A little history

I found this whilst surfing on the history of Scottish inventors,which led to the wiki page on who invented the bicycle(or not as the case may be)
Up till now i thought it was invented in England.
I knew the Scots were responsible for the pneumatic but not this

Anyone researched this subject? and can shed some light......


The 1830s: the reported Scottish inventions

The first mechanically-propelled 2-wheel vehicle was believed to have been built by Kirkpatrick MacMillan, a Scottish blacksmith, in 1839. A nephew later claimed that his uncle developed a rear-wheel drive design using mid mounted treadles connected by rods to a rear crank, similar to the transmission of a steam locomotive. Proponents associate him with the first recorded instance of a bicycling traffic offence, when a Glasgow newspaper reported in 1842 an accident in which an anonymous "gentleman from Dumfries-shire... bestride a velocipede... of ingenious design" knocked over a pedestrian in the Gorbals and was fined five British shillings. However, the evidence connecting this with MacMillan isn't even circumstantial, since the artisan MacMillan wouldn't have been termed a gentleman. A similar machine was said to have been produced by Gavin Dalzell of Lesmahagow . The first documented producer of rod-driven 2-wheelers was Thomas McCall, of Kilmarnock in 1869. The design could not compete with the front-crank velocipede of the Lallement/Michaux type, however, despite McCall's all steel version of 1869.
[from Wikipedia]

why dont we use the word velocipede anymore

and knocking over people is proper retro

remmeber also that Wikipedia is opinion and not fact, just because its written on something with an "-edia" at the end doesn't mean its right.

Maybe we need to ask Stephen Fry or at least one of the researchers for QI
baaaa

Seems right

This seems to be about right as there is a festival this year in Dumfries with a week of cycling to celebrate among other things, Mcmillan himself. Check out Historic Scotland under festivals.

Jamie
(gentleman with Stumpjumper velocipedes)

well....the stumpjumper bits right

Jury is still out on who invented the bicycle first as several people around Europe have been attributed to it.

Also although Dunlop was a Scot, he spent most of his life in Northern Ireland. A true Scot would have been too canny to sell up the rights for such a great invention for the paltry sum he did

We Scots have been responsible for many great inventions but as usual some one from some other nation has picked up the idea and made it into something good.

I still use the term Velocipede as is indicated by my username but as its a French word you can see why the English speaking world did not like it ( good old Xenophobia) :roll:

Cheers

Velocipede just sounds like an insect with a hundred wheels........

I've just done a Victorian project with my son, Kirkpatrick is credited in a few books (not just wiki) as being the first to make a mechanically powered bike, although walkie bikes had been around much longer.

It used levers to turn the wheel, but like a true cyclist he was full of karma and didn't patent his invention.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_f ... rick.shtml