*This article first appeared in Ride UK (#85) and is reproduced here by kind permission of Ride UK.
When the very first bicycles were being developed, simplicity was king. We are talking about Scotsmen scooting about on wooden frames with wooden wheels and wooden forks. This soon developed into the first real bicycles, where rather than pushing along with your feet on the ground cranks were fitted directly to the wheel of the “ordinary” (or penny farthing)