---
title: "Which came first, the bicycle or the telephone?"
description: "the bicycle vs the telephone: the bicycle came first, by 59 years — 1817 against 1876. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/bicycle-vs-telephone/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, the bicycle or the telephone?

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

1817 — 59 years before the telephone

the bicycle came first, by 59 years. Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim.

## Side by side

|  | the bicycle | the telephone |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1817 | 1876 |
| Date | 1817-06-12 | 1876-03-07 |
| Category | invention | invention |
| What happened | Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim. | Bell was granted US patent 174,465. |

## 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.

## the telephone

Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876 and he made the famous call to Watson three days later. Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device on the same day in February that Bell filed his application, and the priority dispute has never entirely gone away. Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a working voice telegraph in New York in 1860 but could not afford to renew his caveat.

## Common questions

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

the bicycle, by 59 years — 1817 against 1876.

### When did the bicycle start?

1817. Karl Drais rode his running machine near Mannheim.

### When did the telephone start?

1876. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

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- [photography or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/photograph-vs-telephone/)
- [the fax machine or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/fax-machine-vs-telephone/)

## Sources

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