Michaux-Perreaux steam velocipede
Some people say the Reitwagen was the first motorcycle because  its power generator is like the power generators in almost all later motorcycles that worked well.  Cameron said, "History follows things that succeed, not things that fail." Writer Glynn Ker ignored the Michaux-Perraux altogether. Ker says the Daimler Reitwagen is, "the predecessor of all gasoline-driven vehicles on land, sea, or air." He does not call it a true motorcycle, though, because it had to use two wheels that stuck out from the sides to keep from falling over, so it could not lean to the side the way modern motorcycles do. Kerr also says that that the Reitwagen was not as well designed as other vehicles Daimler and Maybach made. Daimler and Maybach were not interested in motorcycles at the time. They wanted to use the Motorwagen to test their engine. After they had developed it, they worked on building a four wheeled stagecoach, a hot air balloon, and a boat instead. David Burgess-Wise called the Daimler-Maybach test bed "a crude makeshift." He said, "as a bicycle, it was 20 years out of date."