Innovation	Year	Country	Details
Click to enlarge source #6	1817	Germany	Baron von Drais invents the “running machine” or Laufmaschine. Patented the following year. Known in various forms as: Draisine, Draisienne, Vélocipède. English version was the Hobby Horse (Denis Johnson). All have two, in-line wheels and the ability to steer.
hand drive	1821	England	Louis Gompertz adds a hand-driven, ratchet mechanism to the front wheel of a Hobby Horse but the innovation, as with Drais’ was never really followed up.
Click to enlarge source #5	1839-1840	Scotland	Kirkpatrick Macmillan is traditionally credited with a machine in which power was supplied to the back wheel via rods connected to treadle-type pedals. Thomas McCall marketed copies; an 1845 version is in the Dumfries Museum. It is questionable whether significant progress resulted from either.
rear-wheel-drive bicycle	1843	France	Alexandre Lefebvre is credited with a rear-drive machine; he took it to America twenty years later and it still exists in the “History San Jose” museum (the earliest extant bicycle?).
pneumatic tire	1845	England	R. W. Thompson invents the pneumatic tire but with no commercial follow-up.
treadle drive	1847	Scotland	Gavin Dalzell builds a two-wheeled hobbyhorse with a treadle-drive, possibly copied from the Macmillan design.
crank-driven 4-wheeler	1851	England	Willard Sawyer exhibits his four-wheeled, crank-driven vehicle at the Great Exhibition and subsequently becomes established as a velocipede manufacturer.
Boneshaker bicycle	1864	France	J. Townsend Trench documents his purchase of a velocipede from the Michaux family. Possibly the first record of a “production” front wheel, pedal-driven bicycle (but note that it was not presented until 1895). This style became known as the “Boneshaker.” Historians still debate the claim of Pierre Lallement that he had previously invented the first pedal-driven machine.
Click to enlarge source #9	1866	USA	Lallement, now in the USA, gets the backing of an investor, James Carroll, and their patent application is granted; probably the world’s first public record of the pedal-powered two-wheeler.
Click to enlarge source #10	1870	England	James Starley produces the “Ariel” High Wheeler (aka “Ordinary” or “Penny Farthing”). Later versions had front wheel sizes of up to 5 feet.
wire-spoked wheel	1870	England	W.H.J. Grout patents the radially spoked, nipple adjusted bicycle wheel (unlike prior load-bearing wheels). Some credit Meyer with this design two years previously.
ball bearings	1872	German	Friedrich Fischer first mass-produces steel ball bearings, patented by Jules Suriray in 1869.
caliper brake	1876	England	Browett and Harrison patent an early caliper brake.
differential gear	1877	England	James Starley patents a differential gear; probably the first for a bicycle but the principle was not new.
internal hub gearings	1878	England	Scott and Phillott patent the first practicable epicyclic change-speed gear fitted into the hub of a front-driving bicycle.
folding highwheeler	1878	England	Grout patents a folding High Wheeler, the first “portable” bicycle
Click to enlarge source #14	1879	England	Henry J. Lawson patents a rear wheel, chain-driven safety bicycle, the “Bicyclette” (his earlier models were lever driven).
chain	1880	England	Thomas Humber adapts the block chain for use with his range of bicycles.
safety bicycle	1885	England	John Kemp Starley (James Starley's nephew) markets the revolutionary Safety Bicycle (the “Rover”) with a chain/rear-sprocket drive and tangentially-spoked, similar sized wheels. Includes many of the major features of modern bicycles.
seamless tubing	1886	Germany	The Mannessman brothers are credited with the invention of the process to manufacture seamless steel tubing.
Click to enlarge source #11	1888	Scotland	Commercial development of the pneumatic bicycle tire by Dr. John Boyd Dunlop.
Click to enlarge source #12	1890s	France	Cycles Aluminium becomes one of the earliest manufacturers of an aluminum bicycle.
derailleur	1896	England	E.H. Hodgkinson patents a 3-speed Gradient gear, a pre-cursor of the modern derailleur.
internal hub gearing	1896	England	William Reilly patents a two-speed hub gear. His later three-speed version was put into production by Sturmey Archer in 1902.
butted frame tubes	1897	England	Alfred M. Reynolds takes out a patent on "butted" steel bicycle tubes.
freewheel	1898	Germany	First major commercialization of the freewheel by Ernst Sachs. William Van Anden had obtained the first freewheel patent in 1869.
Click to enlarge source #13	1910	France	The first, easy-to-use derailleur is invented by Paul de Vivie (Velocio) that shifted among four gears at the pedals.
recumbent	1914	France	Peugeot markets their production recumbent bicycle. Charles Challand had exhibited his “Horizontal Bicyclette Normale” in Geneva in 1895.
dual-suspension mountain bike	1915	Italy	Bianchi produced a folding bicycle for the Italian Army with telescoping seatstays, a leaf spring at the bottom bracket, a spring fork and large profile pneumatic tires. Bianchi now calls it the first dual suspension mountain bike! There are earlier versions of military folding bicycles.
Click to enlarge source #13	1930	Italy	Tullio Campagnolo introduces the bicycle hub quick-release.
recumbent	1932	France	Charles Mochet designs the Velocar, a recumbent bicycle on which Francois Faure breaks both the mile and kilometer records.
