Willie G.'s New Book

[Earl]

And this is for everybody who has misplaced their AMCA Spring 2001 issue.

This is the earliest known published representation of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. It appeared in the April 1, 1905 issue of Cycle & Automobile Trade Journal. It is not a photograph, but a line drawing.

[Earl]

First there was the NEVER MARKETED Motor-Bicycle experiment of 1903.
NO PICTURE IS KNOWN TO EXIST.

Then there was the NEW Motor, NEW Frame, NEW Carburator PROTOTYPE of 1904.
NO PICTURE IS KNOWN TO EXIST WHEN NEW. Only the picture taken in 1912, after many miles, owners, and changes.

Then their first batch of machines for Model year 1905.
Now look at the picture on the inside back cover of the AMCA Spring 2001 issue. That is a picture that was published April 29,1905 in 'Automobile Review.'

This would be a picture of an early production 1905 model, possibly only the second or third machine that Harley-Davidson ever built.

LOOK AT THE FRONT WHEEL.
COUNT THE SPOKES.

WHAT DO YOU SEE ?????!!!!!

[HJahn]

Originally posted by Earl
First there was the NEVER MARKETED Motor-Bicycle experiment of 1903. NO PICTURE EXISTS.

Then there was the NEW Motor, NEW Frame, NEW Carburator PROTOTYPE of 1904. NO PICTURE EXISTS WHEN NEW. Only the picture taken in 1912, after many miles, owners, and changes.

Then their first batch of machines for Model year 1905.
Now look at the picture on the inside back cover of the AMCA Spring 2001 issue. That is a picture that was published April 29,1905 in 'Automobile Review.'

This would be a picture of an early production 1905 model, possibly only the second or third machine that Harley-davidson ever built.

LOOK AT THE FRONT WHEEL.
COUNT THE SPOKES.

WHAT DO YOU SEE ?????!!!!!

Earl,

I can't get a definitive count on the spokes.

What are you seeing?

[Earl]

There are a LOT of little details that I see on that picture that is shown on the inside back cover of the AMCA Spring 2001 issue. It shows what would be the second or third Harley-Davidson motorcycle ever made.

EVOLUTION, is a trademarked term of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. And it was true right from the beginning.

The REAR hub and wheel of the bike shown has 36 spokes.

But, the FRONT hub and wheel has only 32 spokes!!!!

What do you think of that ????

[Earl]

Another thing about the picture shown on the back inside cover of the AMCA Spring 2001 issue.

The picture was not discovered until AFTER the Mitchel SNO bike restoration was done in preparation for the Company's 95th celebration.

[HJahn]

dem spokes

C'mon Earl, fill us in about those spokes. What are you getting at?

On the original mid/late-1905 Harley picture (Spring 2001, p.27), I count 36 spokes on the front wheel -- not 32. Can't make out how many on the back. The Serial Number One bike in Willie G.'s book has 36 spokes front and rear (I'll bet the other SNO job has 36 f & r too). Looks like that early 1905 fenderless Harley (first known Harley photo, inside back cover Spring '01) has fewer front spokes (32) than even a mid-/late 1905 had (36).

Do we have another piece that shows the early '05 and almostly certainly the 1904 proto had a different hub and wheel.

Is that it?

Whew!

[HJahn]

dem 1st photos

Summary of all known early H-D images (from Spring '01 article in The Antique Motorcycle ): "New Chronology of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle: 1901-1905".

1901: July 20: 7-ci Wm. Harley bicycle-motor parts drawing (p.25)

1905: January 1: Bare H-D motor (motor mounts like 1904 proto bike) (p.24)

1905: April 1: "Line Drawing" (no fenders/25-ci loop-frame bike) (p.26)

1905: April 29: 1st known photo (no fenders) (p.26 & back inside cover)

1905: June 5: Race photo bike w/Perry Mack (fenders) (p.24)

*1905: mid/late: Factory brochure production(?) bike (fenders) (p.27)

1912: "1904 proto?" (Neg. 599 shot of "Meyer-Sparough" 100,000 mile 1st Harley; has unique motor mount position only seen elsewhere on the Jan. 1, '05 bare motor above) (inside front cover & p.24)

(*The only photo seen in any Harley book before the 1912 shot appeared in W.G.'s new book).

That's a pretty amazing gap between July 20, 1901 and Jan. 1 of 1905. Is this to say that Harley-Davidson, Inc. has NOTHING that fills in that gap except that improbable claim that "Charles" Lang bought a Harley in 1903?

