Fun Game: Which Bicycle Innovation Came First?

Triathlon Forum
1

I failed MISERABLY, only got 4/9 correct
https://www.bikeradar.com/features/bikeradar-brains-innovations/
.

2

3 of 9 for me. Ouch!

3

7/9

Messed up on the rear derailleur and skewer
.

4

Strange. I got the stuff that predates me right but the stuff I remember being introduced wrong.

5

I got 7/9, partly due to a silly memory lapse and partly because BikeRadar is wrong.

They really shouldn’t specify the invention of QR skewers down to the specific year. It might be 1927, but Campagnolo has changed their story over the years and there’s really not good documentation. It’s certainly known that they were in use by some time in the 1930s (along with Campagnolo’s Cambio Corsa-style derailleur systems), but that’s about it.

The parallelogram rear derailleur was not invented in 1949.
The earliest documentation I’m aware of that indicates the use of a parallelogram for lateral actuation of a derailleur is actually a 1934 patent owned by Simplex. Granted, that derailleur was using a fork for jockeying the chain, similar to how front derailleurs work. But by the end of the 1930s, you could buy a dual-pulley parallelogram derailleur from Nivex (here’s a 1937 patent regarding the design), and JIC was also making parallelogram derailleurs by the end of that decade.
To be fair to BikeRadar though, the early prototypes of Campagnolo’s Gran Sport were revealed in 1949, and Campagnolo’s website wrongly claims that the Gran Sport was the first-ever parallelogram derailleur.

The first hydraulic disc brakes on bicycles aren’t from the 1990s. For instance, here’s a page from Shimano’s 1975 catalog.

6

7/9

Messed up on the rear derailleur and skewer

Snap
.

7

7/9.

Road tubeless came out before I thought it did (but I do recall it now)

8

Strange. I got the stuff that predates me right but the stuff I remember being introduced wrong.

I messed up Di2 and road tubeless

9

I messed up on road tubeless and Spd pedals. Weird how the old stuff seemed easier

10

According to them I did bad, but I know their answers are not all right. If they specified road hydraulic disc brakes I might buy 1997, but they had hydraulic discs for mountain bikes much earlier.

11

These things are fun only when the writer of the quiz gets it right. BikeRadar didn’t.

12

6 of 9. It was the newer innovations that I missed.