The Pioneers Pt. 2

   Throughout the 1800s there were at least three inventors who experimented with two-wheeled (and three), steam driven machines. Steam worked great for locomotive engines that could carry the necessary water and fuel to heat the boiler. Small machines made things a little more difficult. The days of steam were numbered,  and for it's use to propel personal transportation, it was largely a dead end. Luckily, others were working on an alternative. The future of the world's transportation was destined to be based upon that alternative, the internal combustion engine. 

  There were many trials and errors beginning as early as 1794 with the first liquid fueled engine designed by Robert Street. Early designs experimented with a variety of fuels from coal-gas to controlled dust explosions. They were typically large, ran at low speeds, and were underpowered. 

  The first successful internal combustion engine to be sold commercially was the Lenoir engine of 1858.

It was a converted steam engine that, instead of using expanding steam alternatingly introduced into opposite ends of a cylinder to push a piston back and forth, used a mix of coal-gas and air ignited on either side of the piston. It was still too large and too slow for use on anything resembling a motorcycle, but it did have one innovation that is still used today. A "jumping spark" ignition system. 

  It was the internal combustion four stroke engine that would be the future of modern transportation. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Any gear headed hot-rodder can tell you the importance of those four words. 

1. SUCK: The intake stroke. The piston moves down in the cylinder as the air/fuel charge is drawn into the combustion chamber. 

2. SQUEEZE: The compression stroke. The piston moves up in the cylinder compressing the air/fuel charge to increase the volatility and efficiency of the next event...

3. BANG: The power stroke. The compressed air/fuel mixture is ignition causing rapid expansion and the resulting pressure pushes the piston back down, which in turn, acts upon a lever to turn a flywheel.

4. BLOW: The exhaust stroke. The piston moves back up in the cylinder as the spent gasses are expelled from the engine, preparing to start the cycle over again. 

  The four stroke engine is also called the "Otto cycle" engine after it's German engineer and inventor, Nikolaus Otto, who developed it in 1876.

History tells us that he is the father of all the engines powering our motorcycles (and autos, trucks, etc.) to this day... but was he? Really?

  In 1862 a Frenchman named Alphonse Beau de Rochas applied for a patent of an engine using the 4-stroke design but never built it. That same year, Nikolaus Otto built his first, which was unsuccessful, self-destructing after running for just a couple minutes. Ten years later, Ol' Nik Otto was still trying to figure it out. His company (he was a part owner) brought in more talent, hiring Gottlieb Daimler (the name behind today's Daimler, who owns Mercedes Benz) in 1872 as factory manager.

Otto was bypassed for the position, which was the beginning of a bit of rivalry. Daimler brought his life-long friend and business partner Wilhelm Maybach.

With Maybach as Chief Designer, Daimler and Otto both continued work under the equal titles "Technical Director".

  Soon the rivalry was fueled by "creative differences" that led to further tension. Otto wanted to build large, slow turning engines to replace the steam engines powering industry. Daimler wanted to build smaller, high speed engines to use in transportation. Daimler soon wanted to build his own engine and Otto, through jealousy, began excluding Daimler from patents on the designs they created. Whether by mutual agreement, or firing by Otto, Daimler left the company in 1880 to continue work on his own, taking Wilhelm Maybach with him.

  Not wanting to pay a dime to Nikolaus Otto in royalties, Daimler began calling his design the "Exploding Engine" and claimed his work to be a continuance of Rochas' 1862 patent. By 1883 Daimler and Maybach had developed a smaller, lighter engine just as they set out to do. Their new engine was air cooled, used a timed, low voltage ignition, a carburetor allowing it to run on petroleum distillates (like gasoline) mixed with air, and an exhaust valve actuated by a camshaft allowing high speed operation. It used a cast iron flywheel to smooth out the revolutions and it could be throttled. Starting to sound familiar? While other engines were putting along at 120-180 rpms, Daimler and Maybach's engine achieved 600, and then 900 rpms.

  In 1885 they fitted a version of their engine into the first ever vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine. It was a wooden frame with two wheels, a seat, and handlebars. They called it the "Reitwagon" (Riding car). Because they hadn't figured out the neccessary rake and trail geometry of the front wheel, it was a bit unstable and couldn't be steered properly. It used two outrigger wheels much like training wheels to keep it upright. The story goes that Daimler enlisted his 14 year old son to be the first to ride it. The contraption zipped along for two miles at the breakneck speed of 7 mph. That's right... 7. But, hey, it was a start. Daimler and Maybach turned their attention to four wheeled machines, but others had taken notice. Ladies and gentlemen, we were off to the races.