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In 1862 while Lallement was employed building in Nancy he saw someone riding a dandy horse, a forerunner of the bicycle that required the rider to propel the vehicle by walking. Lallement modified what he had seen by adding a transmission comprising a Rotary motion crank mechanism and bicycle pedal attached to the front-wheel Bicycle wheel, thus creating the first true bicycle.
He moved to Paris in 1863 and apparently interacted with the Olivier brothers who saw commercial potential in his invention. The Oliviers formed a partnership with Pierre Michaux to mass-production a 2-wheeled velocipede. Whether these bicycles used Lallement's design of 1864 or another by Ernest Michaux is a matter of dispute. Lallement himself may have been an employee of Michaux for a short time. The iron-wheeled invention was crude but popular, and the public dubbed it the "boneshaker."
Both the novelty of bicycles and their early precariousness is conveyed in the following excerpt from the book titled The Mechanical Horse by Margaret Guroff:
Failing to interest an American manufacturer in producing his machine, Lallement returned to Paris in 1868, just as the Michaux bicycles were creating the first bicycle craze in France, an enthusiasm which spread to the rest of Europe and to America. Lallement returned to America again sometime before 1880, when he testified in a patent infringement suit on behalf of plaintiff Albert Pope, to whom he had sold the rights in his patent. At the time Lallement was living in Brooklyn and working for the Pope Manufacturing Company. The Cycle reported he was working for Overman Wheel Company then Sterling Cycle Co. in 1886. He died in obscurity in 1891 in Boston at the age of 47.
A three-and-a-half-mile section of Boston's bike network that snakes through Southwest Corridor Park from Forest Hills to Back Bay is named the Pierre Lallement Bike Path. Boston Globe: Eric Moskowitz, "Bike path upgrade draws compliments for state," July 18, 2010, accessed July 18, 2010Massachusetts Department of Transportation: "Pierre Lallement Bike Path (3.5 miles)" , accessed July 18, 2010 It passes not far from the house where Lallement died in 1891.
In 1998, a monument to Lallement was unveiled in New Haven as part of the city's International Festival of Arts & Ideas on New Haven Green at 990 Chapel Street.Derby Hall of Fame'': "Pierre Lallement, accessed July 18, 2010
Lallement was inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 2005.U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame: "Pierre Lallement, The Father of the Modern Day Bicycle" , accessed July 18, 2010
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