Sylvester howard Roper was the first ever man to make a motorcycle back
in 1867. His motorcycle was steam powered so its not technically the
first motorcycle. The first gas powered motorcycle was invented by
Gottlieb Daimler back in 1885. < For more see the article below the next one> As you fill your gas tank for your next summer trip, ask yourself
how gas prices have reached current nosebleed levels. For many, the
easy answer is to curse the "greedy" oil companies. Consider for a
moment an alternative reason. Oil is a commodity and therefore is
subject to the laws of supply and demand. In the simplest of terms,
when demand begins to put pressure on supply, prices go up; simple Econ
101. In a supply-and-demand situation, there are really only two
options; lower demand or increase supply. I don't anticipate that the
demand for oil will decrease, as Americans love their cars and love to
drive. This leaves us with increasing the supply. I know there
are other fuel and energy alternatives, but none are mature enough or
as readily accessible as oil and its byproducts at the present time.
They may be in the future, but that doesn't help us out at the gas pump
today. While research and development of fuel and energy alternatives
will and must go forward, the supply of oil in the interim can be
increased and America has vast resources that can be tapped into today. Blocked in D.C. Investors Business Daily estimates
there are 1 trillion barrels of oil trapped in shale in the U.S. and
Canada. Retrieving just a 10th of it would quadruple our current oil
reserves. There is a pool of oil in the Gulf of Mexico that is
estimated to be as large as any in the Middle East. There is an equally
large pool believed to be in Alaska. The Chinese are attempting to tap into the Gulf oil supply by drilling
diagonally from Cuba. I wonder what environmental safeguards they are
using? The fact is that there are environmentally safe methods of
extracting oil from shale and drilling in both the Gulf and Alaska.
Congress, however, continues to block these efforts. Just last week,
the Senate voted to block any extraction from shale in Colorado. In
essence, they voted to make your trips to the gas station more
expensive, to make air travel more expensive, and to make heating your
home more expensive.
That's something to think about in an election year.
Hi All
As
you know I travel many thousands of miles a year on my motorcycle. It
is a sport that I enjoy very much and I strive for excellence and
safety in my performance every time I ride. I have found that, even
though I am a motorcyclist, I sometimes let distractions take my focus
from driving my car or work van. My promise to all is to improve my
focus while driving and to continue to work toward being a better
motorcyclist.
I have attached a document that I hope you will take a moment to read. It might help you save a motorcyclist's life, maybe mine.
Please
take a moment to read the attached document. If you are so inclined,
forward this to anyone you know who drives. Make copies and hand them
out, anything will help. For more information visit the AMA website or
the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
Burk Forsythe
QUICK TIPS:Ten Things All Car & Truck Drivers Should Know About Motorcycles
1. There are a lot more cars and trucks than motorcycles on the road, and some drivers don't "recognize" a motorcycle; they ignore it (usually unintentionally). Look for motorcycles, especially when checking traffic at an intersection.
2. Because of its small size, a motorcycle may look farther away than it is. It may also be difficult to judge a motorcycle’s speed. When checking traffic to turn at an intersection or into (or out of) a driveway, predict a motorcycle is closer than it looks.
3. Because of its small size, a motorcycle can be easily hidden in a car’s blind spots (door/roof pillars) or masked by objects or backgrounds outside a car (bushes, fences, bridges, etc). Take an extra moment to thoroughly check traffic, whether you're changing lanes or turning at intersections.
4. Because of its small size a motorcycle may seem to be moving faster than it really is. Don't assume all motorcyclists are speed demons.
5. Motorcyclists often slow by downshifting or merely rolling off the throttle, thus not activating the brake light. Allow more following distance, say 3 or 4 seconds. At intersections, predict a motorcyclist may slow down without visual warning.
6. Turn signals on a motorcycle usually are not self-canceling, thus some riders,(especially beginners) sometimes forget to turn them off after a turn or lane change. Make sure a motorcycle's signal is for real. 7. Motorcyclists often adjust position within a lane to be seen more easily and to minimize the effects of road debris, passing vehicles, and wind. Understand that motorcyclists adjust lane position for a purpose, not to be reckless or show off or to allow you to share the lane with them.
