Reitwagen, the first bike
TActing Advertising Features Editor:
HE Daimler Reitwagen ‘riding wagon’ or Einspur ‘single track’ was a motor vehicle made by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1885 and is widely recognised as the first motorcycle.
Daimler is often called "the father of the motorcycle" because of this invention. Even when the three steam powered two wheelers that preceded the Reitwagen, the Michaux-Perreaux and Roper of 1867 to 1869, and the 1884 Copeland, are considered motorcycles, it remains nonetheless the first gasoline internal combustion motorcycle, and the forerunner of all vehicles, land, sea and air, that use this common engine type.
Mr Daimler's and Mr Maybach's next step was to install the engine in a test bed to prove the viability of their engine in a vehicle.
Their goal was to learn what the engine could do, and not to create a motorcycle; it was just that the engine prototype was not yet powerful enough for a full-size carriage.
The original design of 1884 used a belt drive, and twist grip on the handlebars which applied the brake when turned one way and tensioned the drive belt, applying power to the wheel, when turned the other way.
Roper's velocipede of the late 1860s used a similar two-way twist grip handlebar control.
The plans also called for steering linkage shafts that made two right angle bends connected with gears, but the actual working model used a simple handlebar without the twist grip or gear linkage. The design was patented on August 29, 1885.
Gottleib Daimler visited Paris in 1861 and saw the first internal combustion engine developed by Etienne Lenoir. In 1872 Daimler became the director of N.A. Otto & Cie the
E: world's largest engine manufacturer.
Otto's company had created the first successful gaseous fuel engine in 1864 and in 1876 finally succeeded in creating a compressed charge petroleum engine thanks to the directions of Daimler and his engineer friend Maybach.
Mr Daimler then left and took Maybach
P: with him. Together they moved to Cannstatt where they began work on a ‘high speed explosion engine’.
This goal was achieved in 1883 with the development of their first engine, a horizontal cylinder engine that ran on naphtha. The Otto engines were incapable of more than 200 rpm and had no throttle.
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Ana Madigibuli
amadigibuli@fijitimes.com.fj
330 4111
330 1521
Daimler's goal was to build an engine small enough to be used to power a wide range of transportation with a minimum rev speed of 600 rpm. This was realised with the 1883 engine.
The next year Daimler and Maybach developed a vertical cylinder model, known as the Grandfather Clock for obvious reasons, and achieved 900 rpm.
It had a float carburetor, intake valves which were opened by the suction of the piston, and hot tube ignition, which was a platinum tube running into the combustion chamber, heated by an external open flame.
There were twin flywheels and an aluminium crankcase. They attached the engine into a two wheeled test frame which was patented as the ‘Petroleum Reitwaen’ (Petroleum Riding Car) and so Daimler became the father of the automobile.
Mr Daimler's 17-year-old son, Paul, rode it first on November 18, 1885, on a five mile trip from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim. Alas, thanks to the open flame which heated the hot wire ignition, the seat caught fire.
And so presumably any observers of this historic excursion were treated to the sight of a rider with flames engulfing his lederhosen.
It is surprising that the whole foolish enterprise of the internal combustion engine ever managed to catch on.
By 1886 the Reitwagen was abandoned in favour of further development on four wheeled vehicles.