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Yes, it is officially the birthday of the bicycle. Today. June 12, 2017.

Two hundred years ago one Karl Drais rode a two-wheeled vehicle of his own invention from Mannheim to a coaching inn about five miles away. It took him a little more than an hour and used no horses.

For most of Europe 1816 had been a bad year. Mount Tambora had exploded a year earlier in April 1815 causing a volcanic winter. Crops failed, livestock died or were eaten for food. Horses became lunch rather than the easiest way to get from your home to the Relaishaus.

The standard problems of the Draisine were just as evident then as they are now. It was a product that was just adored, especially by the rich, but in some places the roads were so bad that people took to riding their Draisines on the smoother pavements at the side of the road.

(Image: Keith Heppell)

It was not until the 1860s that some Frenchmen attached rotary cranks to one of the wheels to allow the riders to go faster and further.

This got a little extreme in the 1870s as high-wheel cycles appeared that had wheels up to about 1.5 metres in diameter. Very fast, but you probably didn't want to stop in a hurry.

In 1885, one John Kemp Starley produced the safety cycle, with a chain. This allowed the wheels to get back to reasonable sizes and spurred another wave of cycling.

The humble bicyclette did more than just give people the freedom to move around. It made women's clothing more practical and spurred on some really good movements, such as the suffragettes.

It also saw mass production of vehicles, decades before a cyclist in Detroit decided to move to four wheels and dinosaur-juice power. Henry Ford could have just stayed on two wheels. Actually he did at least until he was 77 years old. A motor company run by a cyclist.

(Image: Warren Gunn)

Of course, the roads were not great in the early days. The Roads Improvement Association fixed that by lobbying for smooth surfaces for roads. This was in 1886. The year that Carl Benz created the first motorcar, and still 10 years before motorcars become viable.

Yes, that's right, it was the cycling lobby that moved the UK from cobbled or mud-infested paths to a country with decent hardtop roads.

The bicycle is still the most efficient mode of transport ever invented by humans. And instead of being powered by rotting dinosaurs it is powered by breakfast cereals and coffee.

More efficient than cars, more efficient than a fully loaded diesel bus, in fact more efficient than a fully loaded electric train powered by solar panels and wind farms.

Some people have predicted the end of the bicycle many times. Many of these people just happen to have worked for the motor industry, or other areas. But the bicycle refuses to disappear.

Happy birthday bicycle. And may you provide freedom, happiness, and longevity for many centuries to come.

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells