1816 was the year without a summer. The reason was the eruption of the Tambora volcano in what is now Indonesia. This had dire consequences for Europe's climate, bringing low temperatures, hail, endless downpours and floods. Failed harvests, famine and massive increases in food prices followed, and the scarcity of animal feed led to the death of huge numbers of horses.
This desperate situation led a man called Karl Friedrich Drais (1785-1851) who was born in Karlsruhe to invent the "draisine" or dandy horse in 1817, the prototype of the modern bicycle. Like children's balance bikes today, this original design had no pedals and it was simply pushed forward by the rider's legs. A comfortable saddle and moveable handlebars helped to maintain balance.
The first officially publicised "maiden voyage" observed by the press and an astonished audience took place on 12th June 1817 in Mannheim. After fine-tuning and testing the device for some time, on that day Drais undertook a journey of roughly seven kilometres from his home in Mannheim's "grid city" to the Schwetzinger coaching inn in what is now the suburb of Heinau. It took him barely an hour to get there and back, making his average speed about 15 kilometres per hour. No mean feat, because his unwieldy dandy horse which had metal-rimmed wheels with wooden spokes weighed a full 22 kilograms.
- Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (publ.) (2016): Baden-Württemberg RadSTRATEGIE (cycling strategy) – Wege zu einer neuen RadKULTUR für Baden-Württemberg (Routes to a new cycling CULTURE for Baden-Württemberg. Stuttgart
- Nuhn, Helmut / Hesse, Markus (2006): Verkehrsgeographie (Transport geography) Paderborn
- Hadland, Tony / Lessing, Hans-Erhard (2014): Bicycle Design: An Illustrated History. Cambridge