The Pioneers Pt. 1

  Before diving headlong into the history of motorcycling in the 20th century, we need to take a look at the inventors that made it all possible. It's no surprise that motorcycles evolved from the bicycle. Practically as soon as two wheels were attached to crude frame, the race was on to make it self-propelled. Throughout the 19th century there were many designs put forth. Some successful, some not so much. The ones that I want to highlight, are the ones that had innovative ideas that were ahead of their time. We can still see their influences on motorcycles today. You might say that the machines these pioneers created were the direct ancestors of modern motorcycles. To begin, we're going to turn the clock all the way back to America's Civil War.

  Sylvester H. Roper was born in New Hampshire in1823. At a young age his mechanical abilities and inventiveness were apparent. By age 12 he'd built a stationary steam engine, although he'd never seen one. By 14, he'd built a locomotive engine, again, never having seen one in person. When war broke out his talents were put to use for the Union at Springfield Armory of Springfield, Massachusetts. 

  Continuing his work with steam, by 1863 he was driving around Boston in one of the earliest "horseless carriages". In 1867 Roper attached a small steam engine to a crude bicycle and called it a "velocipede" (fast foot).

He spent the next twenty years refining it. His final design incorporated a bicycle from the Pope Manufacturing Company (who later joined the motorcycle market) with a crank driven rear wheel and a twin piston boiler under the seat... and you thought that rear cylinder of your big V-twin was a crotch heater. His design included one innovation that we see still to this day, a throttle twist grip on the handlebars that controlled the steam release.

  In 1896 Mr. Roper was demonstrating his Velocipede at a bicycle track near Cambridge, Massachusetts where he achieved a top speed of 40mph. After several laps he became unstable and fell from his machine, suffered a head wound, and died. An autopsy found the cause of death to be heart failure, whether suffered prior to the crash or as a result of it, remains a mystery. Regardless, it gave all such contraptions a reputation for danger that has persisted to this day.