<Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations . Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations . (February 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> The history of the motorcycle begins in the second half of the 19th century . Motorcycles are descended from the "safety bicycle," a bicycle with front and rear wheels of the same size and a pedal crank mechanism to drive the rear wheel . Despite some early landmarks in its development, the motorcycle lacks a rigid pedigree that can be traced back to a single idea or machine . Instead, the idea seems to have occurred to numerous engineers and inventors around Europe at around the same time . </P> <P> In the 1860s Pierre Michaux, a blacksmith in Paris, founded' Michaux et Cie' ("Michaux and company"), the first company to construct bicycles with pedals called a velocipede at the time, or "Michauline". The first steam powered motorcycle, the Michaux - Perreaux steam velocipede, can be traced to 1867, when Pierre's son Ernest Michaux fitted a small steam engine to one of the' velocipedes' . </P> <P> The design went to America when Pierre Lallement, a Michaux employee who also claimed to have developed the prototype in 1863, filed for the first bicycle patent with the US patent office in 1866 . In 1868 an American, Sylvester H. Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts developed a twin - cylinder steam velocipede, with a coal - fired boiler between the wheels . Roper's contribution to motorcycle development ended suddenly when he died demonstrating one of his machines in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 1, 1896 . </P>

Who was the first person to make a motorcycle