The penny-farthing is a bicycle design distinguished by a very large front wheel and a much smaller trailing rear wheel, popular chiefly during the 1870s and 1880s. Its name comes from the British penny and farthing coins, whose relative sizes mirrored the bicycle's two wheels; it was eventually superseded by the smaller, more stable safety bicycle.
Facts
SignificanceBecame a symbol of the late Victorian era and coincided with the birth of cycling as a sport, before being displaced by the chain-driven safety bicycle in the 1880s. 1 Connections
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Penny-farthing
WikipediaEnd of an era section
James Starley had built the Ariel (spirit of the air) high-wheeler in 1870; but this was a time of innovation, and when chain drives were upgraded so that each link had a small roller, higher and higher speeds became possible without the need for a large front wheel.
lead paragraph
Although the trend was short-lived, the penny-farthing became a symbol of the late Victorian era. Its popularity also coincided with the birth of cycling as a sport.
In Group: Historic Bicycles and Velocipedes, Lead sentence
The penny-farthing, also known as a high wheel, high wheeler or ordinary, is an early type of bicycle distinguished by its large front wheel and comparatively small back wheel.
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