World's first motorcycle was unveiled by German engineer Daimler on this day in 1885

German engineer Gottlieb Daimler unveiled the world’s first motorcycle, the Daimler Reitwagen or the ‘riding cycle,’ on this day, i.e., November 10, in 1885. The motorcycle, which is also known as Einspur or ‘single track’, was a motor vehicle made by Daimler with Wilhelm Maybach. Daimler is often also called the ‘father of the motorcycle’ for this invention. Even though three steam-powered two-wheelers preceded Reitwagen, it still remains the first gasoline internal combustion motorcycle and the forerunner of all vehicles, land, sea and air, that use its overwhelmingly popular engine type. 

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Daimler had visited Paris in 1861 and had spent time observing the first internal combustion engine developed by Etienne Lenoir. His experience in France had helped him as he later also joined the Nikolaus August Otto's company. Otto’s company had created the first successful gaseous fuel engine and in later years the firm had also succeeded in creating a compressed charge gaseous petroleum engine due to the direction of Daimler and his plant engineer Maybach. 

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Otto had no interest in making engines small enough, so he along with Maybach then moved to the town Cannstatt where the duo began work on a “high-speed explosion engine”. The goal was achieved in 1883 with the development of their first engine, a horizontal cylinder engine that ran on Petroleum Naptha. The next year Daimler and Maybach developed a vertical cylinder model which is called the Grandfather Clock engine and achieved 700 rpm and soon 900 rpm was achieved.

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All about Daimler Reitwagen

In 1884, Maybach and Daimler then built an engine into a two-wheeled test frame which was patented as “Petroleum Reitwagen”. The test machine demonstrated the feasibility of a liquid petroleum engine which used a compressed fuel charge to power an automobile. It was in 1885 that the pair then pattered the first motorcycle. 

The Daimler Reitwagen had a 264-cubic-centimetre single-cylinder Otto-cycle four-stroke engine mounted on rubber blocks, with two iron tread wooden wheels and a pair of spring-loaded outrigger wheels to help it remain upright. Its engine output of 0.5 horsepower at 600 rpm gave it a speed of about 11 km/h. Daimler’s 17-year-old son, Paul, rode it first on November 18, 1885, going 5–12 kilometres from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim, Germany.

(Image: @TLIndustrial/Twitter)

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