In fact, I can't find any of these pictures in any previous Harley-Davidson book except for the mid/late 1905 factory brochure bike. These appear to be all new finds in the last few years and the Spring '01 article states that.

Looking more and more like H-D, Inc. today does NOT have or know its own origin history. Pretty strange for a company that constantly talks about heritage and unbroken tradition that outside enthusiasts and writers have to tell the MoCo's history for them....

I'm beginning to wonder what the basis was for their restoration of the SNO bikes if the MoCo didn't have that 1st photo from 29 April '05?

How do you know they didn't have it, O'earl?

[Earl]

Re: dem spokes

Originally posted by HJahn
C'mon Earl, fill us in about those spokes. What are you getting at?
On the original mid/late-1905 Harley picture (Spring 2001, p.27), I count 36 spokes on the front wheel -- not 32. Can't make out how many on the back. The Serial Number One bike in Willie G.'s book has 36 spokes front and rear (I'll bet the other SNO job has 36 f & r too). Looks like that early 1905 fenderless Harley (first known Harley photo, inside back cover Spring '01) has fewer front spokes (32) than even a mid-/late 1905 had (36).

Do we have another piece that shows the early '05 and almostly certainly the 1904 proto had a different hub and wheel.

Is that it?

VERY GOOD SHERLOCK !!!!!!!

That's correct. Their very early motorcycles had just evolved from bikes. Remember, their first effort was to strap an engine into a bicycle diamond style frame. That was in 1903. Then they realized that the motor wasn't big enough, so they came up with a bigger motor. But the problem with that was the shoehorn wasn't big enough to squeeze it into their bicycle frame, so they had to come up with a loop design, which allowed them to lower the motor and center of gravity. That was the PROTOTYPE in 1904. So all along this project, our heroes are running into one problem after another, and solving them one at a time. Something is in the way, they figure out a way around it. Something is weak, and breaks, they fix it by making the next one bigger and stronger. I have a very good , clear picture of the earliest known Harley photograph, which was published April 29, 1905. The front hub and wheel has only 32 spokes. Now use that combination on their motorcycle, with the added weight of a motor, add a heavy rider, hit a few road ruts, at a increasing rate of speed as they worked the bugs out of their NEW motor and carburetor combination. That 32 spoke hub and wheel probably didn't last too long. Find another problem. Fix another problem.

[HJahn]

Early Rapid Advancement: Motorized Bicycle vs. Motorcycle

O'Earl said:

That's correct. Their very early motorcycles had just evolved from bikes. Remember, their first effort was to strap an engine into a bicycle diamond style frame. That was in 1903. Then they realized that the motor wasn't big enough, so they came up with a bigger motor. But the problem with that was the shoehorn wasn't big enough to squeeze it into their bicycle frame, so they had to come up with a loop design, which allowed them to lower the motor and center of gravity. That was the PROTOTYPE in 1904. So all along this project, our heroes are running into one problem after another, and solving them one at a time. Something is in the way, they figure out a way around it. Something is weak, and breaks, they fix it by making the next one bigger and stronger. I have a very good , clear picture of the earliest known Harley photograph, which was published April 29, 1905. The front hub and wheel has only 32 spokes. Now use that combination on their motorcycle, with the added weight of a motor, add a heavy rider, hit a few road ruts, at a increasing rate of speed as they worked the bugs out of their NEW motor and carburetor combination. That 32 spoke hub and wheel probably didn't last too long. Find another problem. Fix another problem.

That's the other thing at work here.

I used to lump all the early bikes -- say before 1916 -- into one big catagory of antiques all pretty similar and extremely primitive.

But I don't think that's exactly true. The first motorcycles were very much motorized pedal bicycles -- maybe beefed a little with tandem hubs, etc. The earliest ones from 1901-1902 like the Marsh, Thomas, Indian, Merkel, and Mitchell had very much the bicycle look and idea, which was probably what they wanted. After all, who would buy such a crazy device as a motorcycle but an experienced bicycle rider?

It didn't take long before the pure motor-bicycle idea was scrapped by some builders. In 1903 the Merkel and Mitchell machines were totally revamped with new loop and cradle frames and these were true modern motorcycle designs in essence what is still being built today. If Harley-Davidson didn't built a loop-frame proto until 1904 and used the Merkel (a dead ringer) as inspiration, then the H-D was a SECOND GENERATION design (actually 3rd generation if you add up the 1901-1903 H-D motorized-bicycle, the 1901-1902 diamond frame Merkel, and then the 1903 loop-frame Merkel! No wonder the 1905 "Model-1" Harley-Davidson was so good right out of the bag!)

With that background of good frame design and a bigger lugger motor than most, the Harley-Davidson rapidly caught on and soon challenged Indian -- which was built to the orig. 1901 diamond-frame, camel-back pattern until 1909, long (IMO) after it was obsolete. And just like H-D may have copied Merkel, it looks like Indian may have followed Harley-Davidson in the revamped loop-frame Indian model of 1909.

If true, the above might be another reason Harley-Davidson pushed its origin date back to 1903 (and even earlier by some accounts). H-D didn't want to be called a copy cat of the 1903 Merkel design. And the earlier they claimed to have built their first loop-frame bike, the more of a pioneer they could claim to be on the advertising page and thus another jab at Indian for adopting the 1904 H-D (1903 Merkel) type of machine at the better-late-than-never date of 1909.

[Earl]

Originally posted by HJahn
1905: April 29: 1st known photo (no fenders) (p.26 & back inside cover)

I'm beginning to wonder what the basis was for their restoration of the SNO bikes if the MoCo didn't have that 1st photo from 29 April '05?

How do you know they didn't have it, O'earl?

BECAUSE I FOUND IT !!!!
Here's my story.
I was following the restoration of the Lobby bike because of my interest in the early Harleys. There were articles that appeared in the Harley publication HogTales, and in the magazine 'American Rider', that detailed some of the work going on. This was all in preparation for the celebration of Harley's 95th anniversary. When the motorcycle appeared in Daytona that year, it was without fenders !!

I told you that story in order to tell you this one........
On ebaY right around that time, I came across a single issue of an early publication that I had never heard of before. It was called 'Automobile Review'. The publication date for the issue on auction was April 29, 1905. The issue was listed as a model review issue, for motorcycles that were available at that time. I tried to send email inquiries to the auction seller, to see if a Harley was mentioned in any reviews. But the seller never replied. I knew that Harley was mentioned in the April 1, 1905 issue of 'Cycle & Automobile Trade Journal'. So, I took a chance and bid on this 'Automobile Review' issue. Somebody outbid me in the last 10 seconds or so, and I didn't win. But I still had this hunch that there was something in this issue that I needed to see, so I approached the winner of the auction and offered to buy a copy of the issue when he received it. Well, a few emails, and phone calls, and a money order later, I received a copy of this April 29, 1905 issue of 'Automobile Review'. When I paged through this issue, and finally got to the model review article, my mouth dropped open, because shown on the opening page was a photo of a fenderless Harley-Davidson motorcycle that I had never seen before. WOW !!!

Then I went down to my local historical society and library. They have a book there that lists all the holdings of historical books and periodicals in the country. I was able to track down a run of this periodical, 'Automobile Review', being archived at a college that was only 3 hours drive away. Needless to say, planned the time off work, ordered the periodicals for review so they could be brought out of storage for me, packed my camera and close-up lenses, and I was there. I spent two days going through every issue of that periodical that the college had archived away, dropped a small fortune in quarters into the copy machine bandit, and shot many rolls of film taking pictures of photographs that had not seen the light of day in almost 100 years. The photograph that appears in the AMCA Spring 2001 issue, inside back cover, is one that I took.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it..........

That's why I have a good clear copy of that photo, and can count the spokes

[HJahn]

Good job!

Wow!

That's quite a story O'earl. It shows that ultra-rare gems are still out there to be found at this late date. Maybe the original first Harleys are long gone, but forgotten historical evidence of them may still exist. Only it takes time and great effort to root that material out. I've noticed that most Harley history is very basic and the same old stuff over and over. With a sleuth like you on the case, no wonder that "New Chronology" article came out so well. That new up-coming book you helped with will no doubt be a eye-opener too.

But if H-D didn't have the 4-29-05 fenderless photo, did they just get lucky with the 1st SNO restoration/restyling job?

Wait! There was also that "line drawing" Harley-Davidson from April 1, 1905, and that thing didn't have fenders on it either.

I wonder if that was the key reference point for the fenderless SNO #1 restoration?

Because if H-D (nor anyone else) knew of your fenderless April 29, 1905 photo, what other reference to an early fenderless H-D model was there?

[Earl]

Re: Good job!

Originally posted by HJahn
Wow!
But if H-D didn't have the 4-29-05 fenderless photo, did they just get lucky with the 1st SNO restoration/restyling job?

Wait! There was also that "line drawing" Harley-Davidson from April 1, 1905, and that thing didn't have fenders on it either.

I wonder if that was the key reference point for the fenderless SNO #1 restoration?

Because if H-D (nor anyone else) knew of your fenderless April 29, 1905 photo, what other reference to an early fenderless H-D model was there?

LUCKY !!! That's my guess.

The ONLY reference that the restorers had to a fenderless Harley was in the "line drawing" from April 1, 1905.

See previous posting to view this "line drawing".

The photograph from April 29, 1905 HAD NOT been found yet. This is the earliest known photograph of a Harley.

No other early photograph showing a fenderless Harley is known to exist.

IF the factory would have had a copy of the April 29, 1905 photograph from 'Automobile Review', we would have seen that photo published by them at the time of SNO job #1 restoration. It would have shown up in 'The Enthusiast' or in 'HogTales', which are both Harley publications, BUT IT DIDN'T.

BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T PUBLISH WHAT THEY DIDN'T HAVE !!!

I'm sure they have a copy of that picture now, because I sent them one.

[HJahn]

Although in some of my previous messages I've been critical on H-D, Inc.'s lack of knowing its own history -- or maybe even being afraid of the real truth -- but I gotta say at this point that I really like the look of the 1st Serial Number One bike -- the shiny one that first appeared with its new fenderless look in 1997.

It's previous look with fenders and different bars gave it a sort of clumsy look. But stripped down like the Line Drawing image and the 1st known photo, it looks very sleek and cool. Who ever thunk that the first Harleys were such cool little hot rods?

It's pretty easy to see why in 1905 when the Harley-Davidson first appeared on the market a demand for them instantly devoloped. IMO it was the best looking machine available, and probably one of the best performing bikes too.

[Earl]

I agree with you HJahn.

The first Model 1 type Harley-Davidson motorcycles do look like "cool little hot rods". Without fenders they probably really kicked up the dust, and made that mud fly !!!! Imagine how great our heroes must have felt to have succeeded not only in getting their motorcycle motor to moat, but to have gotten their motor dimensions so right on from the get go. Bore, stroke, rod length, flywheel weight and dimensions. Everything worked together so well to make their machine the envy of those guys with the motors mounted high in the diamond frames that were top heavy, or the ones with the little puny flywheels that couldn't get them up the hills. They had to be smiling ear to ear whenever one of their machines would "dust" the competition.

When I think back to the beginnings of the Motor Company, and what it must have really been like....................

I truly believe that the Harley-Davidson Company, is capable of getting things right, in regards to their origins, and what actually happened. But they appear to be very close minded, almost paranoid, and not willing to discuss our research. Rather than be open to discuss the probable way things happened, they remain stuck to their improbable, almost impossible stories, and myths, started by marketing and sales guys in later years. When I'd have an opportunity to discuss some findings with some Archives people at the antique meets, they'd shake their head in agreement, but realize the momentum of the present marketing hype is too immense to change. Maybe somebody is afraid of the costs to do a recall on all those t-shirts. I don't think anybody would ask them to do that. We're not arguing "Established in 1903". For that matter, you could just as well make a case for 1902, or 1901. What I take exception to are the claims of "what bikes were made, and when".

Where's their proof ???

[HJahn]

The boys really did make a great bike for the time -- even if the time wasn't until 1904 and more realistically 1905. Wouldn't it have been fun to hang around that backyard shed and watch what was going on? I wonder what it looked like inside? Again, no evidence survives so far as I know...

I think the Harley hit the market at the right time (1905). By that time people were coming around to the idea that a motorcycle was more than a beefed-up bicycle with an engine, but a unique form of vehicle with its owns needs and quirks. The Harley-Davidson looked new and exciting at a time when the Indian camel-back and its many clones were very popular.

Something else I noticed. In the book Harley-Davidson Lore #1 there is a photo of the Harley-Davidson factory collection in 1950. Guess what? There is no 1906 year bike in the line-up. The "1904" is there (SNO #1) and the "1905" (SNO #2), but no 1906.

Was it loaned out that day, or didn't they have a 1906 model? There is one in the factory collection now. Although with all the date changes going on with the MoCo's early bikes, I wouldn't be surprised to see it appear in a different guise any day now...