Motorcycle History

From Powersports Information Wiki Source

Throughout the centuries man has striven to expand his capabilities through the use of machines. His ever inventive mind has constantly devised ways to use tools to increase his abilities to explore the world around him, to go faster, deeper, higher and further than before. Coupled with his need to find new thrills, new adventures and new modes of transportation, the invention and refinement of the motorcycle seems an inevitable outcome.

For me, the early years of the development of the motorcycle are especially fascinating as they hold of some of mans most bizarre experimental machinery. Before we get started on the history of the motorcycle itself, I feel a short review of it's predecessor, namely the bicycle, is in order, an invention without which the motor bicycle, as they were first called, may well have never come about.

It would seem that Michelangelo conceived of the bicycle as early as the 14th century and his drawing shows a remarkable resemblance to the modern day bike. It had wheels of similar size and even pedals and a leather "chain", albeit without any apparent means of steering.

Though never built, it was a remarkably cleaver design, and early bicycle makers would have done well to study his concepts. There have, in fact, been 4 machines built based on his drawing, attesting to the viability of his design.

The first attempt at actually producing any sort of 2 wheeled conveyance fell on the shoulders of one Comte de Sivrac in the late 1791, though hardy a bicycle as we understand the meaning today. It was crude affair made entirely of wood with no pedals, brakes or even steering. This early machine was referred to as a hobbyhorse and was considered nothing more than a curiosity, or rich mans folly, an attitude that remained for a number of years, until the late 1800's. A person simply sat upon it and pushed it along with their feet in a sort of gliding walk.

Then in 1816-17 (depending on the source) Baron van Drais revised the concept to include a steerable front wheel, but his machine still lacked pedals or brakes, so was not much of an improvement.

Weighing some 50 pounds it was not much better than walking and I for one wouldn't have wanted to try it on any sort of hill, either going up or down! The lack of comfort and condition of the roads at the time gave rise to the term "boneshaker" which stuck with two wheeled vehicles for some time.

Then in 1869 some inventive person named William van Anden in New York added pedals directly to the front wheel, now at last we approach what can be called by modern terms, a bicycle. It also had free-wheeling pedals that allowed the wheel to turn while the pedals remained stationary and had a friction brake on the rear wheel operated by twisting one of the hand grips. Oddly enough these innovations did not appear on many other machines for quite some time.

It quickly became apparent however that the only way to increase speed or distance traveled per rotation of the pedals was to increase the size of the front wheel, leading to what became known as the High Wheeler.

Unfortunately because of the high center of gravity and forward position of the rider, not only was some skill required to mount and dismount this contraption, but should the front wheel suddenly stop, the rider was thrown forward on his head, thus giving rise to the term "Taking a Header".

To overcome this difficulty, the small wheel was moved to the front giving rise to the High Wheeled "Safety" bicycle.

Because of the difficulty in riding a high wheeler with the style of skirts worn by women at the turn of the century they were mostly confined to three wheelers specifically designed with them in mind.

It was not until the very late 1800's that the chain was invented and metallurgy became refined enough to allow the manufacture of one light enough for human powered machines. Along with brakes, pedals and air-filled tires this became the standard and the true safety bicycle came into being. As bicycling became more popular, women, as well as men, began to enjoy the sport more often and many historians credit this new sport with liberating women from the attire of the time, the full skirts, bustier and other such clothing, that limited their ability to enjoy this new form of transportation. It is also credited with the advent of the "bloomer", thus allowing women to ride without showing too much leg.

So now, after nearly 400 years, bicycles returned to the original configuration that Michelangelo had originally envisioned, with a few improvements along the way!

Now that we've looked at the precursor to the motorcycle lets turn our attention to the first motor bicycles.

Curiously enough the first attempts to motorize a two wheeled vehicle were made before the high wheeler had been replaced by the modern safety bicycle, thus explaining why the first motor bicycles had a much larger front wheel, with one exception. In 1818 an attempt was made to fit a steam engine to a Drasiane hobbyhorse (see above) which had two similar sized wheels. This however, did not succeed in capturing a market, as can well be imagined when looking at the picture below of the Vocipedraisiavaporianna, and I therefore only mention it in passing.

