CHAPTER XIX
THE MOTOR CYCLE
A book dealing with the cycle industry must necessarily include some reference to the petrol propelled type of cycle which is now so common a feature of our roads. The two industries are also so closely allied that one hardly knows where one begins and the other leaves off.
Practically from the earliest time, when inventors turned their attention to mechanical propulsion on the road, it was the bicycle rather than the carriage on four
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Fig. 26
THE SPARKBROOK TWO-STROKE MOTOR CYCLE, FITTED WITH A VILLIERS ENGINE
The magneto is in the flywheel
wheels that they sought to provide with an engine. Thus it was that the earliest experiment with petrol propelled vehicles was an internal combustion engine fitted to a bicycle by Messrs. Daimler and Otto, in Germany, in 1886. Little was heard of this early trial because the Otto-Daimler engine was afterwards utilized and exploited for use on motor cars. In 1895 a weird motor bicycle appeared in Paris, made by two engineers named Wolfmuller and Geisenhof. This was the first
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