On 12 June 1817 Karl Drais rode his Laufmaschine, his running machine, from Mannheim to a relay station before Schwetzingen. It had two wheels and no pedals. The rider pushed it along with his feet.
Why did he build it? The Drais biographer Hans-Erhard Lessing has argued that the cause was a shortage. The volcano Tambora erupted in 1815, the following year brought snow in summer and failed harvests, and horses starved. Other historians of the bicycle dispute this. Lessing himself has said that it cannot quite be proven.