It wasn't until 1869 that the first serious attempts were made to produce motor driven bicycles. These very first were powered by steam, and driven by leather belts or as in the case of the Roper Steam Velocipede of 1869, by a system of levers attached to a crank on the driven wheel. At the same time these early two wheelers were being developed, three and four wheeled pedal powered vehicles were being modified to accept engines to create self-propelled vehicles. Although these 3 and 4 wheelers are not motorcycles in the true sense, they were directly involved in development of the motorcycle so I will include them here. All of these early attempts were based on vehicles currently available, with the exception of Ropers' steam driven design, to which motors of one kind or another were being attached. It wasn't until several years later that Gottlieb Daimler designed the Daimler and the first true motorcycle was produced, in that the entire machine, including frame, engine, and wheels, was built specifically for motorized use and was powered by an internal combustion engine. Although still made entirely of wood, and having small outrigger wheels, most motorcycle historian seem to be in agreement that this indeed was the first true motor bicycle.

Besides the need for a reliable power plant, frame geometry, (Stanley, 1886), pneumatic tires (Dunlop, 1888 and Michelin, 1895), roller chains, (Renold, 1880) were needed to be able to produce a fully functional motorcycle that could provide (relatively) reliable two wheeled transportation, be mass produced and sold to the public with some hope of success. The problem of the power plant was solved as early as 1876 by Nikolaus Otto, who based his design of an internal combustion engine by Alphonse Beau de Rochas from 1862. As these various aspects were being resolved almost simultaneously, the motorcycle was taking shape in numerous ingenious minds of the time both in the US and aboard. Keeping in mind that since the first attempts were made prior the advent of such inventions as mentioned above and given the condition of the roads of the time, these early machine were extremely uncomfortable to ride, thus perpetrating the name "bone shakers" as was often used to refer to early bicycles. Not only were some made of wood, but the wheels were solid wood or metal much like wagon wheels, and none had any sort of suspension system.

In order to better reconstruct the various attempts at building the first motor powered bicycles a timeline of the early machines seems appropriate here.

A TimeLine of motor cycles through 1900

1818 Vocipedraisiavaporianna

This curious contraction was supposedly built in 1818 and is shown in this French print under testing in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on April 5 of that year, thou actually invented in Germany. This print is from the collection of the Science Museum in London. It was a Drasine hobby horse being powered by a steam turbine engine in both front and rear wheels. It would appear to be somewhat top heavy, and never made it into production, which is probably just as well!

1816 Cynophère, France

While this could hardly be considered a motorcycle I couldn't resist including this wonderful contraption. It does, after all, possess the feature of having a fully self-contained power source, reminds one of the old "squirrels in a cage" concept.

1868-69 The Michaux-Perreaux Steam Velocipede, Germany

This, to me, is a truly elegant machine. Build on the Michaux "boneshaker" bicycle, the frame was modified and seat raised to allow room for the Perraux steam engine and pulleys and drive belts were added to power the rear wheel. Note that the front pedals were retained. He also built a tricycle version based again on one of his own designs

1869 W. W. Austin, USA

This seems to be a reverse of the one above utilizing the high wheeled "safety" bicycle as the large driven wheel is in the rear. I was unable to find much information on this machine other than on a French web site, which is curious as this supposedly was an American design. It had a two cylinder steam engine, and used a system of pulleys mounted just in front of the handle bars, to transfer power to the rear wheel.

1869 The Roper Steam Velocipede. United States

Here again is a steam powered motor bicycle, this one however is notable due to the fact that like the early Daimler it had controls mounted on the handle bars in the form of twist grips like today's motorcycles.

1877 Daimler-Maybach, France

This is reputed to be the first version of Mr. G. Daimler motor bicycle. This again is from a French site and the best translation I could come up with for the caption is quoted below.

"IT had a limited autonomy, but accomplishes anyway traverses it Paris to German Saint (15 Km) to the speed of 15km/h. The tricycles to vapor of Meek in 1877, of Parkyns and Paterman in 1881 itself (in violation) with the law. Parkyns, was condemned for dangerous driven in 1865. In fact, the laws stipulated that the vehicles to (with) motors did not (could not) have to surpass the speed of 6 km/h on road and 3 km/h in city. In addition, the machine had to be driven by at least two persons, more a third one that had to walk in front of this one to a group of around fifty meters while brandishing a red flag to warn of his arrival !!!!!!!!!!!! "

It further states that at the time, if one went faster than a horse at trot one was libel to be arrested! This was known as the English "Road" or "Locomotive" Act which was repelled toward the end of the century. These sort of laws were common in the US for a time as well. My favorite is one that stated that should a motor driven vehicle encounter a horse drawn carriage and spook the horse, the operator of said vehicle had to disassemble it to the point that the horse was no longer shy of it, allow the horse to proceed some yards past, and only then could he reassembly the vehicle. Seems they didn't like us any more back then than now!

1880 The Long Steam Tricycle. United States

Built by George A Long and patented in 1882 this is can been seen in the Smithsonian Museum in DC. It was dismantled after some years of use and then in 1946 Mr. J. H. Bacon collected the parts together once again and put it back into working order. He later gave it, as well as Ropers' Steam cycle, to the museum.

1881 The Parkyns-Bateman Steam Tricycle. England

This featured a two cylinder double-acting steam engine attached to a Cheylesmore pedal tricycle. Since it was fired by petroleum, it could be considered as having the first "gasoline" fueled engine, though it was not an internal combustion engine. The laws of England being what they were at the time (see above note on the Daimler-Maybach) prevented this from becoming a financial success.

1885 The Daimler, Europe

This is considered by many as the first true motorcycle or motor bicycle, as it was the first to employ an internal combustion engine and was designed from the ground up to be motor powered. Designed by Gottlieb Daimler it was powered by an Otto-cycle engine producing about ½ horse power. Note this design again employed wooden wheels and Daimler dropped the twist grip controls from his 1877 design in favor of leavers on the frame.

1892 The five cylinder Millet, France

The interesting feature of this machine was the five cylinder rotary engine mounted in the rear wheel. The cylinders turned along with the wheel while the crank was stationary. This was not the last time that such a motor was used in a motorcycle, although the next one to use this design had the motor mounted in the front wheel.

1894 Hilderbrand and Wolfmuller, France

Worlds first production motorcycle. It came with a 1428 cc water cooled four-stroke motor producing 2.5 bhp. and a top speed of 25 mph. The motor was parallel twin with one forward piston and one rearward with the connecting rods running to a crank mounted on the rear wheel. Instead of using a flywheel to store energy between firings, it used large elastic cords, one each outbound of the pistons. It was first made in France under license for one year under the name Petrolette and remained in production until 1997.

1898 Orient-Aster, USA

The first American made production motorcycle was this entry built by the Metz Company, in Waltham, Mass. It used an Aster engine that was a French copy of the DeDion-Burton, reportedly the forerunner of all motorcycle engines. It predates Indian by 3 years and Harley-Davidson by four, both of which first used engines based on DeDion-Burton design. Note also the location of the engine which was mounted in the lower part of the frame where it has remained to this day (with a few exceptions) and is chain driven, another feature which remain in use to this day.

The Otto Cycle

In this second article of the series I'd like to delve into the development of the internal combustion engine on which motor vehicles of any kind, and motorcycles in particular are so dependant. Rather than bore you with the technical details of the inner workings of 4-stroke, 2-stroke and rotary designs, which many of us may already be familiar with, I would like to concentrate on the history of the internal combustion engine's early development and some of the folks that helped create it and thus start the whole transportation revolution of the 20th century. While some of the first motors used a 2-stroke design, the 4-stroke engine received the majority of the effort to design a compact internal combustion engine, even though the 2-stroke is a much simpler engine incorporating nearly one third fewer parts. There just didn't seem to be much interest in two stroke engines and most early motorcycles utilized the more "popular" four strokes.

In researching IC or "Internal Combustion" engines I found that even today the four stroke engine is often referred to as the Otto Cycle, named after Nicholas Otto, the man whom many give credit to for the first successful design. While engines have become much more sophisticated over the years and their power, performance, endurance and efficiency have been greatly improved giving us a much wider range of transportation choices, the basic operating principle remains unchanged.

Yet no matter what type of engine used in motorcycles, two-stroke four-stroke, or rotary, they all fall under the broader category known as "Heat Engines". A heat engine is one that derives it's motive power through the transfer of or creation of heat. All heat engines share this common factor, fuel in one form or another is burned to produce heat, which in turn causes the expansion of a gaseous or vaporized fuel/air mixture that pushes on a piston, or rotor (in a rotary engine), which in turn transmits it's power through some kind of drive mechanism to one or more wheels and thus propels the motorcycle along the ground. For those curious about heat engines and would like to learn more about various other designs, here is an excellent site with animations of the numerous design possibilities.

