From Alexander Kennedy
Mick Hamer describes enthusiasm in the bicycle as not being revived until Parisians showed an interest in the 1860s (29 January, p 48), but he omitted to mention the Scottish contribution in the 1840s. In 1842, Kirkpatrick Macmillan, a Scottish blacksmith, devised and built a treadle-driven bicycle.
This was sufficiently efficient for him to be able to ride it from his home at Courthill Smithy at Keir Mill in Dumfries to Glasgow, a distance of over 90 kilometres. There he had the distinction of having one of the first recorded cycle accidents when he collided with a little girl who strayed into his path. British cyclists regard Macmillan as the originator of the modern bicycle and his name is celebrated to this day.
It is very relevant that Karl Drais’s invention was prompted by the high cost of oats for feeding horses. We may yet be driven back to the bicycle by the increasing price of petrol and diesel oil.
Sheffield, UK
