The concept of human-powered

Tests carried out by Almax Security Chains Ltd. and supervised by Readers Digest have shown that most Thatcham and Sold Secure approved motorbike chains can be cut using ordinary bolt croppers. A video of the tests is available online. In similar tests carried out by Motor Cycle News magazine, Almax chains were the only ones to survive a bolt cropping attack. Almax produce a shorter 0.7m version of their chain for bicycles. The tests included chains from Squire Locks, Luma, ABUS, Oxford Products and Kryptonite.

The Dutch consumer news show Kassa 3 published a four-minute show in which a former bicycle thief removed eight consumer-grade locks from a bike in times ranging from 10 to a maximum of 84 seconds. The locks included those from manufacturers ABUS, Hema and Halfords. The first period which may be called a bicycle craze actually refers to a precursor of the bicycle which was pushed along by the feet on the ground as in walking, and did not have pedals. This machine was invented by Baron Karl von Drais, and was called variously a "draisine" (English) or "draisienne" (French) after his name, a "velocipede" from the Latin terms for "fast foot", a "hobby horse", or a "dandy horse", the last name being perhaps the most popular. Drais got a patent for his invention in 1818, and the craze swept Europe and the USA during the summer of 1819 while many manufacturers (notably Denis Johnson of London) either copied Drais's machine or created their own versions, then quickly died out as many pedestrians began to feel threatened by the machines and municipalities enacted laws prohibiting their use.

During the next 43 years, chiefly in England, inventors continued to explore the concept of human-powered transport, but on vehicles with 3 or 4 wheels (called "tricycles" and "quadricycles" respectively), which were thought to be more stable, not requiring the balance that is necessary for 2-wheeled vehicles. But none of these achieved much popularity.