In researching the history of the IC engine, I found that just like the bicycle, the history of this invention dates much farther back in time that I had at first thought. As far back as 1680 a Dutch physicist named Christian Huygens first experimented with such an engine. Then in 1860 Mr. Lenior developed the first self-sustaining internal combustion engine, which used coal gas its power source. This engine used a "double-acting" piston that had two combustion chambers, one at each end of the piston. It incorporated sliding valves along the length of the piston chamber to regulate the opening and closing of the ports that allowed for the intake and exhaust of the coal gas/air mixture. A system much like the typical steam engine. It also used a battery and coil ignition system to provide the spark to ignite the gas. However due to it's large size, its dependence on coal gas and other factors, it was not practical for use in a vehicle, and was designed for stationary use, such as to drive machinery in a factory. Also since it used coal gas, it was designed to be connected to a furnace that heated the coal to produce the gas on which it ran. Note here that when I refer to "gas" I am referring to a fuel in a gaseous state, not "gasoline" or other liquid form. The importance of this is that at the time of the first IC engines, petroleum had not yet been "cracked" or broken down into it's constituent parts, and liquid fuel such as we now use was not yet available. Until Abraham Shreiner, a Jewish chemist working in southern Poland successfully refined petroleum, the internal combustion engine was dependent on a gaseous from of fuel. Such a configuration was not easily adaptable to motive use.

In 1862 a French scientist patented, but did not build, a four-stroke engine. Again this was designed to use gaseous fuel, as apposed to a liquefied fuel. Sixteen years later, in 1876 Mr. Nicholas Otto, a traveling salesman, developed an internal combustion engine based on the work of Mr. Lenoir. His first machines were in fact two-stroke designs, though he never made any headway on these for a number of reasons. His later designs, due mostly to the efforts of Mr. Daimler (who designed the wooden motorcycle seen in the last article) and others in Mr. Otto's employ, are credited as being the first fully function engines capable of sustained and controlled operation for use in a non-stationary application. Or so the majority of historical records would seem to indicate. However, upon doing further research I found at least one reference that seems to dispute this. According this version of history, not only was it Mr. Daimler, while working for Otto, then later on his own, who was mainly responsible for the development and design of the Otto Cycle engine, but it also states that Mr. Otto was not really a designer or inventor himself, he simply saw the possibilities of such devices and provided the funds for others work.

Furthermore, in this version of the history of internal combustion engine design, it gives credit to one Siegfried Marcus as actually having developed the first fully operational IC engine incorporating not only the use of a liquid fuel, but also a "spray" carburetor, as apposed to a evaporation carburetor and battery and coil ignition system, as opposed to a "flame" ignition system, used by several other inventors of the time. These three factors allowed for a design that was compact enough for mobile use and also allowed for a means of controlling the speed of the engine, while most other designs of the time worked well only for running the engine at a single RPM. Useful for stationary machinery, but not practical for transportation. I have included the link here for those who wish to pursue this further, it is quite lengthy and very detailed and appears to be quite authentic.

So then, who to believe? I conjecture that there is most likely some truth to both accounts, that many developments were done in parallel, with a generous intermixture within each from others work, and feel I would have been remiss in my own retelling to not have included such compelling documentation as is presented in the work linked above. Flame Ignition and other Matters

I mentioned "flame" ignition a moment ago so lets take at look at this while you're still wondering about this. You are still wondering about this, right?

