Strap on Your Helmet for This History of Bicycles Quiz

In 1895, Annie Londonderry made history as the first woman to bicycle around the world. A married mother of three from Boston whose real name was Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, she changed her name to Londonderry as part of a sponsorship deal with Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company. According to Londonderry, the trip was undertaken to settle a wager between two men who argued that no woman could bicycle the world. She arrived triumphantly back in Boston 15 months after setting out with only a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver.

“Velocipede” was an early term that referred to any foot-powered vehicle with wheels. “Boneshaker” was the nickname for 1860s bikes that used wagon-style wheels with wooden spokes, which were known for their poor shock absorption. In the 1870s and 1880s, cycles with big front wheels were called “penny farthings” because they resembled U.K. coins of different sizes. However, an autogyro is an air vehicle.

Before the 1870s, standard bicycles had a much larger front wheel that was ill-equipped to absorb shocks — riders tended to go flying when they made sudden stops. To address this and other concerns, John Kemp Starley’s “safety bicycle,” called the Rover, was introduced in 1885. It featured a tension-absorbing front wheel approximately the size of the back one, center pivot steering, and differential chain gears.

In 1887, Scottish-born John Boyd Dunlop was a 47-year-old veterinary surgeon living in Belfast, Ireland, when he designed a pneumatic (inflatable) rubber tire for his son’s tricycle. Dunlop got the device patented the next year, and by 1890, he went into business manufacturing tires with the company that would become Dunlop Tire. His invention also saw heavy use in the automobile industry.

British-born San Franciscan Thomas Stevens had worked as a grocer, railwayman, and miner by the time he bought his own bicycle in 1884 at the age of 30. That same year, he set off on a round-the-world journey, first pedaling from San Francisco to Boston and completing the first transcontinental bicycle journey across the U.S. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean by ship, Stevens continued his journey through Britain, continental Europe, and Asia. Stevens wrote several successful books about his travels.

The 1896 games were the first modern Olympic Games, and they were held in Athens, Greece — the original home of the ancient Olympics. Since then, cycling has been contested at every Summer Olympics in events including sprint, pursuit, omnium, madison, and keirin.

Since they were patented in 1869, unicycles have evolved into many creative varieties. Giraffe unicycles got their name because they're extra tall — so tall that you have to use chains to control the wheel. A "muni" is a mountain unicycle, designed to be ridden in rough terrains. Finally, kangaroo unicycles have cranks that face the same direction, forcing the rider to bounce like a kangaroo.

In contrast to the dangerously high penny-farthings of the day, safety bicycles began to grow in popularity with their more accessible design in the 1880s. They were easier to mount, simpler to steer, and lower to the ground, meaning that falls would be less damaging. The first commercially successful safety bicycle was J.K. Starley's "Rover," which has a design very similar to today's bicycles.

As part of Italy's Barnum & Bailey circus in the early 1900s, Ugo Ancillotti created a system of ramps that included an upside-down section. Ancillotti would flip through the air, landing at the ramp's other side, as one of his brothers flew over him on another bicycle at the same time! An American trick cyclist known as Diavolo also completed a full-track loop-the-loop for the first time in 1902.

In 1896, Republican William McKinley was running against Democrat William Jennings Bryan for the presidency. By this time, cycling was so popular that “wheelmen” had become a large voting bloc whose support was worth courting. McKinley didn’t want to travel to campaign; instead, he equipped cycling supporters to travel and distribute campaign materials that promised cyclists good roads.

In 1817, German Baron Karl von Drais invented what he called the Laufmaschine, a two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled vehicle that was the first verifiable version of the modern bicycle. It had wheels, a seat, and handles, but no pedals. Instead, the Laufmaschine — or hobby horse, as it was commonly known — was pushed by a person's legs as they essentially ran while sitting.

Considered a precious metal after it was first discovered by Sir Humphry Davy in the early 19th century, aluminum was common enough to be used for a bicycle frame for the first time by the 1890s. Its resistance to corrosion and the fact that it was strong despite being lightweight made it an attractive material. Initially expensive, aluminum is now among the most popular materials for cycles.

During World War II, many materials that the U.S. military required for the war effort were removed or restricted from consumer products. These included metals and rubber used to make bike frames and tires. “Victory bicycles” could only be about two-thirds the weight of prewar bikes, with no copper or aluminum. Production was limited, and they could only be bought by those who could demonstrate a need for them.

According to People for Bikes, Utrecht is the world's best biking city, followed by Zwolle in second place, and Groningen at No. 3 — all cities in the Netherlands. Since the invention of the bicycle, the Dutch have been fans; it only took until 1911 for the country to have more bikes per capita than any other European country. In fact, today there are more bikes than people there.

The penny-farthing looks pretty dangerous to most people today (and it is!), but back in the 1870s, supersizing a bicycle's front wheel was the best way to make the machine go faster. In that day, British currency included pennies, which were larger coins, and farthings, which were very small, so the bicycles gained the nickname "penny-farthings," which is still how they're fondly known today.

Danish inventor Mikael Pederson is credited with developing the tandem bicycle in 1898. Weighing 24 pounds, it allowed two people to ride and pedal at once. The machine was also known as a “courting bike,” as it was often used by couples, with the man riding in back and steering. Tandem bicycles were also used for racing at the time.

Before inventing the airplane, Wilbur and Orville Wright built bicycles. The brothers owned and operated a few bike shops in Dayton, Ohio, and eventually went on to develop their own models of the vehicle. With the profits from this endeavor, the Wrights turned their eyes to the skies and spent the early 1900s working on the invention for which they are best known — the airplane.

Because of the difficulty of riding a bike in a full hoop skirt, women had to turn to alternate clothing styles. Some modified their skirts, while others just pulled them up higher, but most switched to wearing bloomers. Bicycling was very popular with women at the time, and in 1896, Susan B. Anthony wrote, "I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world."

The Tour de France is just what its name suggests: a bike race that winds throughout France over all different types of terrain. A journalist and cyclist named Henri Desgrange first proposed the idea, and his newspaper “L’Auto” sponsored the initial race in 1903. It has been staged every year since, except during WWI and WWII, and is considered the world’s toughest bicycle race.

BMX first started in the early 1970s when children began racing their modified bicycles on the dirt roads of Southern California. Fast-forward 50 years and BMX is a highly popular sport worldwide, and is even in the Olympics! Competitions vary among racing and freestyle events, and the modifications on each bike can differ, but the core of the sport is the same — a bicycle version of motocross.