---
title: "Which came first, the aeroplane or the bicycle?"
description: "the aeroplane vs the bicycle: the bicycle came first, by 86 years — 1817 against 1903. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-bicycle/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the aeroplane or the bicycle?

**Which came first, the aeroplane or the bicycle?: the bicycle**

1817 — 86 years before the aeroplane

the bicycle came first, by 86 years. Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim.

## Side by side

|  | the aeroplane | the bicycle |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1903 | 1817 |
| Date | 1903-12-17 | 1817-06-12 |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. | Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim. |

## the aeroplane

The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime.

## the bicycle

The first two-wheeler you could balance and steer was Drais's laufmaschine of 1817, which had no pedals — you pushed with your feet. Pedals arrived in the 1860s, the chain-driven safety bicycle with equal wheels in 1885, and the pneumatic tyre in 1888. The bicycle is younger than the steam locomotive, younger than photography's first experiments, and roughly contemporary with the stethoscope.

## Common questions

### Which came first, the aeroplane or the bicycle?

the bicycle, by 86 years — 1817 against 1903.

### When did the aeroplane start?

1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk.

### When did the bicycle start?

1817. Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim.

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## Sources

- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)