This is an IHeart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

From the modernization of medicine to the development of our country's road

systems, the bicycle has had a major impact on American life. Though its rise occurred in the

19th century, cycling is still something that's very popular in our country today. Margaret

Goroff, author of The Mechanical Horse, brings us the story, because on this day in 1817, the first bicycle was ridden.

The first thing that looked like a bicycle was invented in Germany by a guy named the Baron von

Dres. And he was making this during a time where there had just been a major volcano

eruption in what's now Indonesia. And that had caused a lot of soot and air pollution to kind of blot out the sun, basically.

There was a whole summer, 1816, where it was called the year without a summer in Europe because it was so cold and cloudy.

And that affected the harvest that year.

And the next year, there wasn't enough food particularly for horses a lot of horses

had to be put down and so there's a theory that part of what gave him the idea to make this thing

was that he was looking for a substitute for a horse something that could replace these animals

that were in short supply because of this meteorological event.

So he made this thing and the object was called a drazine.

And it looked a lot like a modern bicycle except that it didn't have petals.

So it was very heavy, made initially with wood and then with iron.

And the way you would get around on it was you'd kind of straddle it

and just push off like sort of Fred Flintstone one foot in front of another.

They compared it to ice skating on land.

It kind of spread in continental Europe that year at 1817.

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