Photo: Skoda
When we look at today’s high-powered motorcycles with sophisticated designs and digital connectivity, it’s hard to imagine what it must have felt like to ride some of the first motorcycles, more than 100 years ago. But there’s something impressive about the ingenuity of their build and their performance during the earliest races.
Add an engine and drive belt to a bicycle and you’ve got yourself a basic motorcycle. This is pretty much what Václav Laurin and Václav Klement did back in 1899, when they created the first L&K motorbikes, in Prague. More than 120 years later, these bikes would be celebrated as an essential part of the Skoda Motorsport brand’s history.
The 2 founders attached a 4-stroke single-cylinder engine to one of their proprietary bicycles, which they were already selling under the name of Slavia, and they placed it lower on the frame, so that it would be better protected. No clutch, no gearbox, just a long leather belt. And the whole thing had to be pushed to get the engine running. Doesn’t sound like something you would ride on for a race. And yet it that’s what happened next.
In 1901, 120 years to the day, Laurin & Klement had 2 motorcycles competing for the first time in the international race from Paris to Berlin. The standard version of the L&K Type B motorized two-wheelers had a maximum speed of 24.8 mph (40 kph) and their air-cooled 240cm3 single-cylinder engine delivered 1.75 hp (1.3 kW). And they were in for a rough ride.
Unpaved roads, nails, glass shards and all sorts of abrasive things made the 743 miles (1,196 km) route from Paris to Berlin even more challenging. Ten motorbikes and 3-wheelers raced in the same category, apart from the 110 cars divided in categories. Narcis Podsednícek, a senior supervisor at the L&K company, rode one of their bikes and made it through all of these obstacles, reaching the finish line on June 29, 1901.
The legend says that he was the winner, but because he arrived at night and there was some mix-up with the finish time documentation, some French tricycles were eventually declared the official winners. We’ll never know what really happened, but what remains true is that the 1901 motorbike race marked the beginning of multiple future wins in international races for what would later be known as Skoda Motorsport.
The 2 founders attached a 4-stroke single-cylinder engine to one of their proprietary bicycles, which they were already selling under the name of Slavia, and they placed it lower on the frame, so that it would be better protected. No clutch, no gearbox, just a long leather belt. And the whole thing had to be pushed to get the engine running. Doesn’t sound like something you would ride on for a race. And yet it that’s what happened next.
In 1901, 120 years to the day, Laurin & Klement had 2 motorcycles competing for the first time in the international race from Paris to Berlin. The standard version of the L&K Type B motorized two-wheelers had a maximum speed of 24.8 mph (40 kph) and their air-cooled 240cm3 single-cylinder engine delivered 1.75 hp (1.3 kW). And they were in for a rough ride.
Unpaved roads, nails, glass shards and all sorts of abrasive things made the 743 miles (1,196 km) route from Paris to Berlin even more challenging. Ten motorbikes and 3-wheelers raced in the same category, apart from the 110 cars divided in categories. Narcis Podsednícek, a senior supervisor at the L&K company, rode one of their bikes and made it through all of these obstacles, reaching the finish line on June 29, 1901.
The legend says that he was the winner, but because he arrived at night and there was some mix-up with the finish time documentation, some French tricycles were eventually declared the official winners. We’ll never know what really happened, but what remains true is that the 1901 motorbike race marked the beginning of multiple future wins in international races for what would later be known as Skoda Motorsport.
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