In 1817 Baron Karl von Drais from the Duchy of Baden in Central Germany invented the Laufmaschine (running machine) which later became known as the Draisienne. This early bicycle was a simple wooden frame having two wheels, the front one of which could be steered. There were no pedals, forward movement being achieved by the simple process of running whilst seated astride the frame. Though it may sound to you a strange and uncomfortable machine to ride, the Laufmaschine's popularity quickly spread across Europe. In 1818 a London carriage maker by the name of Denis Johnson designed his own version of the Laufmaschine, the Pedestrian Curricle, later to be widely known as the "hobby horse". This machine was so much lighter and more comfortable to ride than the one designed by Baron von Drais that one owner of a hobby horse is said to have beaten a coach pulled by four horses from London to Brighton. Its fame even spread to America where hobby horses were ridden in New York.

In the years that followed, many alternative ways were thought up to achieve movement on this new fangled machine. This led to such weird and wonderful contraptions as the treadle driven tricycles and quadricycles invented by Willard Sawyer between 1845 and 1868, and Nathaniel Brown's Swing Cycle, built in Kansas in 1887. The Swing Bicycle was comprised of a gondola-style seat to hold two riders, and which was suspended on an axle between two giant, 10 feet diameter wheels. Movement was achieved by both riders pulling on levers connected to the axle and which made the seat swing back and forth. Can you imagine such a "bike" in modern day traffic, it would dwarf most cars!

Perhaps the most notable of all these inventions was that by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, who worked as a blacksmith in Dumfries, Scotland. His bicycle, made in 1839, was a much lighter version of the original hobby horse, with treadles that drove the rear wheel via long connecting rods. MacMillan used his bicycle to make the 140 miles round trip between Dumfries and Glasgow, much to the wonderment of crowds of people who saw his strange new machine.

One of the more long lasting inventions was that which appeared about 1868, namely pedals attached to the axle of the front wheel. Initially both wheels of the bicycle remained the same diameter, but in 1867 Frenchman Pierre Michaux designed a machine on which the front driving wheel was larger than the rear, thus allowing the rider to travel further for each pedal revolution and to travel more easily over the rough roads. By about 1882 the front wheel had increased in diameter to a size that was restricted only by the length of the riders legs. These bicycles became known as penny farthings. However, such machines were very unstable, being easily tipped over on rough roads or when going downhill.

There were several attempts to overcome the instability of the large wheel bicycles. The American Star Bicycle Company invented a machine that had the bigger wheel at the back, whilst a Frenchman, Messieur Rousseau from Marseilles built a large front wheel machine that was driven by chains from pedals attached to front fork extensions which allowed the rider to sit lower and farther behind the front wheel axle. By the late 1880's the design of the bicycle had settled down into one that came to be known as the safety cycle. On this machine both wheels were of the same, smaller diameter and the pedals drove the rear wheel via a chain and sprockets.

This general design has persisted to the present day. Improvements in design have come instead in other areas, such as the invention of the pneumatic tyre by John Boyd Dunlop in 1888, the hub gear and the derailleur gear of the mid 1900's, and the development in frame tube materials over the past 15 years. The modern bike is a far cry from its ancestors, having light, thin-walled steel, aluminium alloy or even carbon fibre tubes, similar materials for such accessories as the chainwheels, gears, handlebars, brakes and wheels, and tyres weighing only a few grams. In spite of such lightness the modern bicycle is very responsive to the power imparted to it by the rider's legs, whilst at the same time being highly manoeuvreable and safe under severe braking.

The birth of cycle racing
Cycle racing began very shortly after the invention of the original machine by Baron von Drais, one of the earliest records being of a group of riders competing for a prize in Munich in 1829. There were races in Paris in 1869, by then using the much improved cycles invented by Pierre Michaux, organised by the Veloce-Club de Paris and the French cycling magazine Velocipide Illustre organised a race between Paris and Rouen in 1869 in which nearly 300 competitors took part. The race was won by an Englishman, James Moore.

In Britain too, cycle races were taking place. Some of these were run in conjunction with athletic events, others were separate affairs. One of the earliest of these events was held in Hendon near London in 1868 and the winner, Arthur Markham was presented with a silver cup by the landlord of the Welsh Harp Hotel who had sponsored the race. Later races incorporated the high wheel bicycles or penny farthings, such as the two miles handicap race held at the Eton Alexandra Cricket Club in 1876.

Some of these early races lasted somewhat longer than two miles. For example, in the late 1870's there was the Long Distance Championship of the World held in Islington, London which lasted six days. The average distance that needed to be covered each day by the eventual winner was over 240 miles! Americans had a similar six day event, on an indoor track at Madison Square Garden in New York. Initially it was for individual riders, but later was changed to teams of two or three riders each taking turns in the race. This type of racing, in a somewhat modified form, continues today, both in Britain and abroad. For example, you can see madison racing at the British National Track Championships or at a number of Six Day Races around Europe (eg: Dortmund, Gent, Copenhagen, Grenoble, Moscow).

Perhaps one of the more famous races that most people seem to know about is the Tour de France. This was devised in 1903 by Henri Desgrange when he was editor of the sports paper L'Auto. Riders had to complete a course that covered much of France, making their own way, finding their own accommodation and affecting any repairs to their bikes that were needed along the route. As with most other races, the early editions of the Tour de France were for individual riders. Later, and with the advent of commercial sponsorship the race was changed to allow teams of riders to take part. The modern version has about 20 teams of up to 12 riders, each with a team leader whose job it is to try and win the race on behalf of his sponsors, whilst the other team members assist him with various (hopefully fair!) team tactics. Modern teams also have mechanics to look after the bikes, masseurs to look after the riders and managers to sort out the tactics and see to the smooth running of the team.

