A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being safer than the high wheelers they were replacing. Even though modern bicycles use a similar design, the term is rarely used today and is considered obsolete outside circles familiar with high wheelers.
1885 Rover safety bicycle in the London Science Museum
1887 advertisement for a safety bicycle, Wolverhampton, England
Early safety bicycle (c. 1879) in the Coventry Transport Museum
1884 McCammon safety bicycle
A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, with two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A bicycle rider is called a cyclist, or bicyclist.
The most popular bicycle model—and most popular vehicle of any kind in the world—is the Chinese Flying Pigeon, with about 500 million produced.
Women on bicycles on unpaved road, US, late 19th century
A penny-farthing or ordinary bicycle photographed in the Škoda Auto museum in the Czech Republic
The Svea Velocipede by Fredrik Ljungström and Birger Ljungström, exhibited at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology