Replica Early Harleys

[exeric]

I meant to say OHC.

[Perry Ruiter]

Seriously though, where did that color come from. Looking at the old photos of the Bob Perry OHV, it looks like it was painted the standard Excelsior Khaki green. Personally, I think the OHV EX is one of the most interesting racing bikes in American motorcycle racing history. A lot of that fascination is due to the tragedy of it's debute and the romantic story of Schwinn taking a hammer to it's stable mates. I have no doubt that it would have been a formidable racer if it had been run more but by 1919, the racing scene was getting much calmer and H-D had pretty much proved it's dominance. Somewhere I have an article that mentions one of the OHV motors being used in a hill climber in the mid 30's.

I know you know this Eric, but that bike is not merely an OHV but overhead cam as well. There was a batch of OHV Super X's built in the late 20s as hillclimbers. If your 30's article only mentions OHV then it's probably one of those Supers rather than an overhead cam bike ... Perry

[exeric]

You are so right about that Cory. For me, it's a fool's errand because I am cursed to never find anything I really need. I also have old literature that explains what made a KL Henderson different than a KJ. Cam profiles, etc. I read that years ago and have not come across it since. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just daffy and imagine these things.

[c.o.]

It is sort of to bad that the Big Valve X didn't get a chance to take off. The scan on Pete's replica (posted above) paints the "story" as most know it. It seems to me that there were about half a dozen of these bikes built with a spare engine for each machine. Now we are told that Mr. Schwinn smashed some of the spare engines with a sledge hammer. There is no note that I have read that indicates he pulverized any complete machines. That leaves me to wonder if somehow something possibly survived. Nothing has surfaced as of late but at least one machine was saved for sure that day by the hands of one Waldo Korn. He raced the bike privately a couple years after the Perry incident. I wonder if that's the motor that ended up in the hillclimber? Does anyone have any other info on this matter? I'd be interested in hearing what the story is on the hillclimber. That's if you stumble across it Eric. I don't expect you to dig for it... I know what it's like digging for that one little tidbit of info. I've spent hours scouring books and magazines just to find something that was nagging in the back of my head.........

[exeric]

Seriously though, where did that color come from. Looking at the old photos of the Bob Perry OHV, it looks like it was painted the standard Excelsior Khaki green. Personally, I think the OHV EX is one of the most interesting racing bikes in American motorcycle racing history. A lot of that fascination is due to the tragedy of it's debute and the romantic story of Schwinn taking a hammer to it's stable mates. I have no doubt that it would have been a formidable racer if it had been run more but by 1919, the racing scene was getting much calmer and H-D had pretty much proved it's dominance. Somewhere I have an article that mentions one of the OHV motors being used in a hill climber in the mid 30's.

[William McClean]

LSD

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ?

[exeric]

I sure agree with you about the color. That's LSD green, not Excelsior green.

[silentgreyfello]

Silentgreyfello.
I get the impression that you don’t like this Bike?
Pete Reeves 860

Not too much. I guess it is the color.

I'm eating crow for commenting on the shape of the tank! Sorry Mr. Gagen! Part of my angst is the club money that was spent on the museum by our board. Now a member of the board is drawing a salary for running the museum. Hmmmmm. If that is not correct, I'll eat some more crow I guess. It's not too bad.

[c.o.]

I don't know.....the original tank is awfully square.........

[pete reeves]

Silentgreyfello.

I get the impression that you don’t like this Bike?

Pete Reeves 860

[silentgreyfello]

1919 Excelsior

Good golly, that Excelsior has to be the ugliest recreation ever. The shoe box made into a gas tank is not even close to what the real deal would have been. And look at that paint job.... sheesh that is the ugliest green I have seen since the Hodaka Road Toad. It looks like a combo between lime and puke. They even got overspray on the handlebars! Now it is in the museum that the club's brass (including the owner of the bike) voted to spend OUR money on. Then they rub our nose in it with THAT thing.

Sorry, my wife is in a bad mood today.

[bmh]

the answer is NO!!!! reproduction motors are an instant DQ
and if they try to enter it as a motorcycle made in 2009, it must be a mass produced with its own running gear(motor and trans) to be eligible for judging

That may well be , but it doesn't seem to prevent their display in amongst the real motorcycles at the museum in Hershey.





Note that we don't even mention that this machine is a reproduction on the display heading.



You must read all the way to the last little paragraph to ascertain that fun fact. Yet here is a reproduction proudly displayed one bike or so away from Smokin Joes's Big Bertha Excelsior. As it was put so eloquently a while ago "fake is fake". While I mean absolutely no disrespect to the talented and driven individuals that create these things, I must question why we would display a machine that was ineligible for judging at the museum? I'm fairly certain you won't find any Cobra kit cars upstairs in the racing auto display, only the real deal.

[exeric]

You're absolutely right Cotten. When I first got interested in old motorcycles, they belonged to outlaw bikers and some of them were pretty scarey. Now, old motorcycles belong to nerds with poison pens and judging sheets and they're scarey too. I think the fun of old motorcycles is doing your own work, but if you're not doing that and are just chasing the perfect score Knucklehead then you're missing the point. However, people enjoy life in many different ways.

[T. Cotten]

The way I see it folks,

The whole problem is that we have lost our collective sense of humor.

Motorcycles used to be fun toys, that you could play with any way you wished.

But somehow, they became significantly valuable.
Now folks carry their egos in their wallets.

The playfull innocence of our predecessors is lost forever.
Creativity is now often only a matter of finding the right catalog.
The more skillful the repair, the more deceitful it is considered.

The game is now "fool the judges".
Add un-judgeable classes, and its a free-for-all.

...Cotten

[c.o.]

If you want to talk Fake then take a look at just about every knucklehead and post war Indian Chief at an AMCA event. The early bikes of pre 1920 vintage certainly have their reproduction parts but that was done to get them ridable again. I don't think anyone would argue that making a Yale run after 75 years of silence, is not a noble accomplishment and a benefit to all of the members that want to see, hear, and smell a motorcycle of historic signifigance. The people that are addicticted to the early motorcycles know what they are looking at and know what parts are rare, what parts are usually missing, and who's making the reproduction. If there is monkey business going on in the world of collectible motorcycles, look at the bikes with recirculating oil systems, i.e. Knuckleheads. There are masters at work making "barn fresh" Knuckleheads. I wouldn't buy a Knucklehead these days, unless I could afford to pay Chris Haynes fee to appraise it.

Wow! There are definitely opinions on this subject aren't there? I could write up another opinion but exeric already summed up my thoughts.