128 years ago today Herr’s Wilhelm Maybach & Gottlieb Daimler took their internal combustion engined two wheeled contrivance to the patent office thus ensuring their place as the fathers of the motorcycle.

It was basically a boneshaker with stabilizing outriggers supporting their newly developed ‘grandfather clock’ single cylinder petrol engine, basically a test-bed for use in carriages and boats. It heralded a new age of transportation that wasn’t the commonly used but relatively inefficient steam engines and their hunger for coal which had ushered in the Industrial Revolution a century prior.

The original was destroyed by fire in the early 1900’s however reproduction illustrate its simple efficiency.

With zero rake and no trail the self balancing and gyroscopic marvel of the motorcycle we know today wasn’t experienced; but hey! You gotta start somewhere!

Any way: Happy Birthday Motorcycle! Daimler lives on as the parent company to Mercedes Benz, however the Maybach marque went defunct this year.