You’ve probably seen those old-timey sketches of a guy in a top hat balanced precariously on a wooden beam with two wheels. It looks ridiculous. But that’s where the story of who invented the first cycle actually begins. Most of us think about the bicycle as a fixed object—it has pedals, a chain, and rubber tires. Yet, the "first" version didn't have any of that. It didn't even have pedals.
The history is messy. It’s full of patent disputes, nationalistic pride, and a few guys who were just tired of walking.
The Running Machine of Baron Karl von Drais
Let’s go back to 1817. Europe was a mess. A massive volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora in Indonesia had caused a "Year Without a Summer." Crops failed. Horses, the primary mode of transport, were starving or being eaten. People needed a way to get around that didn't require oats.
Enter Baron Karl von Drais.
Drais was a German inventor who came up with the Laufmaschine, or "running machine." It was basically a wooden frame with two wheels in a line. You sat on a saddle and pushed off the ground with your feet. No pedals. No brakes. Just your boots hitting the dirt.
People called it the "Dandy Horse." Why? Because wealthy young men—dandies—were the only ones who could afford such a weird hobby. It wasn't a practical commuter tool yet. It was a toy for the elite to show off in the park. Drais patented his invention, but patents back then weren't worth much across borders. Soon, London and Paris were full of knock-offs.
It was heavy. Imagine dragging a 50-pound wooden beam between your legs while trying to look sophisticated. Drais deserves the credit for the fundamental geometry of the bicycle, though. He proved that two wheels in a line could stay upright through balance and steering. That was the "Aha!" moment.
The Mystery of the Pedals: Macmillan or Lallement?
Here is where the history gets heated. If you ask a Scottish person who invented the first cycle, they will likely tell you it was Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839.
The story goes that Macmillan, a blacksmith, added a system of treadles and rods to a dandy horse. This allowed the rider to keep their feet off the ground. It’s a great story. There’s even a legend that he was the first person involved in a bicycle-related traffic accident when he knocked over a child in Glasgow and got fined five shillings.
💡 You might also like: Easy recipes dinner for two: Why you are probably overcomplicating date night
The problem? There is almost no contemporary evidence that it actually happened.
Historians like David Herlihy, author of Bicycle: The History, have combed through records and found that the Macmillan claim didn't really surface until decades later. It might be more myth than fact.
Instead, most historians look toward France in the 1860s. Pierre Lallement, a mechanic, and the Michaux family (Pierre and Ernest) are the heavy hitters here. They took the wooden frame and slapped pedals directly onto the front wheel axle.
They called it the velocipede. The public called it the "Boneshaker."
Why "Boneshaker" Was the Perfect Name
If you’ve ever ridden a bike over a cobblestone street with high-pressure tires, you know it’s bumpy. Now, imagine that same street, but your bike is made of heavy wrought iron and wood with iron rims. No rubber. No springs.
It was brutal.
The Michaux company was the first to mass-produce these. Suddenly, the question of who invented the first cycle became a matter of industrial scale. By 1867, Paris was obsessed. Lallement eventually moved to America and took out the first U.S. patent for a pedal-bicycle, but he struggled to make a fortune from it.
The Era of the High Wheeler
The Boneshaker had a fundamental flaw: physics. Since the pedals were attached directly to the front wheel, the only way to go faster was to make the wheel bigger.
📖 Related: How is gum made? The sticky truth about what you are actually chewing
This led to the "Penny Farthing." You’ve seen them—one giant front wheel and a tiny little wheel in the back. They looked like the British coins of the time (the large Penny and the small Farthing), hence the name.
These things were dangerous.
You were sitting nearly five feet in the air. If the front wheel hit a stone or a rut, the whole bike would pitch forward. This was called "taking a header." It’s exactly what it sounds like: you go over the handlebars head-first into the pavement. Because of this, cycling remained a sport for athletic, daring young men. Women and the elderly were largely left out of the revolution at this stage.
The "Safety Bicycle" Changes Everything
Everything changed in 1885. This is when the modern bicycle we recognize today was born. John Kemp Starley, an Englishman, released the Rover Safety Bicycle.
It was "safe" because it returned to the two wheels of equal size. But the secret sauce was the chain drive. By using a chain to connect the pedals to the rear wheel, Starley could use gearing. You didn't need a five-foot wheel to go fast anymore; you just needed the right gear ratio.
Around the same time, John Boyd Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic (air-filled) tire.
Suddenly, you weren't shaking your teeth out on the cobblestones. You were floating. This was the tipping point. The bicycle became the "freedom machine." It gave people—especially women—unprecedented mobility. Susan B. Anthony once said that the bicycle had "done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world."
Common Myths and Misconceptions
There’s a famous sketch in the Codex Atlanticus attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that shows a perfect modern bicycle. For years, people used this to claim the Italians invented the cycle in the 1490s.
👉 See also: Curtain Bangs on Fine Hair: Why Yours Probably Look Flat and How to Fix It
It's a fake.
Expert analysis in the 1990s suggested the drawing was likely added to the manuscript in the 1960s or 70s during a "restoration." Da Vinci was a genius, but he didn't design a chain-driven bike.
Another common mistake is confusing the "first cycle" with the "first motorcycle." While the bicycle was evolving, people like Sylvester Roper and Gottlieb Daimler were trying to shove steam engines and early internal combustion engines into these frames. But the pure, human-powered cycle is a distinct lineage of engineering.
Who Really Wins the Credit?
If you're looking for one name to answer who invented the first cycle, you're going to be disappointed. It was a relay race of innovation.
- Karl von Drais gave us the two-wheel balance.
- The Michaux family and Pierre Lallement gave us the pedals.
- John Kemp Starley gave us the chain drive and the modern "safety" layout.
Without any one of these steps, the bike wouldn't exist as we know it today. It wasn't a single "Eureka!" moment in a garage. It was seventy years of people trying not to fall over and trying to find a way to travel faster than a walking pace.
Taking Action: Getting Into the History
If this makes you want to explore the roots of cycling yourself, there are a few ways to see this history in person rather than just reading about it.
- Visit a Specialized Museum: The Velorama in Nijmegen, Netherlands, or the Bicycle Museum of America in New Bremen, Ohio, have actual Dandy Horses and Boneshakers you can look at. Seeing the scale of a Penny Farthing in person is a lot different than seeing a photo.
- Try a Reproduction: There are clubs, like the "Wheelmen" in the U.S., who actually ride and maintain authentic 19th-century cycles. They often hold public demonstrations.
- Check Your Local Library for Patent Archives: If you really want to nerd out, searching for Pierre Lallement’s 1866 patent (U.S. Patent No. 59,915) gives you a firsthand look at the technical drawings that changed transportation.
The bicycle is one of the few machines from the 1800s that we still use in almost the exact same form. The safety bicycle of 1885 is, for all intents and purposes, the same machine you can buy at a shop today. That’s a testament to how "right" those early inventors finally got it.