Who Invented the Motorcycle?
After the creation of the bicycle in the 1800s, inventors all around the world started formulating designs for an automated version of this transport device. With the help of machines available to them in that time, they produced several prototypes of motorcycles that would pave the way for all the future models. Let’s learn how the first motorcycle came to be.
Two Wheeled Predecessors to the Motorcycle
First came push-bikes that had no pedals and were propelled by the rider's feet pushing against the ground. Then came high-wheelers also known as the penny-farthing with a huge front wheel and small rear wheel; they were also called "bone-crushers" both for their jarring ride and their tendency to toss their riders. Finally the "safety bicycle" appeared which offered wheels of equal size and a set of pedals to drive the rear wheel through a chain linkage.
With the steam engine becoming more common to power mills and factories in the 1800s, it wasn't long before experiments to adapt a steam engine to a bicycle began. The first successful marriage of a light-weight steam engine to a bicycle frame occurred in 1867 when Sylvester Howard Roper brought together a boiler, a steam engine and bicycle to form what would later be called a "motorcycle” if one counts steam propulsion.
For the next few decades, other inventors created their take on the Roper Machine; French engineer Louis-Guillaume Perreaux developed a steam one cylinder motorcycle with an alcohol burner in 1871 and in 1881 American inventor Lucius Copeland strapped a small boiler engine on a rear wheel of a penny farthing bicycle which enabled him to reach a speed of 12 mhp. Despite their innovation, none of these men are usually credited with creating the motorcycle.
Who Invented the First Motorcycle?
In 1885 Gottlieb Daimler patented what is generally considered to be the first motorcycle. Daimler, the automotive pioneer usually associated with building the world's first successful internal combustion engine and subsequently the first automobile, staked his claim of priority in the two-wheeler world a year before developing his famous auto. Although the idea didn’t originate with Daimler, what gives credibility to his claim of developing the first "true" motorcycle is the fact that it was gasoline-driven.
The “Daimler Reitwagen” was essentially a wooden bicycle frame with foot pedals removed powered by a one-cylinder Otto-cycle engine. In 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller’s bike had a step-through frame with its fuel tank mounted on the downtube. The engine was a parallel-twin mounted low with its cylinders going fore-and-aft. Rods connected directly to a crank on the rear axle and it used elastic bands on each side outboard of the cylinders. It was water-cooled and had a water tank/radiator built into the top of the rear fender.
In 1895 the French firm DeDion-Buton built an engine that made the mass production and common use of motorcycles possible. It was a small, light, high revving four-stroke single and used battery-and-coil ignition. The first US production motorcycle was the Orient-Aster, built by the Metz Company in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1898. It used an Aster engine that was a French-built copy of the DeDion-Buton and predated Indian (1901) by three years and Harley-Davidson (1902) by four.
Since the 1800s motorcycles have evolved from uncomfortable monstrosities with makeshift engines into machines of intense technological and aesthetic refinement. If you’re ready to explore life on two wheels give us a call at 970-235-2509 or schedule a test ride.