Download or read book Bicycle written by David V. Herlihy and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The nineteenth century's "mechanical horse" offered an exciting new world of transportation for all and ushered in an era of changes that resonates to the present day, changes cataloged and described in a fascinating history of an engineering marvel.
Download or read book Two Wheels Good written by Jody Rosen and published by Crown. This book was released on 2023-06-13 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A panoramic revisionist portrait of the nineteenth-century invention that is transforming the twenty-first-century world “Excellent . . . calls to mind Bill Bryson, John McPhee, Rebecca Solnit.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does. In Two Wheels Good, journalist and critic Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous machine, an ever-present force in humanity’s life and dream life—and a flash point in culture wars—for more than two hundred years. Combining history, reportage, travelogue, and memoir, Rosen’s book sweeps across centuries and around the globe, unfolding the bicycle’s saga from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a “green machine,” an emblem of sustainability in a world afflicted by pandemic and climate change. Readers meet unforgettable characters: feminist rebels who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a prospector who pedaled across the frozen Yukon to join the Klondike gold rush, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, a cycle-rickshaw driver who navigates the seething streets of the world’s fastest-growing megacity, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity aboard the International Space Station. Two Wheels Good examines the bicycle’s past and peers into its future, challenging myths and clichés while uncovering cycling’s connection to colonial conquest and the gentrification of cities. But the book is also a love letter: a reflection on the sensual and spiritual pleasures of bike riding and an ode to an engineering marvel—a wondrous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine.
Download or read book Old Wheelways written by Robert L. McCullough and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-06-11 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How American bicyclists shaped the landscape and left traces of their journeys for us in writing, illustrations, and photographs. In the later part of the nineteenth century, American bicyclists were explorers, cycling through both charted and uncharted territory. These wheelmen and wheelwomen became keen observers of suburban and rural landscapes, and left copious records of their journeys—in travel narratives, journalism, maps, photographs, illustrations. They were also instrumental in the construction of roads and paths (“wheelways”)—building them, funding them, and lobbying legislators for them. Their explorations shaped the landscape and the way we look at it, yet with few exceptions their writings have been largely overlooked by landscape scholars, and many of the paths cyclists cleared have disappeared. In Old Wheelways, Robert McCullough restores the pioneering cyclists of the nineteenth century to the history of American landscapes. McCullough recounts marathon cycling trips around the Northeast undertaken by hardy cyclists, who then describe their journeys in such magazines as The Wheelman Illustrated and Bicycling World; the work of illustrators (including Childe Hassam, before his fame as a painter); efforts by cyclists to build better rural roads and bicycle paths; and conflicts with park planners, including the famous Olmsted Firm, who often opposed separate paths for bicycles. Today's ubiquitous bicycle lanes owe their origins to nineteenth century versions, including New York City's “asphalt ribbons.” Long before there were “rails to trails,” there was a movement to adapt existing passageways—including aqueduct corridors, trolley rights-of-way, and canal towpaths—for bicycling. The campaigns for wheelways, McCullough points out, offer a prologue to nearly every obstacle faced by those advocating bicycle paths and lanes today. McCullough's text is enriched by more than one hundred historic images of cyclists (often attired in skirts and bonnets, suits and ties), country lanes, and city streets.
Download or read book Bicycle Design written by Tony Hadland and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-10-07 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative and comprehensive account of the bicycle's two-hundred-year evolution. The bicycle ranks as one of the most enduring, most widely used vehicles in the world, with more than a billion produced during almost two hundred years of cycling history. This book offers an authoritative and comprehensive account of the bicycle's technical and historical evolution, from the earliest velocipedes (invented to fill the need for horseless transport during a shortage of oats) to modern racing bikes, mountain bikes, and recumbents. It traces the bicycle's development in terms of materials, ergonomics, and vehicle physics, as carried out by inventors, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers. Written by two leading bicycle historians and generously illustrated with historic drawings, designs, and photographs, Bicycle Design describes the key stages in the evolution of the bicycle, beginning with the counterintuitive idea of balancing on two wheels in line, through the development of tension-spoked wheels, indirect drives (employing levers, pulleys, chains, and chainwheels), and pneumatic tires. The authors examine the further development of the bicycle for such specific purposes as racing, portability, and all-terrain use; and they describe the evolution of bicycle components including seats, transmission, brakes, lights (at first candle-based), and carriers (racks, panniers, saddlebags, child seats, and sidecars). They consider not only commercially successful designs but also commercial failures that pointed the way to future technological developments. And they debunk some myths about bicycles—for example, the mistaken but often-cited idea that Leonardo sketched a chain-drive bike in his notebooks. Despite the bicycle's long history and mass appeal, its technological history has been neglected. This volume, with its engaging and wide-ranging coverage, fills that gap. It will be the starting point for all future histories of the bicycle.
