In 1817, Karl Drais, a trained forestry teacher and at that time still a baron, set out from Mannheim on a previously unseen vehicle. The year before, there had been a total crop failure, leading to famine, feed shortages, and the death of horses. What was not known at the time was that the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, east of Bali, had covered the globe with a layer of aerosol, causing a climate catastrophe through cooling. Drais aimed to replace the endangered riding horses with his running machine, the original bicycle on two wheels. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the bicycle, Drais biographer Hans-Erhard Lessing presents his astonishing insights into the remarkable career of this mobility idea throughout the West, before driving bans and the emerging railway brought progress to a halt. Featuring transcribed original texts and colored engravings.