Vehicles for human transport that have two wheels and require balancing by the rider date back to the early 19th century. The first means of transport making use of two wheels arranged consecutively, and thus the archetype of the bicycle was the German draisine dating back to 1817. The term bicycle was coined in France in the 1860s, and the descriptive title “penny-farthing”, used to describe an “Ordinary Bicycle”, is a 19th-century term.

The concept was picked up by a number of British cartwrights; the most notable was Denis Johnson of London announcing in late 1818 that he would sell an improved model. New names were introduced when Johnson patented his machine “pedestrian curricle” or “velocipede,” but the public preferred nicknames like “hobby-horse,” after the children’s toy or, worse still, “dandy horse,” after the foppish men who often rode them. Johnson’s machine was an improvement on Drais’s, being notably more elegant: his wooden frame had a serpentine shape instead of Drais’s straight one, allowing the use of larger wheels without raising the rider’s seat. During the summer of 1819, the “hobby-horse”, thanks in part to Johnson’s marketing skills and better patent protection, became the craze and fashion in London society. The dandies, the Corinthians of the Regency, adopted it, and therefore the poet John Keats referred to it as “the nothing” of the day. Riders wore out their boots surprisingly rapidly, and the fashion ended within the year after riders on pavements (sidewalks) were fined two pounds.

The 21st century has seen a continued application of technology to bicycles: in designing them, building them, and using them. Bicycle frames and components continue to get lighter and more aerodynamic without sacrificing strength largely through the use of computer-aided design, finite element analysis, and computational fluid dynamics. Recent discoveries about bicycle stability have been facilitated by computer simulations. Once designed, new technology is applied to manufacturing such as hydroforming and automated carbon fiber layup. Finally, electronic gadgetry has expanded from just cyclo computers to now include cycling power meters and electronic gear-shifting systems.