WI: Four Wheel Bikes

Four wheel bikes are cars which are powered by foot pedals. They are gaining popularity as recreational vehicles and are also used as taxis in some countries. I don't know when they were invented but I am surprised it didn't gain popularity much earlier. It's the same level of technology as the bicycle. But the bicycle reached enormous popularity while the four wheeler seem destined to remain a curiosity, despite their great potential. In an earlier age, they would seem to be excellent competitors to the horse drawn coach and the rickshaw.

Suppose they were invented in the 19th century. Perhaps we could have a much earlier "car" culture? European streets would no longer be soiled with horse manure?

Change your PoD. They were built in the later 1800s and were rather popular. I think maybe safety bikes were what drove quadracycles out of production. Some of the earliest cars were motorized quadricycles/tricycles.

A Link with pictures



Problem with quadricycles is that you can't carry luggage or children or old people around. For those reasons, quadricycles will not supplant horse-drawn vehicles.

Maybe you could have quadricycle taxis be more popular.


A PoD i like is: supposedly, in 1791, Ivan Petrovich Kulibin built an advanced 3 wheel bike. What if it had been produced?


Your description makes me think more of the Velocar, built in France starting in the early 1930s, maybe the '20s. A very pared down version was the first recumbent bicycle.

A very good link - in French, with pictures

something like this
Single
http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm

Double
http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm

or 4 person

http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm

And for work

http://www.rhoadescar.com/jumpshow.htm

There are quite a few successful four wheelers designs these days. They are built for almost every need. The only thing missing seems to be financial success.

tallwingedgoat said:

There are quite a few successful four wheelers designs these days. They are built for almost every need. The only thing missing seems to be financial success.

-snip pictures-

Click to expand...

Yeah... that was the OP's point, that 4-wheeled bikes are fairly widespread today. They're used a lot as taxis, in London at least.

alt_historian said:

Yeah... that was the OP's point, that 4-wheeled bikes are fairly widespread today. They're used a lot as taxis, in London at least.

Click to expand...

I know, I'm the topic starter.

Here's an amphibious recumbant tricycle :

2-wheeled bikes require less energy to ride due to lower friction and less air resistance. In addition they're perhaps more manoeuvrable, and are easier and cheaper to make (fewer parts, less raw materials). As a means of personal transport, the 2-wheeler is ideal.

Vehicles powered through the wheels have problems on uneven surfaces, when feet (either human or horse) are much better - even with a horse pulling a wheeled vehicle, the wheels require smaller tires and less contact with the ground than if the vehicle is powered through the wheels. Today, we have very good roads and cycle-paths, making bikes more practical. In the 19th century this wasn't the case. I don't see many all-terrain four-wheel cycles even today; just too hard to pedal.

If you wanted a small vehicle in times before small engines/motors were available, then you had the choice of either a horse or a human to pull it. While some people historically used human-powered conveyances (e.g. sedan chairs), generally in Europe it was cheaper to get a horse (now, with all the infrastructure long gone, horses are probably more expensive than hiring a person to pull you along).

There is more human-powered transport in certain flattish places (e.g. trailers behind bikes seem common in the Netherlands). So if Europe was much flatter, and we didn't have so many horses, then you might see four-wheel bikes. Although in the 19th century, most people wouldn't have been able to afford them.

First of all the bicycle was invented in the 19th century. What I'm suggesting is the popularization of the the four wheel bike as a supplement to the horse drawn carriage in the same time period. If 19th century roads can support bicycles then it can also support four wheelers.

Secondly four wheelers do not require high quality roads. Hard packed dirt trails are perfectly suitable. Europe still had an extensive network of Roman roads no less.