ay in
Wheeler Industry – Origin and Growth
A motorcycle, often called a bike, motorbike, or cycle, is a two-or three-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: long distance travel, commuting, cruising, sport including racing, and off-road riding. Motorcycling is riding a motorcycle and related social activity such as joining a motorcycle club and attending motorcycle rallies.
In 1894, Hildebrand &Wolf Muller became the pioneer of series production motorcycle, and the first to be called a motorcycle. In 2014, the three top motorcycle producers globally by volume were Honda, Yamaha and Hero MotoCorp -India.
Types
The term motorcycle has different legal definitions depending on jurisdiction. There are three major types of motorcycle: street, off-road, and dual purpose. Within these types, there are many sub-types of motorbikes for different purposes. There is often a racing counterpart to each type, such as road racing and street bikes, or motocross and dirt bikes.
Each configuration offers either specialized advantage or broad capability, and each design creates a vivid riding posture. In some countries, the use of pillions is restricted.
History
Experimentation and invention
The first internal combustion, petroleum fueled motorcycle was the Daimler Reitwagen. It was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Constant, Germany in 1885. These 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. It designed as an expedient tested for their new engine, rather than a true prototype vehicle. The first commercial design for a self-propelled cycle was a three-wheel design called the Butler Petrol Cycle, conceived of Edward Butler in England in 1884. He exhibited his thoughts for the vehicle at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1884. The vehicle was built by the Meriwether Fire Engine company in Greenwich, in 1888.
Many authorities have excluded steam powered, electric motorcycles or diesel-powered two-wheelers from the definition of a 'motorcycle', and credit the Daimler Reitwagen as the world's first motorcycle. Given the rapid rise in use of electric motorcycles worldwide, defining only internal-combustion powered two-wheelers as 'motorcycles' is increasingly problematic.
If a two-wheeled vehicle with steam propulsion is considered a motorcycle, then the first motorcycles built seem to be the French velocipede which patent application was filled in December 1868, constructed around the same time as the American Roper steam velocipede, built by Roper Massachusetts, who demonstrated his machine at fairs and circuses in the eastern U.S. in 1867, Roper built about 10 steam cars and cycles from the 1860s until his death in 1896.
Butler's Patent Velocycle
The first commercial design for a self-propelled cycle was a three-wheel design called the Butler Petrol Cycle, conceived of Edward Butler in England in 1884.He exhibited his plans for the vehicle at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1884. The vehicle was built by the Merry weather Fire Engine Company in Greenwich, in 1888.
Many authorities have excluded steam powered, electric motorcycles or diesel-powered two-wheelers from the definition of a 'motorcycle', and credit the Daimler Reitwagen as the world's first motorcycle. Given the rapid rise in use of electric motorcycles worldwide, defining only internal-combustion powered two-wheelers as 'motorcycles' is increasingly problematic.
If a two-wheeled vehicle with steam propulsion is considered a motorcycle, then the first motorcycles built seem to be the French Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede which patent appli here…