3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue 1 & 2 Jan - Apr 2 3rd Year Special Annual Double Issue Vol 4 Issue | Page 67

ADVENTURE & WILDLIFE
propelled bicycle was a three-wheel design called
the Butler Petrol Cycle, conceived of and built by
Edward Butler in England in 1884.He exhibited his
plans for the vehicle at the Stanley Cycle Show in
London in 1884, two years earlier than Karl Benz
invented his first automobile who is generally
recognized as the inventor of the modern auto-
mobile. Butler’s vehicle was also the first design
to be shown at the 1885 International Inventions
Exhibition in London.
The vehicle was built by the Merryweather Fire
Engine company in Greenwich, in 1888. the
Butler Petrol Cycle (first recorded use of the
term) It was a three-wheeled vehicle, with the
rear wheel directly driven by a 5/8hp
(466W)
600
cc
(40
in3;
2¼×5-inch
{57×127-mm})
flat
twin
four
stroke
engine (with magneto ignition replaced by coil
and battery),equipped with rotary valves and a
float-fed
carburettor
(five
years
before
Maybach),and Ackermann steering, all of
which were state of the art at the time. Starting
was by compressed air. The engine was
liquid-cooled, with a radiator over the rear
driving wheel. Speed was controlled by means
of a throttle valve lever. No braking system was
fitted; the vehicle was stopped by raising and
lowering the rear driving wheel using a foot-
operated lever; the weight of the machine was
then borne by two small castor wheels. The driver
was seated between the front wheels. It wasn’t,
however, a commercial success, as Butler failed
to find sufficient financial backing.
Another early internal combustion, petroleum
fueled motorcycle was the Petroleum Reitwagen.
It was designed and built by the German inventors
Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad
Cannstatt, Germany in 1885. This vehicle was
unlike either the safety bicycles or the boneshaker
bicycles of the era in that it had zero degrees
of steering axis angle and no fork offset, and
thus did not use the principles of bicycle and
motorcycle dynamics developed nearly 70 years
earlier. Instead, it relied on two outrigger
wheels to remain upright while turning. The
inventors called their invention the Reitwagen
(“riding car”). It was designed as an expedient
testbed for their new engine, rather than a true
prototype vehicle.
First commercial products
In the decade from the late 1880s, dozens of
designs and machines emerged, particularly in
Germany and in England, and soon spread to
Vol 4 | Issue 2 |Mar - Apr 2019
America. During this early period of motorcycle
history there were many manufacturers, since bi-
cycle makers were adapting their designs for the
new internal combustion engine.
In 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the
first series production motorcycle, and the first
to be called a “motorcycle” (German: Motorrad).
However, only a few hundred examples of this
motorcycle were ever built. The first instance
of the term “motor cycle” also appears in
English the same year in materials promoting
machines developed by E.J. Pennington,
although Pennington’s motorcycles never
progressed past the prototype stage.
Excelsior
Motor
Company,
originally
a
bicycle-manufacturing company based in
Coventry in Warwickshire (England), began
production of their first motorcycle model in
1896, available for purchase by the public.
The first production motorcycle in the US was
the Orient-Aster, built by Charles Metz in 1898 at
his factory in Waltham, Massachusetts.
In 1898, Peugeot Motocycles presents at
the Paris Motorshow the first motorcycle
equipped
with
a
Dion-Bouton
motor.
Peugeot Motocycles remains the oldest
motorcycle manufacturer in the world.
In the early period of motorcycle history, many
producers of bicycles adapted their designs
to accommodate the new internal-combustion
engine. As the engines became more powerful
and designs outgrew the bicycle origins, the
number of motorcycle producers increased.
Many of the nineteenth-century inventors who
worked on early motorcycles often moved on to
other inventions. Daimler and Roper, for example,
both went on to develop automobiles. At the
turn of the 20th century the first major mass-
production firms emerged.
In 1901 English quadricycle and bicycle-mak-
er Royal Enfield introduced its first motorcycle,
with a 239 cc engine mounted in the front
and driving the rear wheel through a
belt. In 1898 English bicycle-maker Triumph
decided
to
extend
its
focus
to
include
motorcycles,
and
by
1902
the
company
had
produced
its
first motorcycle - a bicycle fitted with a
Belgian-built engine. A year later it was the
largest motorcycle-manufacturer, with an annual
production of over 500 units. Other British
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