Swift Walking Down the Street

Swift Walking Down the Street
by Mary Evelyn McCurdy
Karl Drais was born into an influential German family in 1785. As a teen, he began
studying at a private school for forest administrators. At the age of twenty he left that school
to study mathematics, physics, and architecture at a university in Heidelberg. He later went
back to forest administration, but left it again to work as a teacher and inventor.
Drais invented two four-wheeled human-powered vehicles in 1813 and 1814. A few
years later he invented a two-wheeled vehicle that has been called many names: velocipede,
Draisine, hobby-horse, dandy-horse, and swift walker.
When Drais invented his velocipede, horses were the primary mode of transportation
in Europe. During this particular time, however, horses were needed for more than work
and transportation. In 1815 there was a major volcanic eruption in Indonesia that put so
much ash into the air, it caused snow to fall in Europe during the summer of 1816. This
sudden dip in temperatures caused crops to fail and people went hungry. Many people had
to slaughter their horses to survive. The
new velocipede devised by Karl Drais was
a promising alternative to horse travel.
The velocipede had no pedals. To ride it,
a person straddled the seat and propelled
himself along with both feet, similar to
the way a person uses one foot to propel a
scooter.
Drais demonstrated the marvels of his
machine on June 12, 1817, when he set
out from Mannheim, Germany, and rode
towards the town of Schwetzingen. He
Karl Drais on His Velocipede, 1819
rode for a little less than five miles, then
turned around and headed home. The monumental trip took him a little over an hour. Two
years later, on May 21, 1819, the velocipede was introduced to Americans in New York City.
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
The velocipede caught on with some, but it was downright scary for others. Riders of this
new-fangled apparatus moved a little too fast through the streets. Authorities in Germany,
Great Britain, and the United States banned them for a time saying they endangered
pedestrians.
Karl Drais was never able to market his invention successfully and make money from it.
He died a poor man in 1851. Ten years later, a French manufacturer attached pedals to the
front wheel of a velocipede. The idea caught on.
Even though our bicycles today are different from and more complex than the swift
walkers of two hundred years ago, we can appreciate the ingenuity of Karl Drais who had an
idea and did something about it. Maybe someday you’ll have an idea and you’ll do something
about it. The possibilities are endless!
1869 Version of the Velocipede
Table Talk
Use these ideas to start some fun conversations around the dinner table.
1. Share a bicycle memory.
2. Add up how many different types of human-powered vehicles your family has ridden
in all.
3. If you could go on a bike ride anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
Can You Ride a “Bike”?
by Albert Rochefort
The following excerpt is taken from Rochefort’s 1910 book entitled Healthful Sports for Boys.
To begin with, I am not going to tell you how to ride a bicycle. The only way to learn that
is to get a wheel, and if it bucks you off, mount again and keep on trying until you master
the machine.
I have heard folks say that the bicycle is going out of fashion. That is sheer nonsense!
What have boys, or sturdy young men, or sturdy old ones for that matter, to do with fashion?
The bike is here, and it has come to stay and to go on revolving as long as folks live on a
revolving world. . . .
The pathway of the biker is not always straight and smooth, as every boy who has ridden
a wheel knows. The collision can always be avoided by good eyes and reasonable speed, but
no eyes are keen enough to note, and no skill alert enough to avoid the broken glass, or the
bits of scrap iron that beset the path and puncture the tire.
A friend assures me that he has mended a punctured tire with chewing gum. Now I do
not think well of the chewing gum habit, but if the stuff can be found to have better uses, I
am not the one to discourage it. So it might be well to carry a supply to fill punctured tires.
This is said to be the way to use it. Let all the air out of the tire, then with a flat piece of
wood force the gum into the hole—of course the gum must be “chewed” first to make it soft.
Plaster some over the hole, then bind the place with a strip of rag or your handkerchief. This
done, pump in the air and ride with care.
A broken handle bar is bad, but a substitute that will work can be made if you have some
strong string and a stout pocket knife. Cut two sections of a springy sapling, and bind them
securely to the front fork, one on either side, and sufficiently long to reach just above the
broken bar. Next tie securely a stout stick of proper length to the broken bar, and tie to this
the end of the uprights. If properly done, this will enable you to finish your journey, which
for a long distance is much pleasanter than walking and leading your wheel. . . .
Have a stand for your bicycle when not in use, and keep the wheel clean and well oiled.
No boy is worthy to own a tool or a toy, or anything else that is perishable, if he is too lazy or
too careless to have a pride in it, and to keep
it in the highest state of efficiency.
The very best time to make needed
repairs is when the need is discovered.
Never wait until the time comes to use the
thing again. The boy who gets into that habit
is disqualifying himself for the battle of life,
in which promptness, accuracy and energy
are the prime requisites to success.
If you cannot take care of your things,
or prefer to resign that duty to others, then
resign your ownership too, and let some
more deserving comrades own them.
Children on Bicycles and a Tricycle, c. 1915
Image Credits: Karl Drais (Wikimedia Commons); 1869 Velocipede (Library of Congress); children (Detroit Publishing Co., Library of Congress)
Sources: Karl Drais: The New Biography by Dr. Gerd Hüttmann (Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad Club, Kreisverband Mannheim); The Bicycle Museum of America
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
On Two Wheels
Accordion Book
Directions:
1. Print the following pages on heavy paper. Color if desired.
2. Cut off the right and left margins and cut along the dotted lines.
3. Tape the sections together in order, making one long strip.
4. Accordion fold the sections at the solid lines.
Note: This can also be displayed as a wall timeline.
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
by Bethany Poore
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company
Notgrass History Bites: Swift Walking Down the Street © 2015 Notgrass Company