List,
Here's a reply to my query about the first motorcycle from the man who
co-ordinates the Smithsonian racing collection and is a credible source.
Wes
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 19:45:59 -0500
To: racing history <racinghistory@egroups.com>, Wester S Potter
<wspotter@jps.net>
Subject: first motorcycle
Wes, RE your query, there were various steam-propelled vehicles
going back to Cugnot in the mid 1700s and others who built 4-wheel
steam-propelled wagons in the 1800s (Richard Dudgeon in the US c. 1857)
none of which were really practical items.
The bicycle was invented in 1817.
In their book HISTORY OF MOTORCYCLING published in 1979, Bob
Holliday, Cyril Posthumous and Mike Winfield note that one L.G. Perreaux
(French) built an impractical steam powered two-wheeler in either late
1868 or 1869. Sylvester Roper, of Roxbury, Massachusetts, built a
reasonably practical steam motorcycle in 1869 that may have preceded
Perreaux and certainly was a more practical invention (Even if Roper,
riding without a helmet, did eventually become the first motorcycle
fatality)
American W.W. Austen is also supposed to have built a steam
motorcycle c. 1867, but Roper is generally credited with the invention.
Roper built steam four-wheel wagons earlier, as I guess your
reference to the 1864 Grand Rapids MI newspaper account refers.
Roper's steam motorcycle and the Dudgeon steam wagon are both
currently on display at the National Museum of American, History,
Smithsonian Institution.
- Gordon
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