The safety bicycle, with front-wheel steering and pedal-driven rear wheel, has existed in some form since the experiments of Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839, but his ideas were almost forgotten when the front-wheel driven boneshakers and penny farthings reigned supreme. Then, in the 1870s, experimental safeties appeared, culminating in Henry Lawson's Bicyclette of 1879. Within ten years the modern bicycle had developed, to remain basically unchanged for over seventy years. Many specialist and experimental designs have appeared since the late nineteenth century most of which, if they passed the prototype stage, failed to attract the public and now languish in museums.
- ISBN10 0852638043
- ISBN13 9780852638040
- Publish Date 10 November 2010
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Imprint Shire Publications
- Format Paperback
- Pages 32
- Language English