here is an interesting information that I found...
10th fatal creation Sylvester Roper can be classified as motorcycles and locomotives, although it is like a Bicycle. Creating it in 1894 Roper was detained by police for driving on it, but was released due to the absence of corpus delicti. It is believed that was created 2 such devices, one of them was listed in the Guinness book of records as the most expensive motorcycle sold at auction. The sum amounted to 325 thousand pounds in 2011. Motorcycle went on coal and, they say, was extremely dangerous. Steam engine could explode at any moment. Can this fact, and can speed of 40 miles per hour were the cause of the death of the inventor riding on it...a heart attack. For this reason, the machine became the FIRST in the list of road accident on a motorcycle.


     

Wambr and Serowbot, go to www.avvcc.org.nz and click on photo gallery there is a man in Hamilton NZ building replicas of the 1896 version and they work. The guy is apparently dyslexic with poor literacy, but by god is his craftsmanship beautiful. I tried to post the photo here a while ago, but there were too many kilobytes and I couldn't shrink the photo to fit

325,000 pounds and it comes with no chrome head covers? Geez! No thanks, I think I'll pass!