Real Steampunks

With New York Comic-Con happening this week, I decided to take a look at how nerdy reality can get. Nerds know Steampunk as a science-fiction aesthetic based on Victorian technology (hence the name). Most of the time, that means dressing up in top hats and corsets, or adding copper accents to laptops. Why stop there though?

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Connecticut Antique Machinery Association’s annual fall show, and saw the real steam locomotives, tractors, and other industrial machines that inspire Steampunk. I also found the perfect vehicle for a Steampunk hero: the steam-powered motorcycle.

Actually, I found two. First up is the wooden-wheeled Roper Steam Velocipede. Built in 1867, some claim it is the first motorcycle. Strictly speaking, it’s a bicycle with a steam engine, which explains its less-than-sleek looks.

What you see is what you get, though. A boiler between the wheels heats water, driving a piston attached to the rear wheel.

Like most good Steampunk characters, Sylvester Roper was an inventor and an adventurer. At age 12, he built a stationary steam engine, and he later patented the shotgun choke. Roper died while racing his bike along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1896. After clocking a 2:14 flying mile at 40 mph, he crashed the bike and was found dead, apparently of heart failure.

The second steam motorcycle was a backyard project instead of a pioneering experiment. The Hubbard Steam Cycle was built by Arthur “Bud” Hubbard in the early 1970s, decades after steam was replaced by the internal combustion engine.

Hubbard based his design on an article from the April 1918 issue of The Model Engineer and Electrician, marrying a 1956 Maico frame with a hand-built steam powertrain. A modern Steampunk artist couldn’t do better than this combination of intricate copper tubing, conventional motorcycle layout, and dirt bike-style wheels.

The Hubbard is functional, too. Like most modern motorcycles, it has a two-cylinder engine, but with direct drive instead of a transmission. The six-cubic inch engine only produces six horsepower, and it can operate continuously for two hours on one tank of water.

Machines like these are why I think Steampunk enthusiasts should spend more time around actual steam technology. Museums that preserve historic machines, like the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association, could use the patronage, and they could provide a little inspiration. Anyone dreaming up a fantastic Steampunk machine might want to make sure it doesn’t already exist.