The bicycle is not especially difficult to manufacture – fundamentally, you only need about 6-10 simple parts for the frame, a seat, a steering bar, some kind of pedal/crank arrangement, 2 wheels, and a chain/belt to connect the drive crank to a wheel.
Or, even more simply (for a balance bike like the Dandy horse), you need two wheels, a seat, a couple pieces for a frame, and a steering bar.
It is a very simple machine.
However, you also need to have a society with a level of free time and disposable income to engage in "frivolities" like riding a bike.
Until relatively recently in human history (roughly the last 200-250 years), the overwhelming majority of all humans on the planet were [effectively] struggling to survive.
So in addition to the relative simplicity of the machine, you also needed to have a level of societal leisure time that just did not exist prior to about the early 1800s.
July 30, 2020 at 07:50AM
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/i0kfkq/eli5_how_is_it_possible_that_the_bicicle_is_such/fzpxuhk?utm_source=ifttt