The Orient, the Marsh, and Metz

  The Orient that the Waltham Co. and Charles Metz debuted in 1900 was the first truly modern motorcycle. It had a 250cc engine, a flat leather belt drive with a tensioning lever, and separate gas and oil tanks mounted under the rider's seat. It was unveiled in July of that year at the Charles River race track at Boston.

  There at Boston, at the first recorded speed event for a modern motorcycle, it ran a 5 mile course in 7 minutes at an average speed of just under 43 mph (69 km/h). The following year in May of 1901, it came in 1st place in the first recorded head-to-head motorcycle race against three other riders, in Los Angeles, CA. The Orient covered 10 laps around a 1 mile long horse track in 18 minute and 30 seconds at an average speed of 32 mph (51 km/h).

  Once again, the public put their money down. Winning races = selling motorcycles. Metz was quick to seize the opportunity and promptly left the Waltham Manufacturing Company to build motorcycles exclusively as the Metz Motorcycle Company. 

  In 1905 Metz merged with the Marsh brothers of the Marsh Motorcycle Co. who themselves had built a 1 hp engine driven bicycle in 1899.

Together they formed the American Motorcycle Company and began to market motorcycles called the Marsh & Metz, or the M.M.

  Unlike other manufacturers, the Marsh brothers developed their own successful engine instead of importing them. By 1902 they had built a 6 horsepower racing model that reached nearly 60 mph (96 km/h). 

  Marsh & Metz was one of the earliest American motorcycle companies to market a production V-twin engine in around 1906, beginning with a 45° twin and then a 90° twin a couple years later that offered smoother running due to better engine balancing. 

  In the early years of the 20th century there were many manufacturers getting into the motorcycle business. Around 300 brands came and went in America before the Great Depression forced many of them under. There was strong competition from not only other motorcycle companies, but the ever growing automotive industry. 

  In 1913, amid stiff competition, the American Motorcycle Company closed it's doors, Charles Metz switched his attention to building autos, and the motorcycles that he helped create are now another piece of history. 

  

The Need For Speed: How Bicycle Racing Brought the First Motorcycle to America

  It's hard to understand the history of any one thing, or moment in time, without taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. History is like a spiderweb, each strand that you try to focus on intersects with countless others. To understand the birth of the modern motorcycle, we need to understand excitement fueling the late 1800s. What was it that inspired men to continue strapping an engine to their two-wheeled contraptions and defy death? There was undoubtedly safer and more reliable modes of transportation. 

  The world was still feeling the high from the Industrial Revolution. It was a new age with new technology being unveiled practically every day. Edison perfected the light bulb and Bell made his famous first telephone call. The world was becoming modern and civilized. America's Civil War was won, the South was being rebuilt, and the wild west was tamed. It was the Victorian Age and cities were bustling with energy. The whole world was on the move and a new mode of transportation was gaining popularity. 

  A Scottish blacksmith is said to have been the first to build a pedal driven bicycle in 1839. It had iron-hooped wheels and wooden spokes. In 1869 the "high wheel" bicycle was developed in Paris. It used wire spoked wheels that weighed much less. The pedals were attached directly to the front wheel's axle. The larger the front wheel, the farther the distance traveled for each revolution. The oversized front wheel alowed for increased speeds and comfort over rough surfaces. (Note the front brake in the photo of the same design used on Hildebrand and Wolfmüller's Motorrad)

  The daredevils of the world found a new pastime. The thrill of speeding around on two wheels soon led to speed contests and formal racing. The drawback of the high wheel design was the seating position high above the front wheel. It made for a substantial fall to the ground in the event of a spill. A "header" over the front end often proved fatal. 

  In 1880 the "roller chain" was invented. This paved the way for the development of the "safety bicycle" in 1885. The safety bicycle used a sprocket and chain assembly to drive the rear wheel. This allowed for a lower and more rearward seating position and tires of equal size. The rider sitting closer to the ground, resulted in less chance of serious injuries as result of a fall. Varying the sprocket sizes for different drive ratios allowed for speeds even greater than the high wheel design.