Download or read book A Social History of the Bicycle Its Early Life and Times in America written by Robert A. Smith and published by New York : American Heritage Press. This book was released on 1972 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bicycle Book written by Dorling Kindersley Publishing Staff and published by . This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jessica Hart has never forgotten Matthew Landley. After all, he was her first love when she was fifteen years old. But he was also her school maths teacher, and their forbidden affair ended in scandal with his arrest and imprisonment. Now, seventeen years later, Matthew returns with a new identity, a long-term girlfriend and a young daughter, who know nothing of what happened before. Yet when he runs into Jessica, neither of them can ignore the emotional ties that bind them together. With so many secrets to keep hidden, how long can Jessica and Matthew avoid the dark mistakes of their past imploding in the present?
Download or read book The Military History of the Bicycle written by John Norris and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2021-05-30 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost as soon as a viable metal-framed bike was invented, it was put to military use, offering a much cheaper, less fragile and less logistically demanding alternative to horse transport. Widely used in many armies from the late 19th century, through both world wars and beyond, the bicycle really is the forgotten war machine. John Norris traces traces the development of military cycling from first experiments, including early (often flawed) designs for armed and multi-passenger versions. He explains how any why bikes were used for rapid movement of infantry units as well as carrying messages and other tasks. First used in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, then by both sides in the Boer War, they were widely adopted throughout Europe before the First World War. In the Second World War, the Japanese used over fifty thousand bicycles in the conquest of Malaya and the German army used over three million, relying on them increasingly as petrol shortages immobilized motor transport. The Allies famously made use of folding and air-dropped bikes in Operation Market Garden and in Normandy. After WW2 bikes were used extensively in Vietnam, particularly along the Ho Chi Minh trail and some European armies maintained specialist bicycle units throughout the Cold War and into the 21st century. Specialized military bikes, collapsible for use by parachutists, are still being made for Special Forces units. John Norris examines the whole history of pedal-powered warfare and illustrates it with an array of high-quality photographs.
Download or read book A Business History of the Bicycle Industry written by Carlo Mari and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a historical analysis of the bicycle industry, this book explores how the bicycle was developed, manufactured and marketed, from its origins in the late nineteenth century to the present day. The author highlights the contributions made by the bicycle industry to marketing as it is understood today, tracing key innovations in product development and marketing. Addressing a gap in the literature, this book provides an insightful history of marketing practice for one of the most important products of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Bicycle History written by James Witherell and published by McGann Publishing LLC. This book was released on 2016-01-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its invention in the 1860s, the bicycle has had a fascinating history. Author James Witherell has spent years collecting the essential, the trivial and sometimes just downright odd facts that make up the story of the bicycle. Instead of composing a narrative history, he's arranged them in chronological order, painting an informative, fun and irresistible picture of what might be mankind's greatest invention. Witherell has given special emphasis to the Tour de France.
Download or read book Coventry s Bicycle Heritage written by Damien Kimberley and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2015-10-05 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coventry has a remarkable bicycle manufacturing heritage. From the first velocipedes built in 1868, the city went on to become the home of the British cycle industry and at one time produced the greatest output of cycles in the world – with well in excess of 450 individual cycle manufacturers over a 100-year period. The Coventry Machinists Company were the first in Britain to mass-produce cycles, and steadily, more and more companies were established in the city. Soon Coventry became internationally recognised as a place where only the very best machines were made, and the name 'Coventry' itself became a stamp of quality engineering and fine craftsmanship. Richly illustrated with over 100 outstanding images from Coventry History Centre, many previously unpublished, this is the first book of its kind to cover the history of Coventry bicycle manufacture and the people who built them. From Dunlop, Hobart, Singer, Premier, Rover and Triumph to other lesser-known local companies, their legacies are still enjoyed by cyclists and local historians today.
