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French blacksmith inventor of the bicycle. He may have become the inventor of the bicycle when he added pedals to a draisine to form a velocipede, the forerunner of the modern bicycle.
Pierre Michaux was a blacksmith who furnished parts for the carriage trade in Paris during the 1850s and 1860s. He may have become the inventor of the bicycle when he added pedals to a draisine to form a velocipede, the forerunner of the modern bicycle. However historic sources reveal other possible claimants such as his son Ernest Michaux and Pierre Lallement.
In 1868 he formed a partnership with the Olivier brothers under his own name, Michaux et Cie, which was the first company to construct bicycles with pedals on a large scale, a machine which was called a velocipede at the time, or "Michaudine". The partnership was dissolved in 1869, and Michaux and his company faded into oblivion as the first bicycle craze came to an end in France and the USA. Only in England did the bicycle remain popular, and England was the site of all of the next major improvements to the machine. Michaux is often given credit for the idea of attaching pedals to the dandy horse, and thus for the invention of the bicycle. However, bicycle historian David V. Herlihy thinks that it was Lallement who deserves that credit.
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variant spelling:
MICHAUX, Pierre
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History
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* 25.06.1813
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Bar le Duc
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born
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1861
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Pierre Michaux and his son Ernest invented the bicycle pedal.
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† 1883
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Paris
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died
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