   Soon there were multiple manufacturers turning out countless variations of the safety bicycle. Racing events began to be held across America and manufacturers sponsored racing teams to compete on the tracks. People filled the stands to watch the excitement and put their money down to own a bike like the champions rode.

  Charles Herman Metz was an engineer and bicycle racer, winning the New York state championship in 1885 on a high wheel bicycle. In 1893 he convinced a group of business men to back him in the founding of the Waltham Manufacturing Company of Waltham Massachusetts. It  manufactured and sold a variety of machines under the names Orient, Waltham, and Waltham-Orient. The company was well known for it's racing bicycles and it's winning riders. 

  Charles Metz was soon looking for a better way to train his racing team and to build their speed. Among it's other ventures, the Waltham Co. also imported and distributed small internal combustion engines of French design, the Aster and the De Dion-Bouton. Luckily for us, Metz soon put two and two together, realizing that he could fasten one of these engines to a frame similar to the safety bicycles his company was building. He could then use this machine to run ahead of his bicycle racing team to set the pace. 

  The idea was a great success. Using a tandem design, his first "pacer" had a pilot mounted in front to steer and a passenger in the rear to operate the engine. The bicycle racers chased it around the track, working to keep up and maintain a steady pace. Soon the Waltham racing team was one of the winningest in the country and the Waltham Co. had a new product to market, listing their single seat pace machine as the "Orient Motor-Cycle" in it's 1899 catalog. Practically instantly, other bicycle enthusiasts began to build similar machines. The American motorcycle industry was born.

The First To Market

   The first motorcycle in the world to be successfully produced and marketed was introduced in 1894, nine years after Daimler and Maybach built their famous Reitwagon. Called the "Motorrad", which is German for motorcycle, it's the first two-wheeled vehicle to ever bear the title of "motorcycle". Built by brothers Henry and Wilhelm Hildebrand and their partner Alois Wolfmüller, it was a bit of step back in some ways, while in others, it was years ahead of it's time. 

  The Hildebrand and Wolfmüller (H&W for short) design, instead of using the new improvements of the 4-stroke engine, was a modification of one their earlier prototypes using steam power. As such, it had some strange design quarks compared to what we would recognize as a motorcycle.

  Not using the usual bicycle type frame, the engine was placed horizontally under the riders feet. It was fed from a fuel tank and crude "vaporizer" mounted to the front down tube of the frame. Not having a proper carburetor, the fuel was regulated by turning a thumbscrew. 

  Also on the front down tube was the heating element for ignition source (attached to the fuel tank because everyone knows that crazy bikers like life on the edge). The ignition wasn't the low voltage spark type already in use elsewhere, but the more primitive "hot tube" ignitor. It was a small tube attached to the cylinder head and closed at one end. The heating element would heat a portion of that tube cherry red. When the piston came up on the compression stroke, the combustible mixture would be pushed into the tube. When it reached the heated portion it would ignite, beginning the power stroke.

  The H&W design was unique in that the engine didn't have a traditional crankshaft. The connecting rods were attached directly to the rear wheel, which acted as a flywheel. This made it necessary for the rear wheel to be constructed as a heavy, solid disc. (Harley Fat Boy style) This just wasn't quite enough to keep the engine cycling smoothly so they used large rubber bands to help return the pistons to the top of stroke. 

  The rear wheel also acted as the camshaft, having an eccentric brass ring to work a long rod that would open and close the exhaust valve. The intake valve was of the "atmospheric" type used at the time, being pulled open by suction of the piston moving down in the cylinder and closed by a weak spring on the piston's upstroke.