In the early days of the development of the IC engine electricity was still in it's infancy. In order to use an electrical spark to ignite the fuel mixture through the use of a spark plug, the current has to be strong enough and timing be reliable enough to properly do the job of providing ignition. It also had to occur at the right point in time to be effective, to soon before compression or to late afterwards and the exploding gases would have little, or even a detrimental, effect on the operation of the engine. Thus some form of timing device was required. The next requirement for electric ignition using a spark plug is a coil to produce a high tension discharge to the fuel in the combustion chamber, preferably without delivering the same electric charge to the operator! Remember from the last article, the development of rubber was not till very late in the 19th century and thus still a few years away. So they had the problem of isolating the current running though the wire from the coil to the plug to prevent shocking the operator. And without proper ceramics technology to isolate the spark plug from the motor housing, you have the same problem. Furthermore batteries of the time were not terribly powerful, so that too was something of problem. Thus a high tension discharge to a sparking device in the engine would be transmitted through the engine and any adjoining metal parts, without proper insulation of both wiring and spark plug. So, while the timing issue was easily solved by mechanical means, the high tension ignition system had to await the advent of rubber and ceramic insulation near the turn of the century. While several attempts were made with electric spark, a more reliable form of ignition in the early days of IC engines was to have a sliding valve that would trap a small amount of the fuel mixture, expose it to an open flame, then continue on to the combustion chamber where the small amount of burning fuel inside the sliding valve would ignite the remaining mixture. This may have worked well on the stationary engines of the time but was hardly practical on a motorcycle or other moving vehicle. So, until the development of a workable high tension ignition system using points, coil and spark plug, a number of engines used a low tension coil ignition system wherein the points themselves were internal to the combustion chamber. Thus you only needed a fairly low current, derived from either a battery or magneto, and very little insulation, with the spark from the opening of the points themselves providing the means to ignite the fuel.

As discussed earlier, while the earliest engines used coal gas as fuel, this was not practical for mobile use since you needed a rather large container to store it in, or would have to take along a separate device, known as a gas generator, a rather bulky device in it's own right, to create the fuel to power the vehicle. These gas generators themselves needed an additional fuel source to heat the coal to produce the goal gas, making for additional weight and size, again hardly practical for mobile use! Nor was there any means of delivering it in a manor that allowed for controlled regulation.

Once liquid petroleum was cracked, or broken down to such fuels as benzene (one of the first fuels used) and gasoline, there was the problem of vaporizing the liquid fuel, as it would not burn in it's liquefied state. The first carburetors where known as "evaporation" carburetors. These employed a method of vaporizing the fuel by drawing air across the surface of the liquid. Again this may have been adequate for stationary engines but once you put the vehicle in motion, the fuel would slosh around and controlling the mixture was nearly impossible. There was really no means to meter it, you just "took it as it came" so to speak. While this was first used until the invention of the spray carburetor, engine design was limited to very low power, single speed applications and thus not practical for vehicular use. Since regulating the speed of the engine was dependant on controlling the fuel rate, something better was needed. Imagine riding a motorbike with only one speed? The advent of a "spray" carburetor, such is used to today, which vaporizes the liquid fuel, allowed for controlled variations in amount of fuel and fuel/air mixture ratios and thus changes in RPM of the engine.

As these problems were resolved and higher RPM's were achieved other problems came into play. Most notably the need to advance the spark as the RPM's went up. This was necessitated by the fact that fuel burns at a constant rate, if it is ignited too late the piston is already passed the point of maximum compression and the further down the piston is at the time of maximum burn, the less effective the power stroke. Therefore a way had to be devised wherein the point of ignition could be advanced to start the burning process earlier in the compression stroke the faster the piston traveled. On most early machines this was done through the use of a manual advance, you will see many early machines with one or more additional leavers compared today's machines. One of these was a manual advance that was adjusted "on the fly" by the operator.

As you can see, there were a number of factors that had to be overcome before the IC engine became practical for use in other than stationary applications.

By the year 1900, these obstacles had been mostly overcome. And while some systems still employed aspects of the recently outdated technology of the previous century, the Wright Brothers for instance, used an engine that employed internal-spark ignition and evaporation carburetors on their early flying machines, the development of the engine that powers the motorcycle was well on it's way. Thus, by the turn of the 20th century the basic layout and operation of the motorcycle was much as we see it today, with the emphasis on Basic!

And now, for a sampling of coming attractions I leave you with these examples of a few of the early 1900's entrees into the world of motorcycling. A sampling of early machines

Within a few years of the turn of the 20th century, there were quite a number of motorbikes being offered to the public. While multi-speed transmissions and electric headlights were some years away, the choices being offered for sale continued to rise each year. These early machines were, for the most part, very low power, low compression engines. From what I have been able gather starting was merely a matter of peddling the machine, flipping a switch to close the electric circuits for the spark and you were on your way. While I have seen some references to a centrifugal clutch while researching early motorcycle engine designs I am still not clear if this was in common practice on the earliest machines. From studying the pictures, it would appear that most were direct drive, when the machine came to rest, the engine would die. The peddles were also required to provide additional thrust when encountering hills, as these machine had such limited power. You will probably also notice that most had a stand that propped the rear wheel off the ground, this, I assume, allowed for starting the machine while stationary, then raising the stand to embark upon the days adventure. And what an adventure riding those early machines must have been!

Here, for instance we have a wonderful entry from 1901 built by NSU

These had a motor rated at 1.5 horses clipped to the down tube of one NSU's early bicycles. Engine displacement was under 500 cc and was built by Zedel, a Swiss company that manufactured motors based on the DeBion-Burton design. The initials NSU stood for Neckarsulm Strickmaschinen Union (Neckarsulm Knitting-machine Union), quite a mouthful, not surprising that they soon adopted the use of just the initials NSU.

Another offering in 1901 included the first Indian motorcycle.

This was a small displacement machine of 260cc, featuring a single speed chain drive. Only three were produced that year by George Hendee and Carl Oscar Hedstrom, two of which were offered for sale, the third being the prototype itself.

In the year 1903 this FN (Fabrique Nationale) incorporating a 188 cc, 2 hp engine using a Bosch Magneto and featuring a carbide headlamp was introduced. Produced in Belgium, this company produced machines from 1901 to 1905.

1903 was, of course, the first year that Harley Davidson introduced it's line of motorcycles. Like NSU there were three built during first year.

This had a single cylinder motor with 3-1/8 bore and 3-1/2 stroke, used a belt drive and was designed as a racing machine. 21 Year old William S. Harley and 20 year old Arthur Davidson built these first machines in 10 x 15 wooden shed, to be later joined by Arthur's brother, Walter.

Jumping ahead to 1905 we find this 4 cylinder entry, again for Belgium, the 1905 FN Four. Boasting a whopping 5 hp, it's 360cc four cylinder engine and shaft drive represented a first in several aspects.

Early Racing

Another aspect of the history of motorcycles that I would like to cover is the evolution of motorcycle racing during the early years. As one writer suggested the first race probably occurred the very first time two motorcyclist happened upon each on the road while out for a spin. While not the first official race, I can just imagine those two brave souls astride their pride and joy, and then, after a moment of eying each others machines and wondering which was the fastest, twisting the throttle wide open to go roaring off down the road, reaching a speed several times faster than any horse! Given the first machines, their lack of suspension, and the conditions of the roads at the time, I'm sure it must have been a most exhilarating experience!

History of motorcycles Photo by Daniel K. Statnekov

As for recorded events the records are somewhat clearer, though here again we find an area of history that has more than a single claim as to where and when the first race involving just motorcycles took place. From the site of Motorcycle.com we find this in an article by Glenn Le Santo, "The earliest claim I unearthed was at Sheen House, Richmond, Surrey, [England] on November 29, 1897. The race distance was over one mile and was won by Charles Jarrot in a time of 2 minutes and 8 seconds on a Fournier." Prior to that there was the European Paris-Rouen event where both cars and motorcycles raced side by side as early as 1894, though the motorcycles involved were mostly three wheelers. As with most of the early racing accident rates were very high for both cars and motorcycles, safety devices or apparel unheard of, and the races were as much a test of shear endurance of machine and operator as they were of speed and/or distance.

In 1904 during the Paris Car and Bike Show, there occurred the first meeting of the Federation Internationale de Motorcycles Clubs and it agreed to base its operation in Paris. The first European Grand Prix was held a few years later in Patzau, Austro-Hungary on July 8, 1906.

In America motorized racing was also being introduced. On June 1, 1896 Sylvester Roper showed up at a bicycle board track riding a one of his steam powered two-wheelers. When the young racers discovered it was Mr. Ropers intention to race this contraption on the indoor 1/3 mile track against the bicyclists they just laughed. Imagine a 73 year old man aboard this outlandish machine claiming to not only be able to keep pace with them, but to actually win. So the race was on and at the end of the three lap event Sylvester not only bested the other racers but did so at a pace of some 30 miles an hour. He then tried for even faster speeds, but unfortunately the front wheel started to come loose and he was thrown off the track and into the sand surrounding it. When the spectators rushed up it became evident that Mr. Roper was dead. It was later determined that he had died of heart failure, not as a result of the accident itself. Thus ended the first entry of a motor bicycle in American racing history.

Right around the turn of the century Charles H. Metz, president of Waltham Enterprises began experimenting with a motorized tandem trainer for pacing his team of bicycle racers. Encouraged by his success he soon developed a commercial one-man motor bicycle which he introduced at the Charles River Race Track in July of 1900. He entered his "Orient" in what was to be the first recorded motorcycle speed contest and it turned in a time of 7 minutes for a 5 mile run. Soon the Orient appeared for sale to the public and quickly gain popularity.

History of motorcycles Photo by Daniel K. Statnekov

A little less than a year after the introduction of the Orient, the first American motorcycle only race took place in May of 1901 at a 1 mile horse racing track in Las Angeles. Ralph Hamlin aboard an Orient won the completion against 3 other entries by completing the 10 lap race in 18 and half minutes. A very respectable time considering the track conditions and technology of the times.

In May of the following year the first road race took place in the US between Irvington and Milburn NJ with an Orient again winning with an average speed of 31 mph. By this time motorized two-wheelers were cropping up everywhere and racing was well on it's way to claiming a larger and larger audience. In the same year Glenn H. Curtiss, later of airplane engine fame, made a name for himself by turning in the fastest time at a Labor Day race in NY on a machine of his own design and build. History of motorcycles Photo by Daniel K. Statnekov

He then gained additional notoriety by winning the first American hill climb, and setting a land speed record Providence RI at 63.8 mph over a one mile course. His greatest claim to fame came in 1907 when he set a land speed record of 136.36 mph on Ormond beach, FL on an experiential 8 cylinder, shaft driven motorcycle. Unfortunately he failed to set an "official" record as the rear drive broke apart on the return run. None the less his record stood for some years. With the ever growing popularity of motor sport racing, both 4 and 2 wheeled, a number of road racing events sprang up across the country. These mostly consisted of distance races between cities using public roads. As a consequence of its popularity, more and more manufacturers begin designing and building machines specifically for the racing circuit. This naturally lead to many improvements in motorcycles, which in turn found their way into the machines built for the general public. History of motorcycles Photo a still from only known film of board track racing still existing, dates from 1919-20 from http://www.daheim.com/indian/

Prior to road racing on private courses and while public roads were still being used, board tracks were also gaining popularity among the motorcycle racing fans. Although originally designed for bicycle racing they lent themselves well to the first motorcycle races in the US. While the early races were held on the "standard" bicycle tracks, as the speed of motorcycles increased larger and sturdier tracks were built for the motor circuit. The first of these was opened in 1909 in LA by John S. Prince and was named the Coliseum Motordrome. At 3.5 laps per mile it was twice as long as the standard bicycle track or Velodrome (named after the first bicycle) and could accommodate higher speeds and more machines per race than was previously possible on the Velodrome tracks.

As more and more motordromes began to spring up around the country the American public went wild at the spectacle of men racing at break neck speeds on two wheels. The machines being designed for board tracks lacked brakes or throttles, and were meant to be run flat out at full throttle for the entire course, thus adding to the already present element of danger. It is thus not surprising that these early racers where considered to be such dare devils! Unfortunately, as speeds increased so did rider fatalities and several motordromes were closed by local and state officials.

One of the first measured course races in the US took place through the streets of Venice, CA. As it, and other measured courses races gained popularity, companies such as Harley Davidson began to sponsor racing teams to promote their products, and soon road racing started coming into it's own. Prior to this, most road races where more in the form of "endurance" races between distant cities, some being 400 or more miles. As competition became more and more fierce the major motorcycle companies began to spend significant amounts of money in an effort to build ever faster machines for the racing circuit. In the 1915 event, at Venice, CA., then promoted by Paul "Dare Devil" Durkum, the course included not only standard road surfaces, but also wooden banked turns he designed specifically for the race.

Dirt track, or speedway, racing was also gaining some popularity, though they seem to have been limited at first mostly to fair grounds. There does not seem to have been the popularity for this form of racing as with board track, which seems to have enjoyed the greatest following in the early years of racing. No doubt there were any number of unofficial races held throughout the country, and certainly the popularity of country fairs in those days would have lent themselves to these "amateur" races. When the Federation of American Motorcyclist formed, they became the regulatory agency for racing in the US, just as the FIM was in Europe and The FAM, forerunner of the AMA, began to sponsor many of the events.

Meanwhile back in Europe, the Isle of Man TT race was becoming ever popular. By 1910 it was considered to be "the" race in all of Europe. A good showing there almost guaranteed success in marketing the winning company's machines to the general public.

Unfortunately the advent of the coming world war turned America's, as well as much of Europe's, attention to other matters and most motorcycle manufacturers gave up their interest in sponsoring race teams until after the war ended. After the war, all but the big three in the US, namely H-D, Indian and Excelsior, were, for the most part, out of picture in terms of sponsoring teams or building machines specifically for the racing circuit. The same seems to also hold true for the European manufacturers, only the larger companies could afford the cost of sponsoring racing teams or building race only machines. History of motorcycles Photo from Lee Allen courtesy of Melena Schneider

In the twenties hill climbing also became more popular as a form of competition in the US, especially as the machines gained ever increasing horsepower and the hills chosen for these events became ever more steep. Until the depression era dampened Americas spirit for racing, when there just wasn't the money to support motor racing, motor sports enjoyed an ever widening audience. There is no doubt that many of the advances in machine design can be directly attributed to those early years of motorcycle racing and all though many motor sport fans and historians feel that the "golden age" of racing came to a close in the late 20's, it continues to enjoy a popularity among those who truly appreciate the thrill of speed and the daring of those who continue to push for ever faster times on the track.

The following photos are courtesy of Bert Knoester. Visit his web site at http://home.planet.nl/~motors-20th-century/motors.html.

Now here is an interesting machine! Twin cylinder, two-stroke water cooled, as were all Scotts, it also had a two-speed gearbox. Notice the rocker pedal just above the footrest, this shifted and acted as a clutch for shifting between gears. Scott latter won fame starting in 1910 at the famous Isle of Man TT races by being the first two-stroke winner. In 1911 it gained the title of fastest average speed for the next three years as well as wining in 1912 and 1913.

Scott 1905 Scott, 1905 Deronziere 1907 Deronziere, 1907

This incorporated a single cylinder 282 Cm, single speed belt drive, equipped with front suspension with rigid rear frame. Weight, 45 Kilograms with a top speed of 45 km.h .

1907 HD single, single speed belt drive. Note the hand operated "clutch" that placed tension on the belt thus engaging motor to wheel. This was the year HD incorporated, added additional employees for a total of 18 and expanded the workshop to double its area.

Harley Davidson 1907 Harley Davidson, 1907

Harley Davidson Model 7 1911 Harley Davidson Model 7, 1911

The factory offered four singles with either 26- or 28-inch wheels (wheels were measured from the outer edge of the tire back then), and either battery or magneto ignition. These were referred to as the Model 7. Single cylinder, single-belt drive, battery ignition, 4.34 HP, 35 c.i., 28-(or 26) inch wheels.

Model 11J - twin-cylinder, twin-chain drive, generator, 8.68 HP, 60.34 c.i. equipped with sidecar.

Harley Davidson Model 11J sidecare 1915 Harley Davidson Model 11J w sidecar, 1915

Flying Merkel Model V 1911 Flying Merkel Model V, 1911

50 cubic inch Inlet Over Exhaust V-twin. 6 hp with a top speed of 60 mph. Last year this model was produced in the Pottstown, PA factory.

7 hp Twin, 3speed tank shift, twin 6 volt batteries $325 new. First electric start motorcycle.

Indian V-twin - 1914 Indian V-twin, 1914

Indian Boardracer - 1920 Indian Boardracer, 1920

Here we have a typical Board Track Racer from Indian. This is an Indian 8 valve twin. Note that while there is a rear brake, it has been disconnected, as brakes and throttle were not used in board track racing.

Personally I find this one a particular stunner. While it is very similar to other machines of the time, there is something about this machine that just plain grabs me. Perhaps it the way the cylinders seem to merge with the curvature of the frame, or the clean nickel alloy sheen of the machined parts, the subdued color scheme. This is a truly awesome machine, and indeed lives up to the company's claim of "Mechanical Perfection". It did incorporate a rather advanced mechanical design in that it had two crankshafts thus allowing both cylinders to reach top end simultaneously and thereby providing a smooth power stroke to the rear wheel. Specifications: 31 c.i., twin cylinder, chain drive, with pedal start and hand operated three speed gearbox.