel of the bone shaker was made larger to provide more speed for each rotation of the pedals. The bone
shaker got its name because the wooden wheels had flat iron "tires" wrapped around the wooden wheel to provide more durability. To help soften the rough ride,
a flat iron strip was made part of the frame where the seat was mounted to act as a spring. Very few bone shakers survive because during World War I,
1914 to 1918, nearly all bone shakers were melted down for iron needed to make war marterial.
After the bone shaker, the design morphed into a bicycle with a very large front wheel and a smaller rear wheel with a
step on the frame for the rider to use to climb onto the high-mounted seat. The reason for the larger wheel was to provide much more speed than could be
accomplished with the bone shaker. These large bicycles have several names. One is "penny farthing" to illustrate the difference of
the diameter of the large wheel, like an old English penny, to a smaller rear wheel, like an English farthing that is smaller than the
penny. Other names include "ordinary," "high wheeler," and "standard." These bicycles were generally not used by the average person because they were difficult to
mount and dismount, and the bicycle had the propensity to dump the rider over the handlebars if it hit a curb, rock, or other undulation in the surface.
One very unusual "ordinary" bicycle in the Forney Museum collection has the smaller wheel in front of the large wheel instead of behind it. This design was
supposed to be safer because the small front wheel would help prevent the bicycle from tipping frontwards if it hit a rock or curb.
As industrial technology progressed, with the advent of sprockets and chains, the dangerous "ordinary" bicycle was replaced by one that looks more like the bone
shaker and today's bicycles, with pedals between the wheels that drive a chain and sprocket arrangement to power the front or rear wheel. The size of the
sprockets could alter the "gearing" of the bicycle so that it could be slow or fast, depending on the builder's desire.
In summary, the three primary evolutionary designs of the bicycle are:
- 1816 - 1820: Draisienne - foot powered, configured similarly to today's bicycles.
- 1820 - 1860: Dandy Horse - had larger wheels than the Draisenne and was more comfortable.
- 1866 - 1870: Bone shaker - pedals on a larger front wheel.
- Ordinary (also called penny farthing, high wheeler, and standard) - very large front wheel for higher speed and a smaller rear wheel (or, sometimes,
front wheel).
- Modern bicycle design - wheels of same size, one (or sometimes two) driven by pedals, sprockets, and chain arrangement.
This is one of two original Draisienne bicycles in existence. The other is on display in a French museum.
This Exhibit number is 123.
