96. Bottle dynamo

I had a bottle dynamo in my first bicycle’s front wheel. It powered the vehicle’s front and backlights, it made me go increasingly fast: the faster I rode, the brighter the lights shone, and that was the perfect excuse for speeding almost everywhere. As a kid, I was mesmerized by the buzzing of the small dynamo wheel rolling against the tire, generating energy by a then obscure principle I could not possibly fathom. The dynamo was one of those objects I call silent servers, things that seem anonymous enough to remain hidden to us even though we might see them all the time. Silent servers are usually positive catalysts for our daily lives. Both the dynamo and the light carcasses in my first bicycle were chrome coated and felt heavy, sturdy, almost infallible. Years after that, bottle dynamos quietly disappeared from sight in bicycles. For the longest time, bicycle lights were battery powered, with dull black plastic carcasses and forced aerodynamic shapes, not very interesting shapes; they looked fragile and disposable, as if they had lost their status as an essential device, one that secured a steady supply of energy. Bottle dynamos are back, perhaps due to the green buzz, perhaps because they are truly ingenious, useful objects, and people are finally appreciating that. Good things have a revival after time and absence prove their worth. I am glad to see bottle dynamos around again: they are objects worth supporting and using.

95 Draisienne

On July 12 1817, German baron Karl Drais von Sauerbronn changed personal mobility forever. He was 32 years old and had invented a two-wheel machine powered by the action of the rider’s feet on the floor. The invention was presented in Paris one year later: the wheels of the Draisienne were still wooden, and it had no breaking system other than the rider’s feet. I read long time ago that it is remarkable how humans had used horse-powered, two-wheeled chariots for thousands of years, but only last century someone thought of putting those two wheels one in front of the other rather than parallel, to eliminate the need for the propelling element (horse) and create the first bicycle. In its clunkyness and material excess, the beauty of the Draisienne is spectacular; it is the beauty reserved for the first versions of every truly new invention, the beauty that emanates from the truly bold idea, when intentions are much more sophisticated and work better than the physical prototypes that embody them. In France, the Draisienne was called “velocipède,” from “véloce” (fast) and “pède” (foot) and it was considered a personal mobility machine from the very beginning. It was not until 1861 that Pierre and Ernest Michaux would test a velocipède with pedals in its front wheel, and a configuration of radically different wheels in size and function, designed to maximize propulsion by pedaling. The clunkyness had begun to slowly evolve into specialized, harmonious form.