Anthony+-

__**I chose motorcycles because i really like them and I've always wondered where, how, and who they were made by like Harley Davidson, the first steam powered bike when they were brought to America and how a lot of Harley's were made for the soldiers to send messages and travel fast during WWII so everything in here should be pretty interesting so i hope you like what you read. **__

**(In the 1860s a blacksmith from Paris)** founded the company that created the first bicycle and then his son made mad the first steam powered motorcycle in 1867.

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In 1868 an engineer from France came up with same steam power idea that also had an alcohol burner for it to run on.

**(The production of many)** other motorcycle designs started after several inventors made similar motorcycle ideas in 1881.

The motorcycle design is credited to gottlieb Daimler in 1885 but didn’t become popular until the 1900's.The first motorcycle that had wooden chassis invented by Nicolas august Otto and they added the engine to a bike and it became the first motorcycle.  The first motorcycle sales started up a few years after the blacksmith from Paris in the 1880s when they added a steam engine to one of the early boneshaker bicycle designs.

 In 1901 the Indian company designed a prototype motorcycle designed it and tested it and it worked. And that was the first motorcycle mad by the Indian motorcycle co. and they were sold to the public in 1902 and in

in 1905 the Indian company made their best motorcycle called the v-twin factory racer and in 1907 they built and introduced there street version of the v-twin, then in 1914 they founder set a new record with their new bike going across san Diego to new York in 11 days 12 hours and 10 minutes.  The bicycle was brought to the U.S. and an employee from the company claimed that he also came up the prototype for the bicycle in 1863 and in 1868 the first steam powered motorcycle was brought to the U.S. in 1903 when ford opened and when the wright brother first flew.

William Harley and Arthur and Walter Davidson created the Harley Davidson Company and gave bikes a quality engine so it could prove itself in races. They sold their first bike in Chicago and then another brother joined and in 1906 they moved there company to Milwaukee Wisconsin. In 1916 20,000 motorcycles were brought onto the war because they proved to be very useful for sending messages and had a sidecar that you could put a machine gun on it if needed.  Harley Davidson motorcycles were also used in WWII and they produce 88,000 and they were never sold outside of the war because only 1,000 were made and the motor company was awarded the Army-Navy "E" awards.  Motorcycles now days have automatic transmission, stereo, and storage space and there used a lot by police officers. People are using motorcycles more now because the making of them has become cheap, and now they have lightweight motorcycles and dirt bikes which have made people buy them even more .

 Motocross became popular in Europe in the 1950's. at tracks that were carved into the earth in Sweden, France, Germany and other places and with riders who competed in competitions in front of thousands of people. And the bikes they rode were not as complicated as the dirt bikes now days. And then in the 1960's they brought the sport to America and it became popular in no time.

__**<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">And that's my wiki on motorcycles i hope you liked reading my facts because it took forever to find out about how they were made, who they were made by, and when Harley Davidson was first established. and the pictures are actually what they used to look like and i thought that was pretty interesting. and i think it would be a lot cooler if some of them actually still had the same frame. **__

[], February, 18, 2012

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@http://www.bicyclehistory.net/motorcycle-history/history-of-motorcycle/

2010-2012 [|WordPress], @http://motorcycle-facts.com/,

2000–2012 http://factmonster.com,

http://www.tvrc.org

[|http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/Police_Motorcycles/police_history.jsp?locale=en_US], 2001-2012