This shows that in the beginning motorcycles where almost bicycles with engines.

If you would make this today no one will call it a motorcycle.

It was originally advertised as being "so quiet you cannot hear it across the street"

#LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES

Almost? It's exactly what they were.

Electric cars don't meet my needs (yet) but I would still prefer an ebike to this old Harley though.

lol, nowadays HD has patented the sound their bikes make.

They don't have to be that loud but they go out of their way to give each bike that brand sound.

Almost? The Harley-Davidson motorised bicycle was, in fact, a motorised bicycle!

Benz had been making them earlier, but while Benz had good engines, he had no idea what made a bicycle work. There had been experiments with rotary wheel-engines, trikes, Benz came back with the Patent-Motorwagen, etc.

Millet's design of the 1890s set the scene for how to do it, however.

The Thomas Auto-Bi is even more obviously a bike with a motor bolted on it! By the time of the FN Four, it had become pretty ridiculous, but people wanted power.

Oh, and I best not leave this without mentioning the Roper Steam Velocipede, which is exactly what you think it is.

Bore it out and get this bad boy dyno’d

That's also why their engines are slower than Indians, as well as less fuel efficient (not that fuel really matters on a motorcycle).

Bubba no!!!

Hardley Davidson

Has anyone been to the HD museum in Milwaukee? They have the first bike off the line of every model they have ever made. Its one of thee most impressive rooms ive ever been to in my life.

Looks like a DUI special.

https://www.mercari.com/us/item/m62080047737/?gbraid=0AAAAADR9UGfjA9rYxAKXOrZX0XkarzXRJ&gclsrc=aw.ds&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=18068424936&utm_content=t0&adgroup=139632509665&network=g&device=m&merchant_id=126358573&product_id=m62080047737&product_id=1722887382926&gbraid=0AAAAADR9UGfjA9rYxAKXOrZX0XkarzXRJ&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_vXI_pWB-wIVYgB9Ch2O9w4fEAQYAiABEgLv6fD_BwE

Imagine getting into an accident with this..

They tried to patent it but I believe they were not successful. And it's not the loud sound, it was the unique sounds from the firing order that's unique to their v-twins. New Harley's sound like sewing machines, but most people change their exhausts.

Their unique sound is what helps sells their bikes so it's why they go out of their way to make sure their motorcycles have it.

The higher classes of ebikes are practically motorcycles now.

Remake this with a strong electric engine and I'll buy it.

How else would you describe a motorcycle?

Did it also have an obnoxiously loud exhaust that pisses everyone off?

"If my mother had wheels she would be a bike"

I want one, but electric

Can confirm, my EnduroEbike goes 60mph and gets about 40 miles of range.

The belt drive looks needlessly more complex than the common motor bike you find now.

I would love to have a bicycle with this frame geometry. E-bike would be even cooler but wheels couldn't be larger than 26".

Very cool.

Looks exactly like the things I see idiots driving around the bike /walking paths in Toronto.

For this picture, they had to recreate the muffler from drawings. The original muffler was torn off and lost almost immediatley.

It was a trademark application, not a patent application; Harley-Davidson claimed that the sound made by their engines was distinctive enough to act as a "source identifier" to consumers.

A bunch of other manufacturers filed oppositions to the filing, basically pointing out "Hey, we also make large-displacement, common-crankpin 45-degree engines and guess what - they sound just like yours."

H-D gave up after 6 years and some litigation, but they probably wouldn't have been successful anyway - you can't trademark *functional* aspects of a design, and the "Harley" sound just comes from the mechanical characteristics of the engine.

The seat seems really close to the handlebars.

I actually built one of these things about two years ago, but I will say it’s been extremely unreliable. Then again, I’ve been riding the thing to death. I at least put 200 miles at least on the thing. you almost have to repair it weekly it feels like. At this point, I just gave up trying to fix the damn thing and it’s been sitting in my garage for a full year.

It’s honestly way cheaper to actually build one of these yourself than it is to actually buy a premade one. If anything, just order the motor kit from eBay with everything else for like 200.

There were several factors that played into the popularity of these. Harley suucceeded, but any movie about their origins will make it sound like this was their original idea.

Harley had a great deal of competition specifically because the bar or entry was so low at the time. Anyone could start a "company" in their barn/garage, and many did so.

At the time of this model-1, there were kits that you could attach to a bicycle. Harley felt there was a market for a stronger frame and a more powerful engine.

Ford introduced payment plans in the 1920's, so before then, vehicles were a full price cash purchase. Cars were the plaything of the rich, until the Model T, which sold for under $500 just a few years after it was introduced.

It would be difficult yo convey how popular bicycles were from the 1880's until the Model T, and motor kits for bicycles were hugely popular.

Bicycle manufacturers began making optional frames that were stronger, and were pre-made to accept a motor kit after the owner had some time to save up for the purchase. In this way, the bike and the motor could be purchased separately.

WW1 wiped out hundreds of small motor-bike companies, with Indian and Harley surviving. As with many other aspects of our past, the winners write the history books.

Harley was simple, rugged, and cheap enough to survive, and just powerful enough and advanced enough to be desirable.

The Flying Merkel was much more advanced, but also too expensive for the mass market.

Harley recognized that racing was good advertising, and that low price was vital to survive business cycles, just like the Model T.

Yeah, the self install kits are cheaper and you can select a better bike to install it on.