A Penny Farthing Bicycle

On a recent visit to the city of St Albans museum in Hertfordshire I photographed this bicycle, called a penny farthing, although enthusiasts call it an Ordinary.Before the invention of the bikes you see today these machines were invented. Gears were not invented until the safety bicycle so to overcome this problem the size of the large wheel determined the size of the gear, the smaller the wheel the lower the gear, the larger the wheel the higher the gear. Penny farthing named after the currency that was in use in the 19th century.