Who invented bike gears?

Answer 1

Initially, bike gears were inside the rear hub. There's records of internal hub gears being patented as early as the 1880's. The first successful implementation was William Reilly's "The Hub", a 2-speed internal gear hub, which went into production in England in 1898.

Answer 2

The short answer is read The Dancing Chain by Frank Berto. The development of gearing on bicycles started with the transition from Boneshakers to Ordinaries (Penny Farthings) by increasing the size of the driving wheel to travel further for each revolution of the pedals. When Starley invented the safety bicycle with chain-driven rear wheel, the notion of varying the "development" of the gear ratio took hold. The Raleigh company offered detachable chainrings, but this was a slow process. The development of epicyclic gears and derailleur gears occurred around the same time - in the 1890s, although there had been attempts to make a variable gear for front wheel drives earlier than this. Berto mentions many patents for variable gears, but the practical introduction of a two-speed epicyclic gear seems to have been the Crypto for tricycles in 1884, by Shaw and Sydenham. Linley & Biggs, makers of the Whippet bicycle developed a form of expanding chainwheel, and later a two-speed derailleur type gear. Kangaroo and Bantam front-wheel drives incorporated gearing mechanisms but by the time they came on the market, the Safety was gaining ground, and development then concentrated on the two main types for chain-driven rear wheels. In Britain. it was the hub gear that held sway, and in Europe, especially France, the derailleur was developed. So, like many inventions, someone had an idea, and someone else, usually with input from developments in other fields, actually built a working commercial model.

Answer 3

Paul de Vivie who wrote under the name "Velocio",invented the first derailleur in 1905.