This rendering takes on what would have been an amazing piece of motorcycle engineering from the industrial revolution. This steam engine bike is a homage to the famous Stephenson’s Rocket locomotive engine built in 1829 by Robert Stephenson and Company. The rendering got me thinking about the history of bikes and steam power, and interested to know more, I checked out steam powered bikes on Wikipedia.

The first known steam engine bike to be created was in the US in 1867. According to Wikipedia, it’s not known if this was a working model, so if anyone’s an engineer and would like to hazard a guess on whether it would be workable, and how you would drive one, I’m keen to be enlightened! Wikipedia says:

If one counts two wheels with steam propulsion as being a motorcycle, then the first one may have been American. One such machine was demonstrated at fairs and circuses in the eastern United States in 1867, built by Sylvester Howard Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts.[1] There exists an example of a Roper machine dating from 1869, but there is no patent existing and nothing proves it was a working model. It was powered by a charcoal-fired two-cylinder engine, whose connecting rods directly drive a crank on the rear wheel. The Roper machine pre-dates the invention of the safety bicycle by many years, so its chassis is based on the “boneshaker” bike.

ADS

ADS

In 1868, the French engineer Louis-Guillaume Perreaux patented a similar steam-powered vehicle, which was probably invented independent of Roper’s. In this case, although a patent exists that is dated 1868, nothing indicates the invention had been operable before 1871. Nevertheless, these steam-powered vehicles were invented prior to the first petroleum-powered motorcycle.

Source | Worth1000 via TopSpeed

(no votes)

0 comments