The dandy-horse was a two-wheeled vehicle, with both wheels in line, propelled by the rider pushing along the ground with the feet as in regular walking or running. The front wheel and handlebar assembly was hinged to allow steering. The dandy horse was capable of more than doubling the average walking speed, to around 10 mph (16 km/h) on level ground. "In wartime," he wrote, "when horses and their fodder often become scarce, a small fleet of such wagons at each corps could be important, especially for dispatches over short distances and for carrying the wounded.” Several manufacturers in France and England made their own dandy-horses during its brief popularity in the summer of 1819—most notably
Denis Johnson of London, who used an elegantly curved wooden frame that allowed the use of larger wheels. In the United States, a patent for a two-wheeled human-powered vehicle was awarded to W.K. Clarkson of New York on June 26, 1819. However, in 1836, a fire in the U.S. Patent Office destroyed the only surviving drawings, and a prototype of the invention was never built by Clarkson. However, in the 1860s in France, the
vélocipède bicycle was created by attaching
rotary cranks and
pedals to the front-wheel hub of a dandy-horse.
Modern adaptation The dandy horse has been adapted as a starter bicycle for children, and it variously is called a
balance bike or run bike. ==See also==