<P> Another later report, in the form of a sketch, comes from 1534 and attributed to Gian Giacomo Caprotti, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci . In 1998 Hans - Erhard Lessing described this as a purposeful fraud . However, the authenticity of the bicycle sketch is still vigorously maintained by followers of Prof. Augusto Marinoni, a lexicographer and philologist, who was entrusted by the Commissione Vinciana of Rome with the transcription of Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus . </P> <P> Later, and equally unverified, is the contention that a certain "Comte de Sivrac" developed a célérifère in 1792, demonstrating it at the Palais - Royal in France . The célérifère supposedly had two wheels set on a rigid wooden frame and no steering, directional control being limited to that attainable by leaning . A rider was said to have sat astride the machine and pushed it along using alternate feet . It is now thought that the two - wheeled célérifère never existed (though there were four - wheelers) and it was instead a misinterpretation by the well - known French journalist Louis Baudry de Saunier in 1891 . </P> <P> The first verifiable claim for a practically used bicycle belongs to German Baron Karl von Drais, a civil servant to the Grand Duke of Baden in Germany . Drais invented his Laufmaschine (German for "running machine") in 1817, that was called Draisine (English) or draisienne (French) by the press . Karl von Drais patented this design in 1818, which was the first commercially successful two - wheeled, steerable, human - propelled machine, commonly called a velocipede, and nicknamed hobby - horse or dandy horse . It was initially manufactured in Germany and France . Hans - Erhard Lessing (Drais' biographer) found from circumstantial evidence that Drais' interest in finding an alternative to the horse was the starvation and death of horses caused by crop failure in 1816, the Year Without a Summer (following the volcanic eruption of Tambora in 1815). On his first reported ride from Mannheim on June 12, 1817, he covered 13 km (eight miles) in less than an hour . Constructed almost entirely of wood, the draisine weighed 22 kg (48 pounds), had brass bushings within the wheel bearings, iron shod wheels, a rear - wheel brake and 152 mm (6 inches) of trail of the front - wheel for a self - centering caster effect . This design was welcomed by mechanically minded men daring to balance, and several thousand copies were built and used, primarily in Western Europe and in North America . Its popularity rapidly faded when, partly due to increasing numbers of accidents, some city authorities began to prohibit its use . However, in 1866 Paris a Chinese visitor named Bin Chun could still observe foot - pushed velocipedes . </P> <P> The concept was picked up by a number of British cartwrights; the most notable was Denis Johnson of London announcing in late 1818 that he would sell an improved model . New names were introduced when Johnson patented his machine "pedestrian curricle" or "velocipede," but the public preferred nicknames like "hobby - horse," after the children's toy or, worse still, "dandyhorse," after the foppish men who often rode them . Johnson's machine was an improvement on Drais's, being notably more elegant: his wooden frame had a serpentine shape instead of Drais's straight one, allowing the use of larger wheels without raising the rider's seat . During the summer of 1819, the "hobby - horse", thanks in part to Johnson's marketing skills and better patent protection, became the craze and fashion in London society . The dandies, the Corinthians of the Regency, adopted it, and therefore the poet John Keats referred to it as "the nothing" of the day . Riders wore out their boots surprisingly rapidly, and the fashion ended within the year, after riders on pavements (sidewalks) were fined two pounds . </P>

When was the bike invented and by whom
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