8. Maneuverability is one of a motorcycle's better characteristics, especially at slower speeds and with good road conditions, but don't expect a motorcyclist to always be able to dodge out of the way.
9. Stopping distance for motorcycles is nearly the same as for cars, but slippery pavement makes stopping quickly difficult. Allow more following distance behind a motorcycle because it can't always stop "on a dime."
10. When a motorcycle is in motion, don't think of it as motorcycle; think of it as a person. "Who invented the first motorcycle?" It seems like a simple question, but the answer is a bit complicated.
Motorcycles are descended from the "safety" bicycle, bicycles with
front and rear wheels of the same size, with a pedal crank mechanism to
drive the rear wheel. Those bicycles, in turn were descended from
high-wheel bicycles. The high-wheelers were descended from an early
type of push-bike, without pedals, propelled by the rider's feet
pushing against the ground. These appeared around 1800, used
iron-banded wagon wheels, and were called "bone-crushers," both for
their jarring ride, and their tendency to toss their riders.
Gottlieb Daimler (who later teamed
up with Karl Benz to form the Daimler-Benz Corporation) is credited
with building the first motorcycle in 1885, one wheel in the front and
one in the back, although it had a smaller spring-loaded outrigger
wheel on each side. It was constructed mostly of wood, with the wheels
being of the iron-banded wooden-spoked wagon-type, definitely a
"bone-crusher" chassis.
It was indeed powered by a single-cylinder Otto-cycle engine, and
may have had a spray-type carburetor. (Daimler's assistant, Wilhelm
Maybach was working on the invention of the spray carburetor at the
time).
If one counts two wheels with steam propulsion as being a
motorcycle, then the first one may have been American. One such machine
was demonstrated at fairs and circuses in the eastern US in 1867, built
by one Sylvester Howard Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts. There is an
existing example of a Roper machine, dated 1869. It's powered by a
charcoal-fired two-cylinder engine, whose connecting rods directly
drive a crank on the rear wheel. This machine predates the invention of
the safety bicycle by many years, so its chassis is also based on the
"bone-crusher" bike.
Most
of the development during this earliest of eras concentrated on three
and four-wheeled designs, since it was complex enough to get the
machines running without having to worry about them falling over. The
next really notable two-wheeler was the Millet of 1892. It used a
5-cylinder engine built as the hub of its rear wheel. The cylinders
rotated with the wheel, and its crankshaft constituted the rear axle.
The first really successful production two-wheeler though, was the
Hildebrand & Wolfmueller, patented in Munich in 1894. It had a
step-through frame, with its fuel tank mounted on the downtube. The
engine was a parallel-twin, mounted low on the frame, with its
cylinders going fore-and-aft. The connecting rods connected directly to
a crank on the rear axle, and instead of using heavy flywheels for
energy storage between cylinder-firing, it used a pair of stout elastic
bands, one on each side outboard of the cylinders, to help out on the
compression strokes. It was water-cooled, and a water tank/radiator built into the top of the rear fender.
In 1895, the French firm of DeDion-Buton built an engine that was to
make the mass production and common use of motorcycles possible. It was
a small, light, high revving four-stroke single, and used
battery-and-coil ignition, doing away with the troublesome hot-tube.
Bore and stroke figures of 50mm by 70mm gave a displacement of 138cc. A
total loss lubrication system was employed to drip oil into the
crankcase through a metering valve, which then sloshed around to
lubricate and cool components before dumping it on the ground via a
breather. DeDion-Buton used this 1/2 horsepower powerplant in roadgoing
trikes, but the engine was copied and used by everybody, including
Indian and Harley-Davidson in the U.S.
Although a gentleman named Pennington built some machines around
1895 (it's uncertain whether any of them actually ran), the first US
production motorcycle was the Orient-Aster, built by the Metz Company
in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1898. It used an Aster engine that was a
French-built copy of the DeDion-Buton, and predated Indian (1901) by
three years, and Harley-Davidson (1902) by four.
Site Created Sept 21, 06 In Memory of Dad-July 23, 06 Cancer, & Mathew-May 25, 07 KIA Taji Iraq
