Sentence examples for velocipede from inspiring English sources
The word "velocipede" is correct and usable in written English
It refers to an early type of bicycle or similar vehicle. Example: "In the 19th century, the velocipede became a popular mode of transportation before the invention of the modern bicycle." Alternatives include "bicycle" or "bike."
noun
Early two-wheeled conveyance upon which one rode astride a wooden frame propelled by means of pushing the feet against the ground
A visionary Frenchman, Jacques Ozanam, first proposed a "self-moving vehicle" in 1696, but it was not until 1818 that a German eccentric, Baron Karl von Drais, produced a prototype for a vehicle that came to be known, with both love and hate, as the "velocipede".
A bicycle can be ridden at four or five times the pace of walking, using the same effort, making it the most efficient, self-powered means of transportation ever invented (although early bicycles such as the Draisine, the velocipede and the high-wheeler were dangerous, hard-to-ride contraptions).
Documents indicate that Alexandre Lefèbvre of Saint-Denis, France, built a two-wheeled velocipede powered by treadles connected to cranks on the rear wheel in 1842.
Although von Drais called his device a Laufmaschine ("running machine"), draisienne and velocipede became more popular names.
Lallement took parts for an improved velocipede with him when he went to the United States in 1865, and he completed his new veloce in Ansonia, Connecticut.
The first velocipede powered via pedals mounted on the front wheel was built in Paris during the early 1860s, but there is no conclusive evidence proving who conceived the idea of applying pedals to the front wheel or who actually did so.
All hail Bradley Wiggins, a yellow-jerseyed hero for our times, the new patron saint of the velocipede-smitten British.
Production reached about 200 velocipedes per month.
For the next 40 years, most experimenters focused on human-powered three- and four-wheeled velocipedes.
By that time more than 100 French companies were making velocipedes.
In that same year, French velocipedes built by Michaux et Cie. (a company that made carriage locks) started a craze in America, and Lallement was able to sell his patent to American entrepreneur Calvin Witty for $2,000.
