It's interesting that wood is considered impractical for a bicycle... but somehow practical for a carriage?

Carriages used to have suspensions (made from some elastic whale bone I believe).

If someone would attempt to build a bicycle in a time of carriages with carriage wheels, I would then expect this person to also copy (at least in analogy) the suspension systems for carriages of that time, if not on the first try at least on the second...