The Bicycle began as a wooden push horse to a mode of transportation, as well as a sport. The future is bright for the bicycle, with its increasing popularity as well as the advancements in technology.

             The bicycles history dates back to the 1490's. During this time Leonardo da Vinci, a famous artist, as an well as inventor created a primitive drawing of the bicycle. These pictures were more advanced then many ancestors of the modern day bicycle. Da Vinci's sketches showed a bicycle with gears and a chain rotating the rear wheel, but these bikes were not manufactured until the mid to late 1800's.

             The first bicycle built was constructed by Baron Von Drai in 1817. His bicycle was called the hobby horse, its main body was made of wood and the front and rear were solid wooden forks allowing the rider very limited movement. It received the name hobby horse because of its size and shape. The hobby horse was ridden by the movement of your feet. (Like the Flintstones cartoon when Fred is driving his car.) These bicycles were very popular among the rich of the time, since no one else could afford them.

             Around 1863 many different inventors experimented with different ways to modify the out of date hobby horse, so with the new technology the new bicycle was known as the "Bone Shaker."(Lehrer 43) It was named this because of the hard materials used to make this bicycle, most were made of a wood frame with steel wheels. The movement of peoples feet were still used. With the wheels being made of steel, riders had a bone shaking experience while people rode them on the cobblestone streets. .

             In 1871 the more popular High Wheelers were being manufactured. A High Wheeler was a bicycle constructed of solid steel with a huge wheel in the front averaging in size of 5-6 feet and a smaller wheel in the back averaging in height 2 1/2 feet. The advancement from the Bone Shaker was that there were handle bars to steer the bike with as well as pedals to put the immense thing in motion.