Launching Osaka Design Works ODW

By Richard Trombly

I decided to launch this site in connection with an auspicious date, the anniversary of the passing of the inventor of the modern bicycle, John Starley. For the past 150 years or so, bikes have revolutionized human transportation and despite the love of the personal automobile, energy efficiency and healthy lifestyle are bringing us back to the bike. EV technology improvements are now revolutionizing mobility by improving on the bike and allowing it to be more flexible and do more for us.

I also like Starley because he first focused on tricycles and at ODW, that is our specialty. More posts on that will follow. For today, It is enough for us to just honor the great accomplishment of this inventor and his great development, the modern chain-driven bike. The results of the bike industry have lead to many developments. The wright Brothers made bikes before developing airplanes.

John Kemp Starley (24 December 1855 – 29 October 1901) was a British inventor and industrialist who is widely considered the inventor of the modern bicycle and also originator of the tradename Rover. Stanley was the son of a London gardener. By 1874, he was working with an uncle manufacturing Pennyfarthing style bikes.

The Cycle Revolution

In 1877, he founded Starley & Sutton Co with William Sutton, a local cycling enthusiast. They wanted to develop bicycles that were safer and simpler to ride than the exisintg bikes, starting with trikes. In 1885, Starley made history when he produced the Rover safety bicycle, a rear-wheel-chain-driven cycle with two similar-sized wheels. This is the form of nearly all bikes today.

In 1889, the company became J. K. Starley & Co. Ltd and in the late 1890s, it had become the Rover Cycle Co. Ltd.