Velocipede

New Scientist's Mick Hamer has written a wonderful story (it really is my favourite magazine) on how a volcano that erupted in the early 1800s caused a fit of blizzards and torrential rainfall all over the world that kept inventors and novellists alike housebound and triggered invention and innovation. While trapped in Lord Byron's home on Lake Geneva due to torrential rainfall, the 18-year-old Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein--it was her entry in a ghost story competition that was supposed to pass the time during the storm. Meanwhile In Baden, Germany, "the soaring price of oats" caused by the bad weather prompted Karl Drais to search for transport that did not involve horses, and he came up with the velocipede, the pre-cursor to the modern bicycle. Although the velocipede initially had no gears, and was more of a "Laufmaschine" or walking aid, it was the first time people dared to travel on two wheels instead of four. And while extremely fearful--"People didn't dare lift their deet off the ground for more than a split second"--people could believe that two-wheeled travel would work, because ice-skating had already become popular. According to New Scientist, Dutch women were already frequently seen "skating from village to village along frozen canals, balancing a milk churn on their heads while doing their knitting". Wow.