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Dunlop
John Boyd Dunlop was born in Ayreshire, Scotland, in 1840. He studied veterinary science at the University of Edinburgh. In 1888,he invented the pneumatic tire, probably the most revolutionary and important invention to come out of the bicycle industry. J. K. Starley's chain-driven "safety" bicycle had been invented three years earlier, but was not fully practical due to the harsh ride of the smaller wheels with solid tires. With Dunlop's pneumatic tire, the modern bicycle was basically complete. No development in bicycle technology since then has been more than a minor refinement on the work of Starley and Dunlop.
Because an earlier patent for an inflatable tire had been taken out in France, his 1888 patent was invalid in Scotland, so he moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and started manufacturing tires in 1890.
The Woods valve is also sometimes referred to as a "Dunlop" valve.
The Dunlop tire company which he started still exists, but stopped making bicycle tires in the 1960's. This caused a crisis among cyclists for a couple of years, because Dunlop bicycle tires were incontestibly the finest available. The Dunlop "HPRR" (High Pressure Road Racing) tire was the high-performance "clincher"
