Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Drais von Sauerbronn was a noble German forest official born in Karlsruhe, Baden, Germany. His father was the highest Judge in Baden.
Drais was a prolific inventor, and developed the earliest typewriter with a keyboard, as well as an early stenograph using 16 characters, a device to record piano music on paper, the first meat grinder, a wood-saving cooker including the earliest hay chest, and a foot-driven human powered railway vehicle called the “draisine.” The term “draisine” continues to be used today for railway handcars.
The Tambora eruption in present-day Indonesia in 1815 spewed enough debris into the atmosphere that 1816 was known in Europe as “The Year Without a Summer.” The lack of sunlight due to the debris caused a severe crop failure in Europe, causing the starvation and death of horses. The inability to ride horseback caused Drais to pursue a mechanical alternative (even if by today’s standards, we think Drais should have been more focused on finding alternative feed for horses).
Drais invented his Laufmaschine (“running machine”) in 1817, named “Draisine” (English) or “draisienne” (French) by the press. Drais patented his invention in 1818 as the first commercially successful two-wheeled, steerable, human-propelled machine, commonly called a “velocipede,” and nicknamed “hobby-horse” or “dandy horse.”
Previously Drais had been unable to market his inventions for profit because he was a civil servant, though he was paid without providing active service. In January 1818, Drais was awarded a grand-ducal privilege to protect his inventions for 10 years in Baden by the Grand Duke. The Grand Due also appointed Drais a professor of mechanics. Drais then retired from the civil service and was awarded a pension for his appointment to professor.
The draisine was constructed almost entirely of wood, had brass bushings within the wheel bearings, iron shod wheels, and a rear-wheel brake.
Drais’ first reported ride was to Mannheim on June 12, 1817, covering 13 kilometers (8 miles) in less than an hour. Several thousand copies of the draisine were built and used in Western Europe and North America.
By late 1818, Denis Johnson of London announced that he would sell an improved model. Johnson’s machine was an improvement on Drais’; Johnson’s had a wooden frame in a serpentine shape rather than a straight one, allowing the use of larger wheels without raising the rider’s seat.
During the summer of 1819, the “hobby-horse” became the craze and fashion in London society, thanks to Johnson’s marketing skills and better patent protection. However, roads were so rutted by carriages that it was hard to balance on the draisine for long. Riders moved to the sidewalks, and rode far too quicky, endangering pedestrians. Authorities in Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and even Calcutta banned the use of the draisine, and the vehicle fell out of vogue by the end of 1819, remaining unpopular for decades.
In 1820, the political murder of the author August von Kotzebue was followed by the beheading of the perpetrator, Karl Ludwig Sand. At the time, Drais was a fervent liberal who supported revolution in Baden. Drais’ father, as the high Judge in Baden, and very conservative, had not entered a plea for pardon in Sand’s beheading. Drais was mobbed by the student partisans in Germany due to his ties to his father, the Judge. Drais emigrated to Brazil until 1827. In 1830, Drais’ father died and Drais was mobbed by jealous rivals.
In 1848, the first uprisings in the German Revolution began in Baden. As the fighting intensified in 1849, Drais still identified as a fervent liberal, and he gave up the title of Baron. However, the Prussians defeated the revolutionary army at the Battle of Rinnthal. After the revolution collapsed, the royalists attempted to have Drais declared insane and institutionalized. Drais’ pension was confiscated to help pay for the “costs of revolution” after the revolution was suppressed.
Drais died penniless in 1851 in Karlsruhe. Shortly after Drais’ death, his draisine was resurrected as “The Boneshaker” in France, and began to take on the recognizable elements of the modern bicycle.