Many countries now have their own national races, both amateur and professional. There are the Tours of Italy, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Mexico, Australia and North America. For many years we had the Tour of Britain, popularly known as the Milk Race, having been sponsored by the Milk Marketing Board for much of its life. Ireland too, had its own Tour for a short time, the Nissan Classic. These and other races have brought forward many well known heroes over the years, such as the French riders Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault, both five times winners of the Tour de France. Belgian Eddy Mercx was also five times winner of the Tour de France and the most prolific winner of Classic continental races in the history of the sport, including Paris-Nice, Paris-Roubaiux, Ghent-Wevelgem and Milan-San Remo. Perhaps the most well known multiple winner of the Tour de France is the Spaniard Miguel Indurain, who won the race for five consecutive years, a feat that has so far not been equalled.

Ireland had its own heroes in the shape of Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche. Kelly won the Paris-Nice for seven consecutive years, and the Nissan Classic races on four successive occasions, plus numerous Classic events and many stages in the Tour de France (on four occasions winning the coveted green jersey of the Points Leader). He is so well respected in Ireland that the main square in his home town of Carrick on Suir has been named after him. Stephen Roche is one of only three riders ever to win the Tour of Italy, the Tour de France and the World Professional Road Race Championship in the same year, and is also a two times winner of Paris-Nice. Britain's other cycling heroes include Scotland's Robert Millar, consistently at the top of continental professional cycling for nearly ten years, Hugh Porter and Tony Doyle, both multiple winners of World Track Championships, and Chris Boardman, twice winner of the World Pursuit Championship and the World Road Time Trial Championship. Among the British women racers the incomparable Beryl Burton won no less than seven World Championships on both road and track. Beryl's daughter Denise was also a World Championship medal winner, whilst Mandy Jones won the Women's World Championship Road Race in 1982 and Louise Jones won the Track Sprint Championship for Wales in the 1990 Commonwealth Games. More recently Yvonne McGregor crowned an illustrious international career by winning a bronze medal in the 2000 Olympic Pursuit before finishing the year as World Pursuit Champion.

Cycling clubs and governing bodies
Like cycle races, cycling clubs evolved and grew in number in parallel with the development of the bike itself. A possible forerunner of cycling clubs was the Pedestrian Hobby Horse Riding School opened in London in 1819 by Denis Johnson, the British designer of one of the early hobby horses. Similar riding schools appeared shortly after in America when Johnson took his hobby horse to sell in New York. Several riding schools also sprang up in France, and one of the earliest records of a cycling club is the Veloce-Club de Rouen around the late 1860's. The first cycling club to appear in Britain was in 1867 when the Liverpool Velocipede Club was formed.

The number of cycling clubs in Britain increased rapidly during the late 1800's. From less than 30 in 1874 the number swelled by 1882 to over five hundred. One of the best known of these was the Pickwick Bicycle Club, founded in 1870 and still alive and thriving today. Perhaps the most notable thing about the Pickwick Club was that its members adopted the names of the characters in Charles Dickens' novel, Pickwick Papers. This is a practice still continued by the club's current members. Another club that was founded around this same period and still in existence was the Cyclists' Touring Club, formed in 1878. The CTC was probably the first national cycling organisation in Britain.

It was in 1878 that the Bicycle Union was also formed. By then the number of cycle races taking place on the roads of Britain, as well as abroad, had risen considerably and it was necessary to bring some kind of order and a more formalised organisation of such events. The Bicycle Union was the first National Governing Body of cycle sport in Britain and in 1883 was renamed the National Cyclists' Union. Similar bodies were formed in America (the League of American Wheelmen) and in France (the Union Velocipedique de France).

However, the police were also becoming concerned about the number of cycle races on the roads, now also being increasingly occupied by other traffic. After many complaints about reckless racing, the National Cyclists' Union in 1890 decided to ban all cycle racing on public roads, which only left racing on closed tracks and was not to everyone's liking. Some of those who were not keen on track racing began to organise a different kind of road race to the former "massed start" events. Instead, time trials were organised, in which riders were sent off individually to cover a prearranged course, the winner being the quickest over the distance. So as not to attract the attention of the police, events were kept secret by using code numbers for the race venues and dates and the riders had to wear "inconspicuous dress" consisting of black tights and a dark jacket.

Road time trials gained in popularity, and in 1922 the Road Racing Council, later to become the Road Time Trials Council, was formed to unify this new branch of the sport. Devotees of the old style of massed start racing continued their events on private roads and then on motor racing circuits. However, in 1942 Percy Stallard decided to defy the National Cyclists' Union and ran a massed start road race from Llangollen to Wolverhampton. For this he was banned for life by the NCU, but answered by helping to form the British League of Racing Cyclists. Many riders and clubs flocked to the new Governing Body and massed start road racing took to the public roads in Britain once again.

After 17 years, during which the National Cyclists' Union and the British League of Racing Cyclists were constantly at loggerheads, the two Governing Bodies joined together in 1959 to form the British Cycling Federation. Whilst the BCF is recognised by the Union Cycliste International (the international cycling Governing Body) as being responsible for the organisation of all massed start road racing - now simply called road racing - the Road Time Trials Council continues to govern its branch of the sport. In 1954 the British Cyclo Cross Association was formed to cater for a new discipline that had originated as a form of winter training but which quickly developed into a legitimate type of cycle racing.