Who Invented The Motorcycle?
The motorcycle might commonly be defined as a "two- or three-wheeled motor vehicle steered by a handlebar from a saddle-style seat.", although there are multiple definitions from different sources.
Motorcycles have been around for a long time - so long that it's difficult to specifically credit any one person with having "invented the motorcycle", as many people's efforts combined over time to create the modern-day motorcycle.
Here are some of the names involved in developing what we now know as the motorcycle.
Pierre Michaux
Pierre Michaux was a French blacksmith and is credited with being the first person to build bicycles with pedals attached to them, calling it a "velocipede." His son, Ernest, had the idea to fit a small steam engine into a bicycle frame.
Can Pierre be credited with inventing the motorcycle? Probably not, he simply added pedals to an already existing design for what we now know as the bicycle. Could his son Ernest get the credit then? Possibly.
Along with the Roper steam velocipede of 1867 or 1868 and the internal combustion engine Daimler Reitwagen of 1885, Ernest built one of the three motorcycles that are credited with being the first.
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Edward Butler
In the late 1800s, British inventor Edward Butler created a three-wheeled vehicle powered by petrol, dubbed the "Butler Petrol Cycle." He used a four-stroke engine to power the rear wheel and a throttle valve on the handlebar to power it.
He is known by many as the first person to create the first petrol-engined tricycle in the world and is accepted by many as the first inventor of the modern-day car, unveiling his creation at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1884, a full two years before Karl Benz debuted his three-wheeled creation, which would go on to become the Benz Patent Motor Car.
Karl Benz along with Gottlieb Daimler is one of the founders of the Mercedes-Benz group.
Edward Butler cannot be credited with creating the first motorcycle, but he has a strong claim to being the first creator of the car.
E. J. Pennington
Edward Joel Pennington is known for his contributions towards motorcycling and is often known for being the inventor of the term "motorcycle," using it as early as 1893 when he founded the "Motor Cycle Company of Cleveland, Ohio," holding the rights to his patent for the motorcycle.
It's improbable that he invented the motorcycle, but it seems he did come up with the name for it, so he deserves some credit right?! [1]
Gottlieb Daimler
Daimler is dubbed by many as "the father of the motorcycle" and has this title because he created the first motorcycle powered by an internal combustion engine and, crucially, patenting it in 1885. [2]
He had spent years working to create an engine alongside Nicolaus Otto and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach. Otto and Maybach can be credited with developing the first four-stroke engine, along with French engineer Alphonse Beau de Rochas, who had designed and patented the engine 15 years earlier but never constructed one.
Daimler took the four-stroke engine concept and refined it, altering the ignition many times as electrical speeds improved and modifying the fueling, achieving large increases in RPM with each new design.
After Otto left, Maybach and Daimler continued to collaborate and developed a carburettor before scaling up the engine and placing it in a wooden frame with two wheels and two additional outrigger wheels, resulting in the first-ever internal combustion motorcycle. [3]
His engines scaled up and got more and more sophisticated as the years went by, eventually creating engines for automobiles and forming the "Daimler-Benz" company with Karl Benz, the company obviously now known as Mercedes-Benz.
Can Daimler be credited as being the first person to invent the motorcycle? Well, many people prior to him created motorcycles in their own ways by putting engines into bicycle frames; Daimler, however, was the first person to create a motorcycle very similar to the modernised vehicles we see today.
Sources
[1] - https://www.hemmings.com/stories/article/e-j-pennington
[2] - https://www.wired.com/2011/08/0830daimler-first-true-motorcycle/
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