Download or read book Roads Were Not Built for Cars written by Carlton Reid and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Roads Were Not Built for Cars, Carlton Reid reveals the pivotal—and largely unrecognized—role that bicyclists played in the development of modern roadways. Reid introduces readers to cycling personalities, such as Henry Ford, and the cycling advocacy groups that influenced early road improvements, literally paving the way for the motor car. When the bicycle morphed from the vehicle of rich transport progressives in the 1890s to the “poor man’s transport” in the 1920s, some cyclists became ardent motorists and were all too happy to forget their cycling roots. But, Reid explains, many motor pioneers continued cycling, celebrating the shared links between transport modes that are now seen as worlds apart. In this engaging and meticulously researched book, Carlton Reid encourages us all to celebrate those links once again.
Download or read book The Mechanical Horse written by Margaret Guroff and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2018-01-04 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively cultural history, Margaret Guroff reveals how the bicycle has transformed American society, from making us mobile to empowering people in all avenues of life. Book jacket.
Download or read book The Cycling City written by Evan Friss and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-01-29 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Evan Friss shows in his mordant history of urban bicycling in the late nineteenth century, the bicycle has long told us much about cities and their residents. In a time when American cities were chaotic, polluted, and socially and culturally impenetrable, the bicycle inspired a vision of an improved city in which pollution was negligible, transport was noiseless and rapid, leisure spaces were democratic, and the divisions between city and country blurred. Friss focuses not on the technology of the bicycle but on the urbanisms that bicycling engendered. Bicycles altered the look and feel of cities and their streets, enhanced mobility, fueled leisure and recreation, promoted good health, and shrank urban spaces as part of a larger transformation that altered the city and the lives of its inhabitants, even as the bicycle's own popularity fell, not to rise again for a century. --Publisher's description.
Download or read book The Dancing Chain written by Frank J. Berto and published by Van Der Plas Publications. This book was released on 2004-10-01 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Expanded and updated 2nd edition of the book that covers the history and development of the modern derailleur bicycle-and the gadget that makes it tick: the derailleur gearing mechanism. The Dancing Chain picks up where other bicycle history books leave off: at the introduction of multiple-speed gearing mechanisms at the beginning of the 20th century. 384 pages of text with 1,200 black & white illustrations, including many new Daniel Rebour drawings never before published in any English-language publications.
Download or read book Pedalare Pedalare written by John Foot and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of Italian cycling is the story of Italy in the twentieth century.
Download or read book Invisible Bicycle written by Tiina Mannisto-Funk and published by Technology and Change in Histo. This book was released on 2018 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Invisible Bicyclebrings together different insights into the social, cultural and economic history of the bicycle and cycling in historical eras of ubiquitous bicycle use that have remained relatively invisible in bicycle history. It revisits the typical timeline of cycling's decline in the 1950s and 1960s and the renaissance beginning in the 1970s by bringing forth the large national and local variations, varying uses and images of the bicycle, and different bicycle cultures as well as their historical background and motivations. To understand the role, possibilities and challenges of the bicycle today, it is necessary to know the history that has formed them. Therefore The Invisible Bicycleis recommended also to present-day practitioners and planners of bicycle mobility.Contributors are: Peter Cox, Martin Emanuel, Tiina Männistö-Funk, Timo Myllyntaus, Nicholas Oddy, Harry Oosterhuis, William Steele, Manuel Stoffers, Sue-Yen Tjong Tjin Tai, Frank Veraart.
Download or read book Schwinn Bicycles written by Jay Pridmore and published by Motorbooks International. This book was released on 2001 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 100-year history of Schwinn, the best-known name in American bicycling. German immigrant Ignaz Schwinn launched the company that bears his name in 1895 and set the bicycling standard in the U.S. for decades. Lavishly illustrated with original archival material, much of it from Chicago's Bicycle Museum of America, and specially commissioned photography. Covers Schwinn's technical developments, racing history, significant models like the Black Phantom, Varsity, Paramount, Fastback, and many more. Also discusses Schwinn's short-lived foray into motorcycle manufacturing.
