2 Overview of Human-Powered Vehicles

Humans are mobile. People like to move, to travel, to roam. In the dawn of human history, there were no vehicles, and all transportation was by our own—human—power. Probably the very first vehicles were floating logs or vegetative mats carried by currents or waves. When an early human first kicked, paddled, or poled one of these, human-powered vehicles came into existence. Simple paddled or rowed watercraft was quite likely the earliest human-powered vehicles. By the time of the ancient Greeks, human-powered boat technology had advanced to large rowed vessels—biremes and triremes—that were up to 40 m (130 ft) long and powered by a crew of up to 170 men. The ancient Greek trireme, with three rows of rowers, probably was capable of seven or eight knots for short bursts. The technology, as always, was driven by need—in this case the need for a fast, powerful military vessel.