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The Velocipede (Bicycle) Museum
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The Velocipede Museum, in New Castle, Delaware, is home to a collection of bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes, and boneshakers, dating from the 1860s to the mid 1960s.
The collection includes:
- 1866 Wooden Velocipede
- 1869 Juvenile Boneshaker
- 1871 Transitional Velocipede
- 1884 Howe Adult Tricycle
- 1890s Bike For Two
The museum is located at 414 Delaware Street in New Castle.
Historians are not sure when the first riding machine (bicycle) was invented. Some believe it goes as far back as 1493 to a sketch, drawn by a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, that never left the drawing board.
The earliest documented bicycle is the Laufmaschine, invented by Baron von Drais in 1817 and patented in 1818. The Laufmaschine was a two-wheeled riding machine with no pedals. The rider sat astride and pushed the vehicle with his feet. The vehicle was made entirely of wood and later became know as the Draisienne or Dandy Horse (Hobby Horse).
During the decades that followed, there were many developments to the bicycle applying technologies similar to that used on the draisienne.
The first bicycle to be massed produced was the velocipede (also called boneshaker). The velocipede was developed in Paris in the 1860s (historians do not agree on the exact year) and featured rotary cranks and pedals. It remained popular until the 1870s when the Penny-Farthing (high-wheeled bicycle) was introduced.
In 1885 John Kemp Starley produced the Rover Safety Bike. The Rover Safety replaced the high-wheeled bicycle and is the prototype for the modern bike.
To learn more about the history and development of the bicycle go to:
Pedaling History Bicycle Museum
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