The first verifiable claim for a practically used bicycle belongs to German
Baron Karl von Drais, a civil servant to the Grand Duke of
Baden in
Germany. Drais invented his
Laufmaschine (
German for "running machine") in 1817, that was called
Draisine (English) or
draisienne (French) by the press.
Karl von Drais patented this design in 1818, which was the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine, commonly called a
velocipede, and nicknamed hobby-horse or
dandy horse.It was initially manufactured in Germany and France.
Hans-Erhard Lessing (Drais' biographer) found from circumstantial evidence that Drais' interest in finding an alternative to the horse was the starvation and death of horses caused by crop failure in 1816, the Year Without a Summer following the volcanic eruption of Tambora in 1815).
On his first reported ride from
Mannheim on June 12, 1817, he covered 13 km (eight miles) in less than an hour. Constructed almost entirely of wood, the draisine weighed 22 kg (48 pounds), had brass bushings within the wheel bearings, iron shod wheels, a rear-wheel brake and 152 mm (6 inches) of trail of the front-wheel for a self-centering
caster effect.
[and]
The velocipede's renaissance began in
Paris during the late 1860s. Its early history is complex and has been shrouded in some mystery, not least because of conflicting patent claims: all that has been stated for sure is that a French metalworker attached pedals to the front wheel; at present, the earliest year bicycle historians agree on is 1864.
The identity of the person who attached cranks is still an open question at
International Cycling History Conferences (ICHC). The claims of
Ernest Michaux and of
Pierre Lallement, and the lesser claims of rear-pedaling Alexandre Lefebvre, have their supporters within the ICHC community.