The bicycle that sent riders flying over its handlebars

Before the glorious invention of chain gears, the only mathematical way to go faster on a bike was to make the front wheel comically huge. The horrifying result was the penny-farthing, a wildly unstable vehicle that placed the rider’s center of gravity directly over a massive pivot point. Hitting a single stray pebble sent upper-class gentlemen performing involuntary front flips directly onto their top hats.