Corona Daily 345: The Bicycle Story

Yesterday, I wrote about the bicycle boom in the current pandemic. A German Baron Karl Von Drais invented the bicycle two centuries ago, in 1817. He called it Laufmaschine (running machine) in German, velocipede in French. The story of what triggered that invention is fascinating and instructive.

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That history begins two years earlier, on 5 April 1815. Mount Tambora in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony, erupted in history’s largest volcanic explosion, producing an ash cloud that brought down temperatures even in far-flung Europe and North America. The whole mountain turned into a flowing mass of liquid fire. The village of Tambora disappeared from earth. The sound of the explosion was heard on Sumatra Island, 2600 km away. The ash was found more than 1300 km away. An estimated 70000-90000 people died.

Like the after-effects of a strong drug, the world suffered in the subsequent years. 1816 was a singular “Year with no summer”. It has two more names: ‘Poverty year’ and ‘Eighteen hundred and froze to death’. The climate change disrupted Indian monsoons, causing famine for three years. A cholera epidemic began in Bengal, and typhus epidemics in southeast Europe. In North America, a dry fog made the sun red. New York experienced summer snowfall.  In China, the cold weather killed trees, crops and water buffalos. The Thames froze over, it snowed heavily in July.

(In May 1816, Lord Byron, one of the greatest British poets, had 18-year old Mary Shelley as a guest in his Geneva house. The miserable weather had locked them in. Byron proposed an in-house “ghost story competition”. Mary Shelley won it by writing “Frankenstein”).

Food prices had risen sharply everywhere in Europe. Germany suffered terribly. Hungry people demonstrated in front of markets and bakeries. Riots, arson and looting were everywhere. Rioters carried flags that said ‘bread or blood’. Food riots of 1816-17 were so violent; the violence was compared to that of the French revolution.

Livestock died of starvation. Horses starved or were killed, since the prices of available oats were so high, people needed to choose whether to feed the animals or themselves.

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The horse was the only mode of transport. Attempts to design a car were unsuccessful as yet. 

If all horses were to disappear, a bleak but realistic scenario, the world would come to a standstill, thought Karl von Drais. He successfully designed a machine that could replace a horse. In fact colloquially, it was called a ‘hobby horse’ or a derogatory ‘dandy horse’. His bicycle made of wood had no pedals; the rider ran his feet along the ground to give the machine a momentum. The first bicycle managed to achieve speeds of up to 10 miles per hour, comparable to a trotting horse. Drais’s design had a saddle for the rider. The rider had in his hand a cord, just like the horse’s rein. To brake, that cord was pulled to stop the back wheel. Pedals, proper brakes, a steel frame, metal wheels and chains gradually modernized the bicycle over the years. 

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After reading the history of the volcanic eruption and its aftermath, the current pandemic appears mild. The bicycle story shows how natural disasters can inspire inventions. The last five months have brought in new ideas in online education, zoom conferencing, drone deliveries, handsfree door handles, cuddle curtains. The longer the Covid-19 pandemic runs, more will be the number of inventions and innovations. Bad times can stimulate good things.

Ravi