There’s no gainsaying Karlsruhe’s proud claim to the title “Bicycle City”. The Baden-Württemberg city has a very special connection with the two-wheelers – it’s where they were invented. The first chapter of the history of the bicycle could well be entitled: “How wheels learned to run” - because the bicycle actually began as a steerable ‘running machine’ invented by Baron Karl Friedrich Drais von Sauerbronn (1785-1851) who spent the latter part of his life in Karlsruhe. His ‘running machine’ – the prototype of the bicycle - was first presented to the public in 1817.

If there had been no Drais, perhaps the most popular means of transport of our time would not have existed. There might have been no cycle racing – no Tour de France, no Giro d’Italia, none of the other famous bike races. Drais’ running machine – known as the “Draisienne” – is one of the few inventions from the early 19th century which has been featured for more than 150 years in Germany’s best known encyclopedia – the Brockhaus. It has been in every single edition from 1830 to the latest edition of 2004. The Karlsruhe inventor’s running machine soon took the world by storm. Only two months after its unveiling, Drais was made a member of the distinguished Frankfurt Society for the Advancement of the Arts – on the same day as Goethe. A year later, the first copies of the ‘Draisienne’ were rolling through France, England and America.

 So it’s no surprise that today Drais is one of the most famous sons of Karlsruhe – along with automobile pioneer Carl Benz. The Draisienne was fairly basic: it was made entirely of wood and there were no pedals – you sat on the crossbeam and propelled yourself along by pushing against the ground with your feet. In an advertising leaflet the inventor claimed that on a downhill route his machine “would beat the best horses on long distances – and be far less prone to accident”. Further developments to his original invention would soon revolutionize personal transport. According to recent statistics, 100 million bicycles are currently produced worldwide every year, three million of them in Germany alone. The original Draisienne – the ‘Ur-Bike’ – can now be seen in the City Museum in Karlsruhe.