Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede
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| Manufacturer | Pierre Michaux and Louis-Guillaume Perreaux |
|---|---|
| Production | 1867–1871 |
| Assembly | Paris, France |
| Class | Steam motorcycle |
| Engine | Single cylinder steam, 62 kg (137 lb) |
| Bore / stroke | 22 mm × 80 mm (0.87 in × 3.15 in) |
| Top speed | 9 mph (14 km/h) 19 mph (31 km/h) |
| Power | 1–2 hp (0.75–1.49 kW) |
| Transmission | Twin leather belts |
| Frame type | Diamond section, iron down tube |
| Suspension | Rigid, leaf sprung saddle |
| Brakes | None |
| Tires | Iron covered wood spoked rims |
| Weight | 87–88 kg (192–194 lb) (dry) |
The Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede was a steam powered velocipede made in France sometime from 1867 to 1871, when a small Louis-Guillaume Perreaux commercial steam engine was attached to a Pierre Michaux manufactured iron framed pedal bicycle. It is one of three motorcycles claimed to be the first motorcycle, along with the Roper steam velocipede of 1867 or 1868, and the internal combustion engine Daimler Reitwagen of 1885. Perreaux continued development of his steam cycle, and exhibited a tricycle version by 1884. The only Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede made, on loan from the Musée de l'Île-de-France, Sceaux, was the first machine viewers saw upon entering the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum rotunda in The Art of the Motorcycle exhibition in New York in 1998.
Motoring author L. J. K. Setright commented that, "the simplest way to define a motorcycle is as a bicycle propelled by a heat engine; and if we accept this we must go on to admit that its prototype is unidentifiable, shrouded in the mists of industrial antiquity." Both the Michaux-Perreaux and Roper machines have been assigned years of origin of 1867, 1868, and 1869 by different authorities, and which combination of these three years is given to the two steam motorcycles determines whether it was a tie, or whether one can be called the first.
Both steam cycles are rejected as the first motorcycle by other experts, such as Cycle World's Technical Editor Kevin Cameron, who either argue that a true motorcycle must use a gasoline internal combustion engine, or that the first motorcycle must use the same technology as the successful motorcycles that later went into mass production, and not a 'dead end'. They therefore give credit to Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler's 1885 Daimler Reitwagen.
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