1Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to our exhibition,
2"Two Centuries of the Bike".
3Let's stroll around the exhibition, shall we?
4Although there were a few early efforts back in the 1700s,
5you didn't really see many bikes till, say, the 1830s in England.
6Bikes were a response to the rapid growth of cities early in the 19th century.
7Cities like London were getting too big to walk across!
8The early bike let people travel with less effort than walking.
9Plus a bike was a lot cheaper than a horse!
10Think of it. No one invented a bike for, what, 5000 years of human history?
11Why did people do it then?
12Probably because this was the start of the Machine Age:
13people wanted machines to do all the work.
14There were some drawbacks, however.
15For one thing, there were no pedals.
16You simply pushed yourself along using your feet.
17Kind of like today's skateboard.
18That meant you went fairly slow.
19And uphill, you actually worked harder, pushing that two-wheeler.
20Plus, the wheels were made of wood covered with metal, as you can see from this model.
21So the downside was that the ride was quite uncomfortable on most roads.
22Only a few gadget lovers had or used them.
23By the 1860s, though, improvements were being made.
24As you can see from this specimen, metal frames had become the rule.
25They're more durable than wood, and they don't warp in the rain.
26The biggest improvement however was the development of the chain and sprocket system.
27They're connected.
28This meant you did not push the bike.
29You used pedals just like today.
30You had to try harder to balance, so it took some practice to figure out how to use the pedals.
31But it made the ride so much easier.
32As a result, the good thing was that you could ride a lot more smoothly and with very little effort.
33By the 1880s, another big change was the use of rubber wheels.
34These became pretty common at that time.
35Though the first ones were solid rubber,
36the ride was a good deal more comfortable than the old iron and wood system.
37This is a big consideration because the faster you go, the more you feel every bump.
38Air-filled tyres - "pneumatic tyres" - didn't really come into use till around the year 1900,
39as you can see from this exhibition over here.
40That made the ride even more comfortable.
41So, by 1890 or so, people were going a lot faster and a lot more smoothly.
42There was one problem when you were going quickly and comfortably:
43"OH NO! HOW DO I STOP?"
44Yes, we all laugh now.
45But for a long time, the only way to stop was drag your feet.
46That didn't work very well and it would be dangerous if you were going fast.
47In the crowded cities of those years - New York, Chicago, and so on,
48you'd get killed if you couldn't stop for, say, a streetcar.
49Plus look at this bike.
50The front wheel is nearly a metre and 2/3 tall!
51They made them that way so you could see over people and wagons.
52But you couldn't drag your feet.
53This model is called a "velocipede" - a "speed pedal".
54Another characteristic of the bike in this period is that it has 2 equal-sized wheels,
55which signalled a big change in bikes.
56For with the velocipede, brakes appeared.
57If you wanted to stop, you just pushed the pedal backwards.
58Doing that stopped the back wheel of the bike.
59This technique worked a lot better than dragging your feet or jumping off the high seat there!
60This meant that bikes became a great deal safer.
61It would've been safer if people wore helmets,
62but the first bicycle helmet wasn't invented until years later,
63and even then it was little more than a leather ballcap.
64It really wasn't until the 1970s that the bike helmet was modified to provide some real protection.
65Before continuing on to look at developments since the 1890s, let's say a word more about safety.
66Everyone knows if you're going downhill, you can get going dangerously fast.
67To go more than a hundred kilometres an hour isn't all that difficult!
68But even on level ground it's easy to go too quickly.
69On a city street, today's bicycles can be ridden at a speed of over 40 miles an hour, over a short distance.
70That's about 64 kilometres an hour.
71Remember you're on a bike, not in a car.
72There's nothing to protect you.
73People are killed in single-bicycle accidents every day, just from hitting the road.
74A good rule to remember is, if you're going faster than the cars, slow down.
75And please wear a helmet.
76Nearly one quarter of the epilepsy cases come from head injuries in accidents on bikes and motorcycles.
77I don't mean to scare you, but safety is everyone's business.
78What? Now that's a good question.
79Why are today's bikes so much faster?
80Well, it's not just that today's athletes are faster.
81The answer is partly mechanical.
82If you look closely here, at the back wheel you'll see a number of gears.
83Changing gears is what makes those fast speeds possible.
84You can shift gears depending on the terrain and how hard you wish to pedal.
85So you can put it on a higher gear for downhill,
86and a lower gear for uphill travel to make it easier to climb that slope.
87You'll notice this gear-shifting mechanism is attached to the back wheel,
88and when the rider shifts on the handlebar gear shifter,
89the chain moves to the appropriate sprocket.
90And, speaking of changing gears,
91let's look over here at our "Tour de France" exhibit...