Although steam powered modified bicycles resembling a motorcycle (which would shake your bones till it hurt) emerged in the late 1800s it was not until 1885 that the first gas fuelled bike as we know it cruised down the road. It was called ‘Daimler Reitwagen’ and was invented by two names (German as so many in the history of movement), which are more known in the car industry nowadays – Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach.
Moron question of the day!
Wasn’t the bicycle invented after the motorcycle?
Nope. The first motorcycle was basically an edited bicycle. Daimler was a technical manager at an orphanage in Bruderhausat, Germany where he befriended Maybach. Both strongly believed that the out of date steam engine should be replaced by a petroleum powered mechanism in the vehicle industry. While being the technical director of a gas company called ‘Deutz Gasmotorenfabrik’ Daimler with the help of Maybach worked on a new engine invented by Nicolaus Otto the owner of the company in 1876. It was the first ’Four-Stroke Internal-Combustion Engine’. The engine produced 130 revolutions per minute. Seeing that Otto was not interested in developing these low performance engines Daimler and Maybach decided to separate from the company and pursue their own dream of a high performance motor. After several years both inventors came out with a developed version, which was able to achieve 900 RPS. This was because of the fresh designed surface carburetor, which was a minor improvement because of vaporizing the petroleum fuel and mixing it with air allowed it to work faster. To test this invention both friends decided to use the engine on a wooden bike. Although some argue that this construction was not technically a ‘motorcycle’ because it had two small supporting wheels making it a four wheel vehicle, these were most probably only used for safety reasons when testing out the engine. Therefore, this can be called the first motorcycle ever made and one of the first self-propelled vehicles of all time. Even though the vehicle could generate a maximum speed of only 16kph (9mph) it was still one of the most important sparkles of genius in our transportation history.
Firstopedia 