Bicycle

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

BBC

Business

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2019

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The bicycle was to prove transformative. Cheaper than a horse, it freed women and young working class people to roam free. And the bike was the testing ground for countless improvements in manufacturing that would later lead to Henry Ford’s production lines. Tim Harford considers whether the bicycle has had its day, or whether it’s a technology whose best years lie ahead.

Transcript

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0:00.0	50 Things That Made The Modern Economy With Tim Harford
0:17.0	One autumn day in 1865, two men sat in a tavern in Ansonia, Connecticut, calming their
0:24.6	nerves with a few stiff drinks.
0:28.8	They'd been riding a wagon down a nearby hill when they heard a blood-curdling scream
0:33.8	from behind them.
0:36.8	The devil himself, with a head of a man and the body of some unknown creature, was flying
0:43.2	down the hill towards them, skimming low over the ground.
0:47.7	They whipped their horses and fled, while the devil plunged off the road and into a flooded
0:54.4	ditch.
0:57.4	Their fear and awe must have deepened when a dark, head man who had overheard their
1:03.7	story strode over, bleeding, soaking wet, and French.
1:10.4	He introduced himself as the devil.
1:14.9	The devil's real name was Pierre Lalmon.
1:18.1	The young mechanic had been in the United States for a few months and had brought with him
1:22.4	from France a machine of his own devising.
1:26.1	A pedal cranked, two-wheeled construction he called a velocipede, but which we would call
1:32.2	a bicycle.
1:34.0	Monsieur Lalmon was soon to patent his invention, which still lacked the gears and chain drive
1:39.6	of a modern bicycle.
1:41.9	It also lacked brakes, which was why he'd plunged down the hill towards the wagon ears with
1:47.0	such hellish speed.
1:49.8	Monsieur Lalmon's cumbersome bicycle was soon superseded by the penny-farthing, which was
	...

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