French bicycle industry

To most the invention of the bicycle was by the German Baron Karl von Drais, who rode his 1816 machine while collecting taxes from his tenants.

He patented his "draisine" (or "draisienne"), a "pushbike" powered by the action of the rider's feet pushing against the ground.

One, the scooter-like dandy horse or celerifere of the French Comte de Sivrac, dating to 1790, was long cited as the earliest bicycle, however, most historians now believe these unsteerable hobby-horses probably never existed, but were made up by Louis Baudry de Saunier, a 19th-century French bicycle historian.

In the 1860s, the Michaux family, Parisian coach builders, developed a new drive mechanism, placing pedals and cranks on an enlarged wooden front wheel with iron tires, which was mounted on a heavy steel frame.

Perhaps owing to dispute over the invention, in 1865 Lallement emigrated to The United States, where, with the financial backing of James Carroll of Ansonia, Connecticut, he recorded the first U.S. patent on a bicycle, in 1866.

The first boneshaker race was in 1868, in Paris' Parc de Saint Cloud; the winner was James Moore, a friend of the Michaux family.

By 1887, de Vivie decided to devote his attention to his avocation; he sold his business, and moved to Saint-Étienne, where he opened a bicycle shop and started a magazine, Le Cycliste.

By 1892 the company was called Les Fils de Peugeot Frères, but friction developed between the brothers and in 1896 Armand created Société Anonyme des Automobiles Peugeot which would go on to become the largest car manufacturer in France, producing 10,000 cars per year by the dawn of the First World War.

Despite the setback, Édouard was enthusiastic about the pneumatic tyre, and he and his brother worked on creating their own version, one that did not need to be glued to the rim.

In 1891 Michelin took out its first patent for a removable pneumatic tyre which was used by Charles Terront to win the world's first long-distance cycle race, the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris.