A Sylvester Roper 1894 - 1896 Steam Bike Replica. Roper was an automotive pioneer, and a brilliant inventor, who created and tested steam-powered vehicles running on two, three or four wheels. The first official two-wheeler was the Velocipede in 1867, which was powered by a Roper built 328cc steam engine. The rider controlled the Velocipede by rotating the handlebars forward to accelerate, and then backwards to press a lump of steel onto the front wheel, in order to bring the machine to a grindi