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The dandy horse, an English nickname for what was first called a Laufmaschine ('running machine' in German), then a vélocipède or draisienne (in French and then English), and then a pedestrian curricle or hobby-horse, Bicycle at Britannica.com or swiftwalker, (2026). 9781844037636, Cassell. ISBN 9781844037636 is a human-powered vehicle that, as the first two-wheeled vehicle, is regarded as the first bicycle. The dandy horse is powered by the rider's feet on the ground instead of the bicycle pedal of later bicycles. It was invented by Karl Drais (who called it a Laufmaschine 'running machine') in 1817, and patented by him in France in February 1818 as a vélocipède. It is also known as a Draisine ( in German, a term used in English only for Draisine regardless of their form of propulsion), and as a draisienne ( in French and English. In English, it is also sometimes still known as a velocipede, but that term now also has a velocipede.
Drais was inspired, at least in part, by the need to develop a form of transit that did not rely on the horse. After the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora and the Year Without a Summer (1816), which followed close on the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars, widespread crop failures and food shortages resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of horses, which either starved to death or were killed to provide meat and hides. "In wartime," he wrote, "when horses and their fodder often become scarce, a small fleet of such wagons at each corps could be important, especially for dispatches over short distances and for carrying the wounded.”
Several manufacturers in France and England made their own dandy-horses during its brief popularity in the summer of 1819—most notably Denis Johnson of London, who used an elegantly curved wooden frame that allowed the use of larger wheels. In the United States, a patent for a two-wheeled human-powered vehicle was awarded to W.K. Clarkson of New York on June 26, 1819. However, in 1836, a fire in the U.S. Patent Office destroyed the only surviving drawings, and a prototype of the invention was never built by Clarkson.
Dandy horses first appeared on the footpaths of Mannheim, Germany, in 1820. They were heavy and cumbersome, and as a result, riders preferred to operate their vehicles on the smooth pavements instead of the rough roads. Their interactions with pedestrians caused many municipalities worldwide to enact laws prohibiting their use, and in New York City, a law was passed that banned dandy horses from all footpaths and public places. Later designs avoided the initial drawback of this device when it had to be made to measure, manufactured to conform with the height and the stride of its rider. An example is Nicéphore Niépce's 1818 model with an adjustable saddle for his 'velocipede' built by Lagrange. Nicéphore Niépce Museum, Other Inventions - The velocipede
However, in the 1860s in France, the velocipede bicycle was created by attaching Rotary motion cranks and Bicycle pedal to the front-wheel hub of a dandy-horse.
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