On This Day In History

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Sunday 20th September 1896

The first known motorcycle race took place when 8 riders raced the 139 miles from Paris to Nantes and back. The winner was M Chevalier on a Michelin-Dion averaging 22.61 mph.

There's some disagreement on what constitutes the first motorcycle, but it’s tough to argue that AMA Hall of Famer and Massachusetts resident Sylvester Roper’s original velocipede steamer of 1868 doesn’t rank as at least 50 percent of the first wave. (French father and son Pierre and Ernest Michaux built something similar a year or so earlier.) Roper’s steamcycle burned charcoal and rolled on wooden wheels, but a powered cycle it was, and if you buy the idea that a steam-powered two-wheeler was indeed a motorcycle (as many do), then these two — Roper and Michaux —beat Daimler and Maybach to the punch by more than a dozen years. Roper built several versions of his steamer over the years, the final iteration of 1896 (pictured) using a production-spec bicycle as a base. With each stoking of the coals, Roper’s bike would run for seven miles and reach speeds of 30 mph. While demonstrating it at a local bicycle race, the 73-year-old Roper is said to have died of a heart attack.