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Steel Tubing Bicycle Frame Patent

October 6th, 2005 by Tim Grahl

Patent Pending Blog:

Bicycle construction was made considerably lighter and stronger when in 1885 the German brothers Max and Reinhard Mannesmann patented a process for making seamless steel tubing from flat steel stock. Rollers are used to form the flat steel sheet into a round shape, and the edges are welded together. They founded the Mannesmann company, with grew into a huge industrial giant which is dominant in its field today.

Bike

4 Responses to “Steel Tubing Bicycle Frame Patent”

  1. 1 Greg 

    More noteworthy is the patent for a rear suspension system shown in the 1892 drawing, The drawing has a different date than the tubing patent.

  2. 2 Tim Grahl 

    Good call. I wonder if I can find the picture for the info I put up…

  3. 3 Guitar Ted 

    Yeah, we’ve got a copy of a French based patent research book at work that was commissioned by Shimano to see if any of Shimanos designs had infringed on earlier patents. The book is amazing! I was dumbfounded to see almost every late modern cycling “innovation” that had been previousl tried before, some nearly a hundred years ago!

  4. 4 Bob Shaver 

    I changed the post on the Mannesmann technology and put the rear suspension bike of 1892 in a seperate post. There are a number of pre 1900 suspension designs in the “bicycle technology” category of the blog. Bob

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