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Sometimes it is hard to believe that things that are familiar today once began with a single idea and the courage of a person who dared to embody it in metal and wood. This is what happened with the birth of the first motorcycle, which appeared thanks to the inventor Gottlieb Daimler. At the end of August 1885, he filed a patent application, and this day is considered to be the moment of birth of a new type of transport. At that time, no one could have imagined that a modest two-wheeled design with a small engine would become the basis of an entire industry, and for many generations of people - a symbol of freedom and desire for the road. 140 years later, the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart specially for the anniversary showed a working copy of this historical motorcycle at the Classics & Coffee exhibition, reminding us that even the greatest achievements begin with a simple step and a daring idea.
At that time, imagining an engine that was compact and suitable for individual movement was almost a fantastic idea. The patent of August 1886 secured Daimler's right to a device that would lead to many fundamental achievements in the future. He imagined the engine as soft and universal: on water, in the air, and on land. The following year, mobility was already evident with this engine - on a motorboat, and then on an airship. Thus, the simple desire to "move" turned into a large-scale engineering revolution.
When we read about the engine of that first motorcycle, we remember its simplicity and genius at the same time: a single-cylinder unit with a capacity of half a horsepower at 600 rpm, smilingly nicknamed "grandfather's watchmaker" by Daimler, as if inviting us to think about the fact that technology is not always frighteningly complex. Two levers - one metal to regulate the fuel mixture, the second wooden to activate the drive or brake - reminded us how closely man and technology were still connected at the time when the latter had not yet taken all control away from man. A small brass tank with a pump, placed behind the seat, served to heat the ignition tube - a detail that looks more like a vintage thing, but it contained the spark that ignited the path of motorization.
The drive itself was the embodiment of multifunctional simplicity: a leather belt, like a bridge between the old and the new, connected the crankshaft to the gearbox. Turning the belt between two pulleys of different diameters created two gear ratios - like two modes selected by hand, uniting the bicycle form with the engine. The wooden frame, the wheels with iron rims, the side supports - everything said that this was not a race, but an experiment born in the workshop, where the engineer and the metal meet face to face. Twelve kilometers per hour may seem hardly impressive today, but in 1885 it was a movement that changed the world, and Arnold's son's three-kilometer ride from Cannstatt to Untertürkheim and back was living proof that this machine works, and it can lead to new horizons.
The legend of the first motorcycle is not just a technological milestone, it is the beginning of a calling that the modern industry and its fans have not changed to this day. It left a feeling: a motorcycle is not just a means of transportation, it is a desire for the road, freedom, speed. When we stand next to a replica of that machine in the Mercedes-Benz Museum today, we feel the breath of engineering courage that was once born and still rolls forward, embodied in every detail of modern motorcycles, uniting us with those who first dared to invent mobility and freedom, tailoring the engine to the human hand, and not vice versa.