Pub. 6 2016 Issue 1

19 MINING FOCUS I t’s that time of year when we see more bicycles on the roads and trails. Everyone remembers the feeling of freedom when you first learned to ride a bike. And no matter how old you are, you can still get that feeling. Bicycles are not just an effective means of transportation. They’re fun. But most of us never stop to think that without mining, bikes would not exist. A look at the evolution of bicycles demonstrates the indispensable role mining plays in this ubiquitous item. Bike production today outnumbers car production. In 2007, for example, about 130 million bicycles were built throughout the world, compared with 52 million cars. Between 1965 and 1970, the two production numbers were approximately even, but bike production started to out-pace car production between 1970 and 1988. There was a slowdown in bike production between 1989 and 2001, but since then, the number of bikes being manufactured has started to rise again. BIKE EVOLUTION BIKE EVOLUTION continued on page 20 Who invented the bicycle? As is so often the case, more than one person deserves credit since the design has been changed and improved over the years. Some people have claimed that Leonardo da Vinci, or one of his students, drew a bicycle in 1493, but even if he did, he didn’t try to build it and the sketch was lost until 1974, when a researcher found it at the Catholic University in Milan. However, some people claim that the bicycle sketch was a 1960s doodle made from two circles by an Italian monk who was supposed to be restoring manuscripts, not embellishing them. To support this claim, an art historian named Carlo Pedretti from the University of California at Los Angeles said he examined the page in 1961, and all he remembers seeing are the two circles, not the bicycle sketch. The Italians are still crediting Leonardo da Vinci in a Florence museum dedicated to the man, however, because they don’t mind at all the idea that maybe an Italian