  Despite a few oddities of design, it made some impressive steps forward in other areas. As a converted steam machine, it kept the water reservoir in the rear mud guard. The water was now plumbed to cooling jackets around the engine cylinders to keep engine heat down... the world's first liquid cooled motorcycle. The lubricating oil for the engine was stored in one of the frame tubes, a method that other manufacturers would be using at least 70 years later. The H&W was also the world's first motorcycle to use air filled rubber tires. The tires were manufactured by a German company under license from Dunlap, who still produces motorcycle tires today. H&W, had the brand survived, could have also boasted of having the largest engine fitted to a motorcycle until recent times. The twin cylinder engine was 1498cc, that's 91 cubic inches, and at 240 rpms propelled the machine to a speed of 28 mph (45 km/h). A feat that must have been exciting considering that the only brake was a spoon that applied pressure to the front tire, very similar to today's bicycle brakes. It was actuated by a lever on the right side handlebar grip, just like today's motorcycles.

  With poor records, estimates of total production range from 800 to 2000. The H&W proved expensive to build and the consumers complained about the hard starting and poor running of the design. Not being equipped with pedals or a clutch, starting the engine employed the "run and jump" method, while at the same time trying to find the right fuel adjustment with the aforementioned thumbscrew... a young man's sport for sure. After just three short years, Hildebrand and Wolfmüller closed their doors in 1897.

  

  

The Pioneers Pt. 2

   Throughout the 1800s there were at least three inventors who experimented with two-wheeled (and three), steam driven machines. Steam worked great for locomotive engines that could carry the necessary water and fuel to heat the boiler. Small machines made things a little more difficult. The days of steam were numbered,  and for it's use to propel personal transportation, it was largely a dead end. Luckily, others were working on an alternative. The future of the world's transportation was destined to be based upon that alternative, the internal combustion engine. 

  There were many trials and errors beginning as early as 1794 with the first liquid fueled engine designed by Robert Street. Early designs experimented with a variety of fuels from coal-gas to controlled dust explosions. They were typically large, ran at low speeds, and were underpowered. 

  The first successful internal combustion engine to be sold commercially was the Lenoir engine of 1858.

It was a converted steam engine that, instead of using expanding steam alternatingly introduced into opposite ends of a cylinder to push a piston back and forth, used a mix of coal-gas and air ignited on either side of the piston. It was still too large and too slow for use on anything resembling a motorcycle, but it did have one innovation that is still used today. A "jumping spark" ignition system. 

  It was the internal combustion four stroke engine that would be the future of modern transportation. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. Any gear headed hot-rodder can tell you the importance of those four words. 

1. SUCK: The intake stroke. The piston moves down in the cylinder as the air/fuel charge is drawn into the combustion chamber. 

2. SQUEEZE: The compression stroke. The piston moves up in the cylinder compressing the air/fuel charge to increase the volatility and efficiency of the next event...

3. BANG: The power stroke. The compressed air/fuel mixture is ignition causing rapid expansion and the resulting pressure pushes the piston back down, which in turn, acts upon a lever to turn a flywheel.

4. BLOW: The exhaust stroke. The piston moves back up in the cylinder as the spent gasses are expelled from the engine, preparing to start the cycle over again. 

  The four stroke engine is also called the "Otto cycle" engine after it's German engineer and inventor, Nikolaus Otto, who developed it in 1876.

History tells us that he is the father of all the engines powering our motorcycles (and autos, trucks, etc.) to this day... but was he? Really?

  In 1862 a Frenchman named Alphonse Beau de Rochas applied for a patent of an engine using the 4-stroke design but never built it. That same year, Nikolaus Otto built his first, which was unsuccessful, self-destructing after running for just a couple minutes. Ten years later, Ol' Nik Otto was still trying to figure it out. His company (he was a part owner) brought in more talent, hiring Gottlieb Daimler (the name behind today's Daimler, who owns Mercedes Benz) in 1872 as factory manager.

Otto was bypassed for the position, which was the beginning of a bit of rivalry. Daimler brought his life-long friend and business partner Wilhelm Maybach.