Click to enlarge source #8	1933-1934	USA	Introduction by Schwinn of the balloon tire and “streamlined” bikes which leads to rugged bikes that can take the abuse of teenage boys and which set a forty-year trend.
mountain bike	1938	USA	Schwinn markets the "Fore-wheel" brake, "Cantilever Frame" and the "Spring Fork." Resulted in what was to be the Grandfather of today's mountain bikes.
folding bicycle	1939	France	A.J. Marcelin patents “Le Petit Bi”, a 16-inch wheeled folding bicycle, remarkably similar to the Moulton and Bickerton of later years.
shifter	1946	Italy	Campagnolo markets the dual-rod "Cambio Corsa" gear shifter (over ten years after the prototype) widely used for at least a decade.
index shifting	1949	England	The Hercules Herailleur is launched; a rear derailleur with indexed shift levers. Marketed for five years.
derailleur	1951	Italy	Introduction of Campagnolo's modern Gran Sport derailleur.
Click to enlarge	1962	England	Launch of the Moulton small-wheeled bicycle with separately sprung suspension and custom tires. Competed successfully in time trials and track pursuit events.
Sting-Ray	1963	USA	Schwinn introduces the Sting-Ray that subsequently helped launch the BMX craze.
rear derailleur	1964	Japan	The SunTour Grand Prix is marketed as the first slant parallelogram derailleur, a design that has held up till the present day.
index shifting	1969	Japan	SunTour launch their indexed shift lever, the Five-Speed Click, and a combined freewheel-plus-rear hub, the Unit Hub. Neither of them found a market, and were abandoned. Bayliss Wiley in England had also experimented with unit hubs as far back as 1938.
Click to enlarge	1970	England	The aluminum Bickerton portable small-wheeler is developed. Followed by the successful Brompton in 1976 and Dahon in 1980.
BMX (Bicycle Motocross)	1970	USA	The movie On Any Sunday by Bruce Brown debuts. Although it is a motorcycle documentary, a brief scene during the beginning of the movie shows kids on Sting-Ray bikes emulating motocross. This small spark eventually evolves into full-fledged, organized BMX racing by 1974.
mass-produced titanium frame/fork	1974	USA	Teledyne markets the first titanium bike that was produced in any quantity (Speedwell of England had some Ti production frames as far back as the 1960s, welded by Lamborghini!) Litespeed brought titanium frames to a broader market in the 1980s.
Click to enlarge source #7	1975	USA	The first carbon-tubed, metal lugged frame appears: the Exxon Graftek. Suffered from frequent frame failure. The technology was later perfected by Look, Trek and others.
aluminum frames/bikes	1975	USA	Gary Klein displays his welded and heat-treated aluminum frames at the International Bike show. Alan (Italy) and Vitus (France) were producing their lugged aluminum frames around the same time. Cannondale launch their “Aluminum for the Masses” in 1983.
Click to enlarge source #7	1978	USA	Fomac Corporation designs the Avatar recumbent. It is one of the many styles that constituted the 1980s renaissance of recumbents which included Lightning Cycles winning the HPV-RAAM relay and Easy Racers breaking the 65 mph barrier.
high-quality folding clincher tire	1978	USA	Specialized introduce the first high-quality foldable clincher tire (the Turbo) which launches the demise of the tubular.
aerodynamic road/track bicycles	1980	East Germany	Introduction of aerodynamic bicycles with a stable construction. Culminated in the American "Super Bike" at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
mass-produced mountain bike	1981	USA	The Specialized Stumpjumper mountain bike is launched nationwide, capitalizing on the Marin County vogue inspired by Californian icons, Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze, Tom Richey et al. (all of whom also produced earlier mountain bikes).
electronic cycle computer	1983	USA	Avocet launch the first electronic cyclometer (bike computer).
Moulton	1983	England	Moulton launches his second generation of “space-frame” small-wheeled bicycles.
clipless pedals	1984	France	LOOK markets their clipless pedal (following on an earlier track model launched by Cinelli in 1970; the “Death Cleats”, no automatic release).
index shifting	1985	Japan	Shimano introduces SIS indexed shifting (learning from their inferior product, the Positron, from 1977).
Click to enlarge	1986	USA	Kestrel introduces their production non-lugged, carbon fiber frame and Trek market their first lugged carbon frame.
suspended mountain bike	1987	USA	Paul Turner demonstrates a full suspension bicycle with front and rear shocks. Eventually becomes a partner in Rock Shox. Diversified the sport of off-road biking.
aero handlebars	1987	USA	Scott USA manufactures the first modern aerobars, originally the brainchild of Boone Lennon. Pete Pensyres had earlier used his own clip-on style bars in setting his RAAM record.
high-performance folding bike	1989	USA	Hanz Scholz designs the Bike Friday "World Tourist". A reasonably compact folding bicycle that matches the performance of conventional touring machines.
integrated brake/shift levers	1990	Japan	Shimano introduces integrated brake/gear levers.
electric derailleurs	1993	France	Mavic markets their ZAP electronic shifting. Ceases production in 2001. Possible future follow-up by Campagnolo. Browning Research had invented a prototype electronic system in 1974.
hydraulic disc brake	1994	USA	Sachs (SRAM) introduces PowerDisc, the first mass-produced hydraulic disc brake system.
Click to enlarge	1998	Germany	Rohloff develops the Speedhub, 14 equally-spaced hub gears which are operated by a twist-grip with no overlapping ratios and a gear range as wide as a 27-speed derailleur system.
30-speed derailleur drivetrain	2002	Italy	Campagnolo offers a 30-speed derailleur drivetrain with the Record 3-x-10 drivetrain