Audlem History Society's latest talk

Audlem History Society talk on the Social and Technical History of the Bicycle

by Matthew and Andrew Jones

Last Thursday evening, a packed hall heard a fascinating history of the bicycle given by Matthew Jones. Matthew ran through the development of the bicycle from its earliest forms in 1817 in Germany, (the "Laufmaschine" or running machine, like a present day child's balance bike), to the Velocipede refined design 2 years later, and on to the first mass produced bike, "the Boneshaker", built in 1868 in France. Benz and Henry Ford based their first early car designs on four wheeled bicycles with differential gears, and other famous names such as Dunlop, who invented the pneumatic tyre for his son's tricycle, emerged later. Matthew's talk was beautifully illustrated by well-chosen slides throughout.

He then went on to talk of how the bike played such an important part in mass participation in leisure and sport at the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century. The first Bicycle Touring Club was founded in Harrogate in 1878, and by the 1920s Raleigh were producing about 100,000 bikes per annum.

After the second World War, bikes as a form of transport dropped out of favour as cars predominated, so the focus shifted to kids' bikes and mountain bikes. But interest in them grew steadily again in the 21st Century especially to do with sport and racing. With the advent of climate change, cities began re-thinking their transport policies, with cycling being encouraged once more.

After Matthew's talk ended, his brother Andrew, who had brought along some recent examples of speed bikes, gave us an enthusiastic up-to-date presentation of how he and his team are trying to beat the world record by aiming to reach speeds of 220mph by next year. This was illustrated by a short but amazing video showing a bike speeding behind a Porsche car at over 100mph. A lively discussion at the end showed how much interest had been generated by both talks. So, the audience got two brothers for the price of one, a real bargain and a wonderful evening.

To see the video of the fastest bike have a look at Operation Pacemaker at:

https://en-gb.facebook.com/pg/MossBikesUK/posts/

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