With Maybach as Chief Designer, Daimler and Otto both continued work under the equal titles "Technical Director".

  Soon the rivalry was fueled by "creative differences" that led to further tension. Otto wanted to build large, slow turning engines to replace the steam engines powering industry. Daimler wanted to build smaller, high speed engines to use in transportation. Daimler soon wanted to build his own engine and Otto, through jealousy, began excluding Daimler from patents on the designs they created. Whether by mutual agreement, or firing by Otto, Daimler left the company in 1880 to continue work on his own, taking Wilhelm Maybach with him.

  Not wanting to pay a dime to Nikolaus Otto in royalties, Daimler began calling his design the "Exploding Engine" and claimed his work to be a continuance of Rochas' 1862 patent. By 1883 Daimler and Maybach had developed a smaller, lighter engine just as they set out to do. Their new engine was air cooled, used a timed, low voltage ignition, a carburetor allowing it to run on petroleum distillates (like gasoline) mixed with air, and an exhaust valve actuated by a camshaft allowing high speed operation. It used a cast iron flywheel to smooth out the revolutions and it could be throttled. Starting to sound familiar? While other engines were putting along at 120-180 rpms, Daimler and Maybach's engine achieved 600, and then 900 rpms.

  In 1885 they fitted a version of their engine into the first ever vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine. It was a wooden frame with two wheels, a seat, and handlebars. They called it the "Reitwagon" (Riding car). Because they hadn't figured out the neccessary rake and trail geometry of the front wheel, it was a bit unstable and couldn't be steered properly. It used two outrigger wheels much like training wheels to keep it upright. The story goes that Daimler enlisted his 14 year old son to be the first to ride it. The contraption zipped along for two miles at the breakneck speed of 7 mph. That's right... 7. But, hey, it was a start. Daimler and Maybach turned their attention to four wheeled machines, but others had taken notice. Ladies and gentlemen, we were off to the races.

The Pioneers Pt. 1

  Before diving headlong into the history of motorcycling in the 20th century, we need to take a look at the inventors that made it all possible. It's no surprise that motorcycles evolved from the bicycle. Practically as soon as two wheels were attached to crude frame, the race was on to make it self-propelled. Throughout the 19th century there were many designs put forth. Some successful, some not so much. The ones that I want to highlight, are the ones that had innovative ideas that were ahead of their time. We can still see their influences on motorcycles today. You might say that the machines these pioneers created were the direct ancestors of modern motorcycles. To begin, we're going to turn the clock all the way back to America's Civil War.

  Sylvester H. Roper was born in New Hampshire in1823. At a young age his mechanical abilities and inventiveness were apparent. By age 12 he'd built a stationary steam engine, although he'd never seen one. By 14, he'd built a locomotive engine, again, never having seen one in person. When war broke out his talents were put to use for the Union at Springfield Armory of Springfield, Massachusetts. 

  Continuing his work with steam, by 1863 he was driving around Boston in one of the earliest "horseless carriages". In 1867 Roper attached a small steam engine to a crude bicycle and called it a "velocipede" (fast foot).

He spent the next twenty years refining it. His final design incorporated a bicycle from the Pope Manufacturing Company (who later joined the motorcycle market) with a crank driven rear wheel and a twin piston boiler under the seat... and you thought that rear cylinder of your big V-twin was a crotch heater. His design included one innovation that we see still to this day, a throttle twist grip on the handlebars that controlled the steam release.

  In 1896 Mr. Roper was demonstrating his Velocipede at a bicycle track near Cambridge, Massachusetts where he achieved a top speed of 40mph. After several laps he became unstable and fell from his machine, suffered a head wound, and died. An autopsy found the cause of death to be heart failure, whether suffered prior to the crash or as a result of it, remains a mystery. Regardless, it gave all such contraptions a reputation for danger that has persisted to this day.