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penny-farthing
bicycle
Also known as: ordinary
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comparison to velocipede
- In velocipede
…finally, in the ordinary, or penny-farthing, bicycle, the wheel would just go under the crotch of the rider. The “penny-farthing” nickname came from the smallest and largest British coins of the time, in reference to the disparity in the size of the wheels. By the second half of the 20th…
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development by Starley
- In bicycle: The ordinary bicycle
…by the 1890s the term penny-farthing had come into use as a pejorative, comparing the front wheel to the large British penny and the rear wheel to the much smaller farthing (quarter-penny). Ordinaries typically weighed about 40 pounds (18 kg), but track-racing models could weigh as little as 16 pounds…
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