Whether it’s a bright pink one with tassels coming out of the handlebars or a carbon-fibre one used to reach top speeds in the velodrome, the bicycle remains one of the most desired objects to feature on Christmas lists every year.
But the design, two symmetrical wheels attached to a frame as we know it today, has undergone some drastic changes over the history of the bicycle. From pedal-less wooden beams connecting two wheels through to ornate and bizarrely disproportional wheels in Victorian times, some of the iterations of the bike are rather ridiculously overdesigned.
In the video below, animator Thallis Vestergaard shows the evolution of the bicycle, from Frenchman Comte Mede de Sivrac’s 1970 ‘Velocifere’ through to the streamlined racers we know today.
You can read more about the history of the bicycle here, and watch the short animation below:
