Otis Chandler "1907" Harley in Fall Issue

[23JDCA 808]

Re: "roller-pin driving gear" for bicycles

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


Is that a description of the Sager bicycle "roller pin driving gear"?
If so, where does it come from?
Almost sounds like a patent description.

A description of the roller-pin driving gear on a Monarch bicycle. This is from March 1897 issue of Cycling. The article starts at the first page of the .pdf file link given below. There are several pictues of it, but operation is not clear to me.
http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/O...outXXXI06u.pdf

[HarleyCreation]

Re: Re: "roller-pin driving gear" for bicycles

Originally posted by 23JDCA 808


A description of the roller-pin driving gear on a Monarch bicycle. This is from March 1897 issue of Cycling. The article starts at the first page of the .pdf file link given below. There are several pictues of it, but operation is not clear to me.
http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/O...outXXXI06u.pdf

That's real interesting stuff! I don't see Sager's name but the description is there. Thanks.

Lots of other interesting stuff. I see our old friend Keating is there, who Harley had to buy patent rights from and that put impossibly early dates on one of the Bar & Shield patent badges! The names Thor and Fauber show up in there too and lots of others including "Rainmaker" Hansen from Minneapolis in the race specs at the end!

That 1890s bicycle stuff is like having the motorcycle only without the motor! All the other necessary components have been invented and refined to a high degree.

I hope you don't mind, but I want to use your link to post a longer message about this on the "Bicycle" thread and bring it back to the top.

No wonder I don't get anything done!

[23JDCA 808]

Re: Re: Re: "roller-pin driving gear" for bicycles

Originally posted by HarleyCreation

I hope you don't mind, but I want to use your link to post a longer message about this on the "Bicycle" thread and bring it back to the top.

Yes, use it. I have really enjoyed this thread. This thread shows some really clear thinking being developed here which can be used by all. ...bill

[Kojack]

Originally posted by silentgreyfello
Why, yes, it is a moo-glide! They are very rare. He replaced the double clinchers with some late model mag wheels. The udder may be a 1923 Holstein. Other than that, it is very correct.

You've been buffaloed.
The front forks tell me that's a '78 Cow-a-saki.

[jurassic]

strap tank chopper

in response to the earliest known evidence of a harley chopper ,this may fit.though it isn't what we would think of as a "chopper".it is a harley powered custom built motorcycle.as you can see this guy did a pretty good job of putting together many different styles and aspects of early motorcycles to fit his own personal style.also note that he didn't just go buy a regular harley engine,because the cylinder on this engine has the carb coming out of the front,and the spark plug coming out of the rear.when he ordered this motor,he ordered it with an early{pre 1909} twin rear cylinder,so as to set it up how he wanted.

[HarleyCreation]

Re: strap tank chopper

Originally posted by jurassic
in response to the earliest known evidence of a harley chopper ,this may fit.though it isn't what we would think of as a "chopper".it is a harley powered custom built motorcycle.as you can see this guy did a pretty good job of putting together many different styles and aspects of early motorcycles to fit his own personal style.also note that he didn't just go buy a regular harley engine,because the cylinder on this engine has the carb coming out of the front,and the spark plug coming out of the rear.when he ordered this motor,he ordered it with an early{pre 1909} twin rear cylinder,so as to set it up how he wanted.

What a curious machine!

Yeah, an early "custom" job to be sure. In early mc regs there are a lot of homebuilts, including many with the owner's name put down as the make. I've seen a few that say "Harley engine" or something similar to that. But that photo is esp. interesting because of what appears to be a very early V-twin rear cylinder on it as you pointed out.

I wonder where that bike was built and who the fabricator was? Very interesting!

[Earl]

That very interesting photo appears on the bottom of page 131 of the book by Stephen Wright, "The American Motorcycle 1869-1914 Vol. 1", published in 2001.

A caption to the photo says that it was dated 1910.

Very interesting...................

A pre-1909 twin rear cylinder...............

Hmmmm.......

Maybe the guy was scrounging the Harley junk piles......

Hmmmm.......

[HarleyCreation]

Originally posted by Earl
That very interesting photo appears on the bottom of page 131 of the book by Stephen Wright, "The American Motorcycle 1869-1914 Vol. 1", published in 2001.

A caption to the photo says that it was dated 1910.

Very interesting...................

A pre-1909 twin rear cylinder...............

Hmmmm.......

Maybe the guy was scrounging the Harley junk piles......

Hmmmm.......

Dated 1910 sounds about right.

But WHAT Harley junk piles did this guy have access to find a cylinder that rare?

And for what reason would he use a backwards cylinder like that except as a joke? Unless it was some bizarre theory he was trying out. Only they didn't have LSD back then!

Maybe he was trying to shock or freak out his friends.

Very weird...

Wish we knew who that guy was and where he was living.

[jurassic]

chopper

i believe the design of the motorcycle called for a front mounted carb.it was much easier to attach the linkage rod .harleys pre 1909 throttle control was really bad.this guy didn't want that funky setup .i think harley accomodated him,and sold him the engine with the new experimental rear cylinder.it appears to have a harley carb.in my opinion it was a special order engine.and the bike was probably built earlier than 1910.

