The 1890s British 'Bicycle Mania' investment craze

Long before crypto, the 1890s British public lost their minds over the "high-tech" disruptor of the century: the safety bicycle. It was the original "to the moon" hype, fueled by the realization that two wheels were faster than walking.

Investors dumped life savings into hundreds of bike startups, convinced that rubber and chains were a gold mine. Stock prices for tire companies inflated into a massive, wobbly bubble.

Then reality hit. The bubble burst, leaving everyone broke. Our gadgets change, but our talent for chasing bubbles is timeless.

Wait, if those were 'safety' bikes, what were they riding before?

Before the safety bike, people rode the 'Penny Farthing'—that ridiculous contraption with a front wheel as tall as a man and a tiny one in the back. It had no brakes and the pedals were fixed to the front axle, meaning your legs were basically part of the engine.

If you hit a stray pebble or tried to stop too fast, you’d perform a 'header'—a graceful, involuntary somersault over the handlebars directly onto your face. It was essentially a high-speed catapult for Victorian gentlemen.

The 'safety' bicycle was a breakthrough because it put the rider’s feet near the ground and used a chain. It was the first time the industry realized that 'not dying on your commute' was a killer selling point.

Why on earth did they make the front wheel so big anyway?

It was the brute force era of engineering. Before chains, pedals were welded directly to the axle, so one leg rotation equaled exactly one wheel rotation. To go faster, you simply had to build a bigger, more dangerous circle.

Instead of a smarter system, we just scaled up a flawed one. We traded stability for the high-speed ego-stroke of a giant wheel, ignoring the fact that falling from that height was like jumping off a second-story window.

The chain finally proved that mechanical efficiency beats raw size. It is a lesson investors always forget: bigger is not better if the underlying foundation is fundamentally broken.

How could they have the technology but refuse to use it?

The technology existed in factories, but applying it to bicycles was a psychological hurdle. Humans have a habit of trying to "brute force" solutions—like making wheels bigger—rather than rethinking the system.

Engineers were mentally stuck, unable to imagine separating the pedal from the wheel itself. It took decades to realize that a greasy loop of metal could do the work of a sixty inch wheel without the constant threat of a skull fracture.

We often prefer the heroic look of a dangerous machine over boring safety. It is the same reason we ignore functional improvements today to chase the next shiny, vibrating bubble.

What finally made the 'boring' safety bike cool enough to kill the giant wheel?

They stopped marketing it as 'safe' and started marketing it as 'fast.' In 1885, a safety bike crushed the Penny Farthing in a high-profile race. Suddenly, the giant wheel didn't look heroic anymore; it just looked like a slow, embarrassing antique.

Humans will tolerate a lot of danger until they realize they’re losing. The moment the 'boring' chain-driven bike became the tool of champions, every Victorian gentleman had to have one to maintain his status.

It’s the same cycle every time. We don't adopt better tech because we care about logic; we do it because we're terrified of being the person left behind on the old, stupid machine while everyone else zooms past.