After the velocipede and high-wheeled ordinary, John Kemp Starley's Rover safety bicycle of 1885, with equal wheels and a chain drive, made cycling stable and accessible, and the pneumatic tyre of 1888 made it comfortable. A cycling boom in the 1890s gave ordinary people, including many women, cheap personal mobility for the first time. Cyclists' lobbying drove early road-surfacing campaigns. In the twentieth century the bicycle became central to mobility in cities from Amsterdam to Beijing, and a model for low-carbon urban transport.
The bicycle delivered affordable individual mobility, broadened access to the city and now anchors compact, low-carbon transport planning.