[HarleyCreation]

Re: chopper

Originally posted by jurassic
i believe the design of the motorcycle called for a front mounted carb.it was much easier to attach the linkage rod .harleys pre 1909 throttle control was really bad.this guy didn't want that funky setup .i think harley accomodated him,and sold him the engine with the new experimental rear cylinder.it appears to have a harley carb.in my opinion it was a special order engine.and the bike was probably built earlier than 1910.

That would explain how he got a rare cylinder. And early H-D would accomodate guys. I have a note here from the 1907 Account Book saying:

For W. Walsh
Aug. 2, 1907
"Special pulley"
"Special handlebars"

That suggests that a "special engine" is not out of the question either, esp. if he were somebody they knew or a pal altho that engine is way out there. The photo does prove that there were some oddball bikes very very early.

Incidently there is also this entry:

Aug. 27, 1907
P.M. Corr
"2 muffler shutters"

Those sound like muffler cut-outs that Harley was sending out to me. Were they being retrofitted to existing 1907 model bikes?

[LouieMCman]

I have followed this thread from the start and even made a few comments. It has been very informative and entertaining but when will it end? It started out talking about a certain bike but now talks about anything pre teens or so. It would be much easier to follow if another thread was started for new topics or bikes. Are we going for a record or what? What is with the 5 star rating? I've not seen any other thread that rated any stars. This is just my thoughts after a few beers, anyone else?

[jurassic]

thread

well aside from the moo glide and a few heated arguements,this thread is dealing solely with the strap tank harleys,not pre teens ,but 1905 thru 1908 harleys.aside from one book on the subject there is very little info on these early harleys.or should i say credible info.the book deals with the documented facts ,where as this thread has dealt with the few remaining strap tanks that are left.trying to decifer what has happened to these bikes over the years ,and the cronology of the numbering.and exactly when and what number was manufactured at what time in history.to me personally this info is very valuable ,and now my library is almost complete in its content as far as strap tank harleys go.thanks to this thread i now have pics and vin numbers of all the remaining strap tanks except 1981{i am still waiting for those pics as promised!!}.also thanks to this thread ,my thinking has been changed as to the actual years of production on certain machines.though this thread may be long it has not really scratched the surface of what we can learn from these early bikes and the early years of the factory.we have not even discussed the 5 remaining six bolt engines.this discussion has been a long time coming ,and i wish more people had more info to add.these are my thoughts after a few beers.

[Lonnie]

This has been a long thread and is very interesting to all, though sometimes so long as to be hard to follow. As far as my thoughts after a few beers, I think I'll go meet up with Louie and have a few more.
Lonnie

[HarleyCreation]

Re: Early "chopper" single using twin rear cylinder

Originally posted by HarleyCreation


That would explain how he got a rare cylinder. And early H-D would accomodate guys. I have a note here from the 1907 Account Book saying:

For W. Walsh
Aug. 2, 1907
"Special pulley"
"Special handlebars"

That suggests that a "special engine" is not out of the question either, esp. if he were somebody they knew or a pal altho that engine is way out there. The photo does prove that there were some oddball bikes very very early.

After sobering up from a few beers I got to thinking about Harley accomodating a guy with a special one-off engine using a rear twin cylinder.

While I can't prove they didn't do that, I rather doubt it and here's why.

Early builders were TERRIFIED of having their products labeled as "freaks" or "dangerous experiments" and Harley worked very hard to establish its early reputation with a solid design that changed very little in the 1905-1908 production period (remember there was no 1903 or 1904 production.)

In fact, early Harley ads BRAGGED at great length how consistent their product was and how little they changed from model year to model year. In that scenario it seems unlikely to me that the Factory would purposely sell a guy a "freak" motor that used a "backwards" twin rear cylinder like the bike shown above, the same photo of which also appears in Wright's book.

My thinking is that engine is a homebuilt; not Factory. I just wish we had the guy's name and the place. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be Milwaukee and the guy knew somebody at the Factory and copped such an unlikely cylinder as a pre-09 twin as seen on this bike on the sly. Maybe it was smuggled out in a lunch pail, found on the RR tracks, or stolen from Harley's junkpile out back of the early Yellow Brick Factory as seen here.

(Popping a fresh beer and dreaming of a Time Machine...)

[c.o.]

I couldn't resist bringing this post back to the top of the page again....... On my way to work this morning I stopped at a local gas station and picked up the latest copy of American Iron magazine. I normally don't buy this publication (too much new stuff....), but there was a bike within it's pages that was of interest, so I couldn't resist. John Parham's '08 is featured and what a beauty it is!!! There's a couple of really good pictures of it, so a fella can study it in detail. It really has a lot of character. The more I look at these early Harleys the more I think that they were quite a beautiful machine.

Herb, I'm on the second read through of At The Creation.....(just so I can try and keep my facts straight!!! ) Again, it's a great book and a wealth of information on these very important early machines........