draisines

While It's All About the Bike lacks an obvious cliffhanger ending, – the biggest nail-biter is what colour Penn paints the frame – it is particularly strong on the history of cycling, placing Penn's bike within the context of the draisines, dandy horses, boneshakers and widow-makers that have gone before.

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels by Robert Penn 2010

I could not keep my promise to write again soon, because last week was taken up with a number of excursions which I made with David on horseback, or by means of automatic _draisines_, into the environs of Eden Vale and to the neighbouring town of Dana, and by rail to the shores of the Victoria

Freeland A Social Anticipation Theodor Hertzka 1884

These stations are indicated by flags, and travellers in the _draisines_ can halt at these and get their springs changed.

Freeland A Social Anticipation Theodor Hertzka 1884

The maximum speed attained by these ordinary _draisines_, on a good road and with a moderate load, is two and a half revolutions -- that is, about thirteen feet -- in the second, or a little over eleven miles an hour.

Freeland A Social Anticipation Theodor Hertzka 1884