Leonardo Da Vinci Bicycle - Build Your Own

These are tremendously popular with customers in the bookshop - we've added them online this Christmas so everyone has a chance to enjoy these stimulating kits. 

Pack dimensions: 24 x 18.5cm

The Leonardo Bicycle has an interesting and controversial history. The design itself would have been incredibly groundbreaking for the time, no inventor/engineer during that era had even considered a personal vehicle – of any kind (well, maybe a horse). A bicycle design was not seen until the 1800’s – over 300 years later!

It is widely accepted that the image was not drawn by Leonardo, very likely a pupil of his, and we have, from the drawing, made a working model of what we think it might have looked like. Leonard did draw a chain in one of his codices, using links very similar to a bike chain now, which could have been used with it, but we have used an elastic band, since making a chain link so small would be very difficult.

While there are doubters that Leonardo was the original artistic instigator of this bicycle idea, it flows well from many of the other drawings he did at the time – including things like an aerial screw, self propelled car, and ornithopter, to name a few.

About the manufacturer:

Pathfinders designs and manufactures wooden science kits for educational and recreational use. They're based on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. They spend time with kids in schools, making and using the kits to see how well they deliver curriculum for teachers, and to make sure they're engaging and appropriate for both fun play and educational aspects. And they definitely are! Pathfinders aims to provide such fun and interesting kits that they will be an attractive and desirable toy for anyone from a small child, to an executive planning a friendly take over.

The kits are manufactured in Taiwan is a local family-run factory. Pathfinders are an environmentally friendly company and use recyclable materials, natural, untreated wood, and local resources and production as much as possible. All of our kits are tested to make sure they are 100% safe, so if the dog (or a child) eats the glue then s/he will not be exposed to any unsafe levels of chemicals of any kind. Pathfinders are members of One Percent for the Planet, donating 1% of sales to protect, and enhance the natural environment.