1894 Roper Steamer A Hall-of-Famer's last ride When 73-year-old
Sylvester Roper showed up at a local bicycle track in Boston
aboard this machine—a steam-powered motorcycle he invented—the
young bicycle racers just laughed. Here was this old man riding
a strange contraption who wanted to race the local hotshots
around the one-third-mile Charles River Park track. It wasn’t
until the race was on that they realized the old man had come up
with something truly amazing. On that day—June 1, 1896—Roper
took three laps, covering the distance in a little over two
minutes for an average speed of about 30 mph. Then he tried to
go even faster. After all, just a week earlier he had marked off
a mile on Dorchester Avenue and completed that with an average
speed of about 40 mph. The Boston Daily Globe reported the
tragic events that followed: “The machine was cutting out a
lively pace on the back stretch when the men seated near the
training quarters noticed the bicycle was unsteady,” the paper
said. “The forward wheel wobbl