Has Anything Else Changed Less Than a Bicycle?

This photo was taken 123 years ago, but the bicycle pictured here doesn’t look significantly different than the single speeds we see tooling around Portland in 2018.

Pretty amazing, and testimony to the perfection of the traditional “diamond” frame.

The link from Vintage Portland, our (other) daily read:

https://vintageportland.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/1895-c_herbert-lewis-posing-with-a-bicycle_a2004-002-11004.jpg

Thanks for reading.

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9watts
9watts
6 years ago

The violin!

9watts
9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Rivelo

The question of how well older vs newer versions of products (bikes, cars, musical instruments, machine tools, fountain pens, screw drivers, shoes, frying pans, toilets, etc.) is a perennial favorite of mine. Throughout the history of technology, we’ve seen inflection points indicating that the oft assumed linear progress is not evident. Today’s versions are recognizably ‘newer’ but often not ‘better’ with respect to easily identified parameters.

9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  Rivelo

The question of how older versions of products compare, measure up against newer versions is a perennial favorite of mine. Newer versions of bicycles, cars, machine tools, fountain pens, toilets, frying pans, musical instruments, footwear, telephones, etc. tend to appear recognizably ‘newer’ but the question as to whether they are ‘better’ along different easily agreed upon axes is much less clear/more interesting.
Historians of technology note inflection points suggesting non-linear evolution of technologies.

9watts
6 years ago
Reply to  9watts

Wow, this site is so glitchy the last few days.
Double posts, disappearing upvotes, database errors.

FRED_TRAMPLER
FRED_TRAMPLER
6 years ago

THE EBIKE