Ordinary Bicycle

The "ordinary" bicycle, or penny farthing was a designed to be fast before the age of gearing and chain drives. The larger the wheel, the further a bicycle will travel in one turn of the pedals, so a large wheel, cranked at 90 RPM will cover a greater distance in a minute than a small wheel cranked at the same speed.

The safety bicycle replaced the ordinary when the early inventers and tinkerers had figured out how to use geared chain drives to do the same job as a large wheel.

This article is a stub: it needs fleshing out