Eugène Meyer was a French mechanic credited with making important contributions to the development of the bicycle. In 1869 he received French patent no. 86705 for wire wheels and is now believed to be the person primarily responsible for making the penny-farthing feasible and widely known.
Biography Meyer was born in Alsace and lived in Paris. He raced his own bicycles in order to promote them and placed 10th in the 1869 Paris-Rouen race. James Moore rode a Meyer high wheeler at the Midland Counties Championship in Wolverhampton in August 1870, and thereby introduced the design to England. Meyer died in Brunoy en Essonne at the age of 63.
References
External links French Patent No. 86705 of 4 August 1869 including patent drawings Review of Bicycle Design: An Illustrated History with great image of "Eugène Meyer’s 1869 bicycle with tension spoking" "Courtesy of Keizo Kobayashi via MIT Press"