Now you're talking! James Starley built the Ariel penny-farthing, the first bike that really worked. With a 5-foot wheel, it was hard to mount and dangerous.
When chains improved, people built rear-wheel-drive bicycles like we have today. Everybody hated them. There were no pneumatic tires, and 28" wheels rode rougher than 60" wheels. James' nephew John Starley made the modern bike a success when he introduced the Rover in 1885. The big improvement was seating position, way back toward the back axle. Legs can absorb bumps much better than butts. Moving a seat back moves weight forward, to the pedals.
It also means your knees aren't bent so far at top dead center, so you can pedal with more power and less strain.
Racers wanted low handlebars to reduce air drag. That tended to put more weight on the rider's hands. Moving the seat forward reduced weight on hands. Mountain bikes are like that, too, with low bars for faster zig zagging. In America, Schwinn used a seat almost over the pedals for another reason: so you could pretend you were riding a motorcycle from the 1920s.
For decades, Raleigh made renowned bikes for touring and commuting. The seat tube slanted back about 30 degrees from vertical so that raising the seat 2" moved it back 1". That kept it in the ball park for riders of different leg lengths. I saw my first Raleigh at 3. The comfort of the rider and the effortless way he could apply torque swept me away. I rode bikes like that until I was 18.
I'm 6'3" and 250 pounds. At 73 I bought a Radrunner. It was so uncomfortable that I bought a suspension post and a big, cushy, sprung seat. They made little difference. Safety concerned me more. This bike was an accident looking for a place to happen. What I knew from my teens gradually came back to me. For a bike to be stable and under control, the rider's upper body must be stable. It's supported by the triangle of the seat and hand grips. Too short is as bad as too narrow.
I bought a layback post, bent it to get me back farther, and supported it by putting three notches in a plywood triangle; clamping the post holds the support in place. The bike was far more controllable because I was more stable. Comfort was an unanticipated benefit. I'd moved so much weight from the saddle that if one pedal was at 6 o'clock, I could raise myself off the saddle by raising that heel relative to that toe.
Pedaling improved greatly. Before, I would have had to walk home if the motor stopped working. Now I could really pedal. I bought a Radmission and found that it, too, needed a layback. I heated it with a torch to bend it farther. I bought the abound because its seat post was farther back than most. I still needed a layback post. Like the handlebars, the seat is more to stabilize me than to bear weight. That's why a little seat is plenty comfortable. Because they're mostly stabilizers, I can tilt them forward for easy mounting and dismounting.
The photo of my legs shows that with the seat back, pedaling is like walking. When the pedal in the background gets to top dead center, the knee will be opened to 90 degrees. I can shift my weight to that leg as in walking, without tiring my leg or straining my knee. As in walking, that keeps weight off the seat. It also allows me to start applying power by kicking forward on the pedal.
In the leg photo, my arms come down steeply to the bars. It took me months to figure out what was wrong. A riser allowed me to lean forward on the bars for stability without so much leaning down. A riser made bumps much more comfortable.
The Radrunner and the Abound don't look like classic English bikes, but I've altered the seat and handlebar positions of all three to be more like English bikes and, for that matter, the 1885 Rover.
