Intro To Motorcycles
Motorcycles started out in the 1800's as a bicycle with a steam engine to power it. Throughout the next 150 years, motorcycle innovation has made unbelievable breakthroughs in technology with motors, structural materials, and fuels. The world today uses motorcycles heavily for transportation and for other recreational uses.
How It All Began
Threshold 6
The very first attempt at building a self powered bicycle was accomplished in 1867 by Pierre Michaux and Louis-Guillaume Perreaux. It was a two wheeled, steam powered bicycle and only one was made. A British inventor Edward Butler, in 1887 designed and built the first self-propelled bicycle as a three wheeled design. This time the motor was a petroleum internal combustion engine. Through collective learning and past knowledge, we went from steam engines to internal combustion which helped the industry a lot.
The Roles Of Motorcycles
Motorcycles have been used for transportation, communicators rode them in WWI, in WWII they were used to transport troops to the battle quicker and more efficiently. More recently motorcycles are used in extreme sports like racing.
Different Styles Of Motorcycles
Threshold 5
There are many different styles of motorcycles with many different applications. Dirt bikes are for off road riding and navigating trails. Motocross bikes are for racing on dirt tracks. Motorcycles such as Harley-Davidson brand and other related models of motorcycles are used strictly for touring and some light traveling. Sport touring motorcycles can be used for commuting or for touring. Sport Motorcycles are used for racing on paved tracks. Scooters are meant for short commuting. We have made these different styles of motorcycles to fit to our needs and we have made them to what we want and our needs have and will change over time as we grow together as a world.
What Are Motorcycles Made Of?
Motorcycles are made of many different materials and these materials have evolved rapidly in the last 100 years. In the beginning motorcycle frames would be made out of wood and the tires were rarely rubber. Now almost every motorcycle's frame is made out of metal and the covers are plastic, they also now all use rubber tires.
New Elements
Threshold 3
The new kinds of elements used in motorcycles are mostly in the motors and in the frames of the motorcycles. When motorcycles first started out, the frames were made up of wood, and after that came heavy steel. What they did to fix this was, they melted down different types of metals together to make a lightweight but strong metal to build the frame out of. This would not be possible without the creation of elements and Earth collecting them. Another thing that drives these things are fossil fuels which power the motors that drive them. In order to make the gasoline, you need oil which is made by dead plant materials getting compressed over years in what used to be a marsh area for example. This takes many years to create but it can be used in making fuel for transportation.
How Motorcycles Have Grown
Threshold 9
At first people used motorcycles as a form of transportation, then when the first world war came, people used them to carry messages during the battle. After the war, people continued to ride for transportation and when world war two came, soldiers used them to ride into battle and could be dropped from helicopters and planes to be able to get anywhere they needed. New styles were made over the years and today they are used for transportation, for all kinds of racing, and law enforcement uses them. None of this would have been possible without collective learning to drive the idea of putting a motor on a bicycle and being able to ride it under it's own power.
Works Cited
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_motorcycle
- http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/394358/motorcycle
- http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/future.htm#1800s
- https://web.archive.org/web/20081229100156/http://www.triumph1.com/triumph_history.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20060323171048/http://startup.wsj.com/columnists/enterprise/20060125-michaels.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle