In Velo Veritas: Keith Hamilton
A great fellow, true vintagent, and source of marvelous stories, Keith Hamilton moved on to the big motorbike workshop in the sky in 2009. I had the pleasure of corresponding with Keith for many years, and every email or phone call would meander in the best possible ways, from his adventures during WW2, to building the first radio-equipped civilian motorcycle, to hobnobbing with Les Diener (constructor of the Eldee DOHC racing Velocette). He served in the RAAF for 5 years during WW2, as a flight engineer on Catalinas, and later on B24 Liberators. In later life, he captured the attention of an online chat room as he worked to locate the PBY Catalina flying boat he'd 'ditched' during WW2 in the South Sea, from notes he kept on the day!
The Old AJS
'Daaad!' The two brothers had been whispering together as their elder sister and mother cleared away the dishes of the midday meal, while their father ran his eye over the Sunday Mail. Dad lowered the newspaper and knew immediately that the boys had something serious on their ten year old minds. 'Yes?' 'It's that old motorbike in the garden shed, could we pull it out and get it going?'
on the Watsonia door to this day. [Keith Hamilton]
'So boys - that's the story - and yes, you really will have to ask your Mother about this one!'
A Clubman at Brooklands: David Vincent
The legendary Brooklands race track was the first purpose-built motorsports track in the world, and was built in 1907 by Hugh Locke-King on his own property, using his own money, as a rebuff to a British ban on road-course competitions: the same law that inspired competition on the Isle of Man, which opened the same year for TT racing. Even in these early years of motoring, Locke-King foresaw the future of motorsports, as the banked track was designed for speeds up to 130mph, as a time cars and motorcycles could barely top 60mph - hardly enough to justify the near-vertical banking at the top of the track. It took until 1913 for a car to reach 100mph at Brooklands, and 1921 for a motorcycle.
As speeds increased over the decades, the official sanctioning body for motorcycle racing the BMCRC ('Bemsee', the Brooklands Motor Cycle Racing Club) began offering a Gold Star for riders who lapped at over 100mph during a race. The Gold Star was a coveted award, and many riders rented or borrowed motorcycles that had proven capable of the task, in order to add one to their list of achievements. Only 141 riders won Gold Stars at the track between 1922, when the award was inaugurated, and 1939, when the track was appropriated by the military for WW2. They're a Who's Who list of mostly British riders of the era, and no doubt every Gold Star has an intriguing story behind it.
The Current: Egads! An Electric Surfboard?
You knew it was just a matter of time. Once longboards became electrified on the streets of San Francisco, someone was bound to develop an electric surfboard, right? Conventional wisdom and a wise bet would have pegged Santa Cruz, the surf capital about 75 miles south.
Sweden?!
“The market for electric surfboards has seen a stagnation in new products that push the limits of what these machines can do,” Awake founder and CEO Philip Werner said. “Not much has happened in respect to power and agility, and even less attention has been given to exterior design and user experience. The Awake Rävik completely disrupts the existing arena, and is our statement that great design and great performance belong together.”
The Black Phantom
Dirk Oehlerking’s most famous build – the White Phantom – is currently sitting in our Custom Revolution exhibit at the Petersen Museum. It’s a fantastic machine, with a slightly retro 1960s show-bike vibe, mixed with some real world performance, as it has a turbocharger under its bodywork. The bike attracted huge attention around the world, and Dirk was told by several designers he respects (namely Ola Stenegärd, Christian Pingitzer and Roland Stocker) that the White Phantom would be “hard to top.” It’s an understandable sentiment, when such a compelling creation becomes your signature achievement: the same applies for visual artists or musicians who create a masterpiece – where do you go from there?
Dirk explains his response: “Of course, this feedback does not leave me with any rest, but arouses my ambition and inspiration. I did not want to “top” the White Phantom, I wanted to put a partner / brother beside it. White and Black, Black and White: they belong together! I was dreaming of phantoms that appear from nowhere, that leave you breathless then disappear, leaving only an impression. I came up with a lot of ideas, had a lot of doubts, pulled my hair, lost sleep, but that was my process.”
THE BLACK PHANTOM - BEHIND THE SCENES from The Vintagent on Vimeo.
His goal was to build a bike that demonstrated an idea that “no high end technique is needed to create something special.” He needed tremendous creativity, some interesting ideas, and an understanding of good design, but also an educated pair of hands to build the bike, coupled with knowledge, experience, and skills.
The building process took months without stopping, and Dirk’s goal was the build the Black Phantom with no welding on the frame, no frame stretching or drilling. It was his goal to use as many OEM BMW parts as possible, from 1951-79, with only a handful of additional accessories. The list reads like a jumbled BMW parts catalog, with the oldest piece an R51 tank badge, and the newest several bits from an R100RS, plus the odd instrument or Hoske exhaust system. The fuel tank and bodywork was all made from 2mm thick aluminum sheet, shaped by hand at Kingston Custom, which is the important thing: “The Black Phantom is 100% Kingston Custom: it’s a one-man show.”
Death By Cocteau
In 1949 Jean Cocteau adapted the Greek myth of Orpheus to the cinema, in a contemporary setting of post-war Europe. His use of motorcycles in this dark, evocative tale set the pattern of associating Death with Motorcycles in film forever after, and established the Dark Rider phenomenon in the popular imagination. In short, Cocteau was the first to associate motorcycles with menace in the arts: previously, they had merely been interesting kinetic props, but Cocteau, already famous as a Surrealist poet and playwright/set designer before WW2 in France, was first to see something very different and dark on two wheels.
Cocteau's first commercial film, the stunning adaptation of 'Beauty and the Beast' (1947), was a huge success, and is still the best version of the story, with wonderful special effects created ‘in camera’. Cocteau then shifted from fairy tale to ancient myth, and was the first director to fully grasp the totemic power of the motorcycle, and used it to stunning impact, creating a lasting association with Death which echoes through movies even today, and powerfully influenced the filmmakers who followed him, most notably Kenneth Anger (who spent time with Cocteau in Paris, and later directed the ultimate art house biker film, "Scorpio Rising") and Laslo Benedek, director of ‘The Wild One’.
In Cocteau's film version of the myth, Orpheus is a poet whose fame is great, but who lacks respect from the new, young, existentialist/beatnik poets who hang out at the Café des Poétes. While visiting the café, Orpheus is disrespected by the very drunk but very hot new poet Cegeste, who is shortly killed by a dark pair of motorcyclists roaring past. A rich woman in a Rolls Royce (the Princess), who escorted Cegeste to the cafe, orders Orpheus to help carry the body of the young poet in her car. She reveals to Orpheus that she is Death, and the lethal motorcyclists are her henchmen. Orpheus and Death fall in love, and Death sends Cegeste's poetry through the radio in her Rolls to Orpheus, who becomes obsessed with this poetry and with Death herself, and ignores his beautiful wife Eurydice.
Death is jealous, and her henchmen kill Eurydice, although a guilty Orpheus follows her to the Underworld through a mirror, a simple and effective special effect using dual film stocks, reversed footage, and a 2-ton tub of mercury. For interfering with Life, the Princess must stand before a tribunal in a ruined building (much of the Underworld is a bombed-out French military school), for it seems that while nobody really gives the orders for who is to live and die, such orders echo through Hades like the sound of drums. Orpheus wins Eurydice back to Life, but catches a glimpse of her in the rear-view mirror of the Rolls. The Bacchantes, habitués of a lesbian beatnik bar, are furious that their former bar-girl Eurydice is dead, and kill Orpheus. Cocteau’s use of in-camera special effects is simple and evocative, and using motorcyclists as the Henchmen of Death is memorably effective; the roar of their approaching engines is the cue that someone is about to die; the bikes roar into the scene for a shadowy instant, then blast away down the road, leaving a body sprawled on the pavé.
As it turns out, Death rode an Indian in 1949, or two in fact; the machines used in the film look are a 1937 Chief and a 1940 Sport Scout with skirted fenders. The two machines are mismatched, but ‘Orpheus’ was made on a very limited budget, and only much later DVD technology revealed the bikes’ details. Watching the movie, one can tell they’re Indians, but it hardly matters – what they really are is Death in motion. The Henchmen's outfits are standard motorcycle gear - leather helmets with shaded goggles (a darkened half-lens can be flipped up or down; I have a pair), dark wool shirts and trousers, gauntlet gloves, and wide leather kidney belts. No special costume was required to create the kind of menace a motorcycle policeman uses daily as a tool of intimidation.
All motorcyclists intuitively feel their visual impact as a rider on pedestrians or automotive observers. On a motorcycle, we become Centaurs: half-human, half-roaring mechanical beast, and if we're honest with ourselves, we love the thrill of that dark power, which some riders exploit as a total lifestyle. There's an alchemical transformation of a rider on a motorcycle, and the erotic bond of human/machine is part of what makes them irresistible, and mesmerizing to watch. Jean Cocteau was the first to recognize and exploit this power artistically, which is no surprise given his pre-war identification with the Surrealists, who were disciples of the unconscious, rigorously exploring Freud’s writings, and using his theories as tools for their art. Undoubtedly Cocteau’s meditations on hidden psychological forces led to his realization of the motorcycle’s power, even though he was not himself a motorcyclist. The totality of the riding experience is both sides of the coin Cocteau flipped – the underside being Death’s henchmen, the bright side the thrill of being fully alive on two wheels.
No Better Cure
A buddy of mine was going through a tough divorce when I suggested he visit me in Miami. “Come down and we’ll ride to The Keys,” I told Matt, an invitation that elicited an immediate and enthused “I’m there!” Two weeks later we were gawking at the rental bike he booked: a 1200cc Harley Road King with a shiny black finish and so much chrome it was painful to look at in the South Florida sun.
Matt straddled the bike, his slight build barely registering on the behemoth’s shocks, and fired it up. The engine emitted an ear-rattling and potent roar that drowned out the precision puttering of my BMW Dakar. “Listen to that!” he said. His face beamed like it did a decade earlier when we were young, carefree college students and real life had yet to kick either one of us in the urethra.
We pulled onto the highway and headed south toward The Keys riding in tandem until Matt could not longer resist ripping back the throttle and exploring the beast’s full potential. I tried in vain to keep the pace, but my 650cc BMW Dakar was no match for the monstrous Harley. I hung in there just long enough to glimpse Matt prone on the bike as if he were trying to shatter the land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats. After that, he was a speck on the horizon racing toward paradise. Once he eased up, Matt and I rode in tandem, taking in a tableau of island retreats and an armada of pleasure boats sailing toward the horizon, perhaps each on a quest for adventure and relaxation similar to our own.
The further we rode, the more like his old self Matt seemed. When we stopped for lunch, I noticed that the weary look he wore when he arrived had already vanished. He seemed unencumbered by the troubles he’d endured back home and fully focused on the pleasure of the now. Matt’s enthusiasm was infectious, so much so that any sourness I was carrying was also quickly forgotten. By the time we rolled into Key West we were laughing like schoolchildren and ready to take in everything that the legendary southernmost American retreat had to offer.
We spent the next few days riding around The Keys, relaxing on the beach and exploring Key West nightspots, reveling in the laid-back vibe enjoyed by bikers from all over who flock to the islands. Our last evening in Key West, Matt had me doubled over in stitches when he noted that the older female clientele at the world-famous Hemingway hangout Sloppy Joe’s were particularly interested in him. “This place is like a cougar zoo!”
His spirits raised, we headed back to Miami the following afternoon, riding that long stretch of U.S. 1 bathed in the pinkish-orange hue of a setting tropical sun. we took our time, cruising from one island to the next at a leisurely pace. But just as the sun set, my bike conked out in the Middle Keys. Matt and I fumbled in the dark to remove the tank panels and diagnose the problem by the light of our cell phones. Fortunately another rider pulled over to lend a hand. To my embarrassment, he discovered that I had done a half-assed job of installing my new battery; one of the contacts had shaken loose from the terminal. While reseating the battery and tightening the contacts, Matt elbowed me to check out the logo emblazoned on his t-shirt:
You never see a motorcycle parked in front of a psychiatrist’s office
We both knew from personal experience this was not entirely true, though remarked how this assertion was the ideal coda to his curative ride. The resonance of that Keys run and our savior’s t-shirt remained with me long after Matt and I returned to Miami. I called on those memories years later when my ex-fiancee gave back the engagement I’d put on her finger the previous year. It was mid-winter in Washington, DC. A wet blanket of snow covered the streets, not exactly ideal riding weather. However I decided I couldn’t spend another day there - I needed to put at much distance between us as quickly as possible. So with my reclaimed ring in my pocket, I headed over to the friend’s house where my bike had been parked for several months while I had been reporting in Afghanistan and recovering from the serious injury I’d sustained there that for months left me blind in one eye and threatened to end my riding days for good. When I arrived, I yanked the tarp off my Dakar and snow filled the air, unsure whether I was be able to ride it with only one good eye.
Hello, my darling. I’ve missed you.
I threw my leg over the saddle, pulled the bike upright and drew in the kickstand.The tire pressure felt low, but I reasoned softer tread would grip better on the dusting of snow covering the side streets on the way to the highway. That is, if my bike was going to start at all. It had been left out in the cold for five months and had only been started a couple of times. I inserted the key and turned it. The lights on the dash flickered. Then I closed my eyes and pressed the ignition button. For a second, nothing. The bike was quiet and my heart dropped. I tried again and the biked emitted a feeble wheeze.
Err, err, err!
I tried again.
Errr, errr, errr errr!
“Come on! I need to get out of here!” I pleaded aloud while rocking it back and forth, hoping that sloshing around of the bike’s fluids would be enough to awake it from its deep, sickly winter slumber. “Come on! Come on!” I panicked at the prospect of not being able to get away.
Errrr, errrr, errrr, errrr . . .
My bike gasped and choked while attempting to shake off all that inertia.
Errrrrr, errrrrr, errrrrr, errrrrr . . . pada, pada, pada pada . . . vroooooommmmm!
My bike caught the beat like a cardiac patient brought back from the dead with a jolt to the chest. I gave my Dakar a little time to warm up and settle into a reasonable rhythm, then eased it onto the icy street. I was so goddamn delighted it started that I’d momentarily forgotten where I was going. Then I remembered: I was heading south, back to Miami and the sun-drenched highways and warm salt-infused air that had proven so reliable a remedy for my buddy’s broken heart, hoping it would do the same for me.
I rode hundreds of miles through pelting rain in the Carolinas and Georgia, squinting through the showers and rubbing condensation off of my visor. Despite the ardor, my travels indeed proved therapeutic. The further I went, the more my Dakar strained to reached my need for quickness in my escape, the better I felt. The roar of the wind threw my open visor was washing away my grief and rejection. By the time I reached the lights sands and blue waters in Miami my malaise had lightened, as had my load - I’d sold the returned engagement ring at a pawn shop in Tampa.
The healing power of miles in the saddle once again resuscitated the formerly woeful.
The Phantastic Oskar Schindler
By Dr. Erwin Tragatsch
[Note: Motorcycle historian Dr. Erwin Tragatsch, author of the groundbreaking 'The Illustrated Encylopedia of Motorcycles' (1977), wrote this unpublished article in 1955, long before the book 'Schindler's Ark' (1985) led to the movie 'Schindler's List' (1993). Tragatsch recounts his own acquaintance with the man, before WW2. The article is reprinted as written by Tragatsch, including the title, and was discovered only this June while perusing the Tragatsch Archive within Hockenheim Museum Archive]
THE RACING MOTORCYCLIST WHO SAVED THOUSANDS FROM DEATH
Who remembers Oskar Schindler, the ex-racing motorcyclist from Czechoslovakia? Probably, with few exceptions, nobody. Schindler was never a racing man of the Stanley Woods, Jimmy Guthrie, Geoff Duke, John Surtees, or Mike Hailwood calibre. He never rode in England, never in more than two races in his life and his name also never graced the frontpage of any motorcycle journal in the world...and despite this all, even the Sunday Express issue of 22. March 1964 and lately even the allmeighty BBC found warm words for this now 57 year old Schindler, who rode his last motorcycle race 27 years ago, in 1928. And...according to the latest news, even a film is to be made with: 'The Oskar Schindler Story!' [Two attempts were made to film Schindler's story during his lifetime, but it took until 1993 for Steven Spielberg to finally make the film - ed.]
Who is this phantastic Oskar Schindler? I know him since we both were in school in the town of my birth, Svitavy (Zwittau) in the Moravian part of Czechoslovakia. He went with my older brother to school and had only one interest...motorcycles! In 1925 he got his first machine. It was a red painted Italian 500cc single-cylinder Galloni. It looked 'fast' but with its sidevalve engine it was not a potent instrument. A hopeless thing for any kind of road racing.
Oskar Schindler solved the speed problem early in 1928. The Galloni was sold and in its place came the dream of every young racing enthusiast, the fabulous 250cc single cylinder OHC Moto Guzzi. The great Italian Pietro Ghersi introduced this racing model in 1926 to the thousands of race spectators during the Lightweight TT in the Isle of Man, and scared with his phantastic practice and race laps not only 'Ebby' (then the Chief Timekeeper Mr Ebblewhite), but also all his opponents. Until then the name Moto-Guzzi was known only at home in Italy and even in other Continental countries, only very few of these wonderful machines were ridden in races...Orlando Geissler and Hans Winkler had them in Germany, Joo in Hungary, Vojtech Kolazskowsky in Poland and Peter Roberts in Czechoslovakia. And now, Oskar Schindler, son of an insurance agent and man about town, got one too.
Ten years later...1938. Oskar Schindler, born in a town in Czechoslovakia but of German nationality, goes to Germany and later takes over an ammunition factory in Krakow in Poland, where he produces arms for the German Wehrmacht (army). He has no worries with the sale of his products but worries because of shortage of labourers. The Germans need all men for the fighting forces in the east, in the west, in the south and the north and Schindler tells the army bosses that unless he can get inmates from concentration camps - foreigners, prisoners, non-aryans, etc - he is unable to carry on. Eventually, despite protests by the dreaded Gestapo (secret police), he gets his way and takes thousands of these unlucky men and women into his factory...away from the horrible tortures, away from hunger and away from the gas chambers.
He goes even further. He kicks out the Gestapo from his factory and bribes other dangerous Germans, who tried to interfere with his human dealings with the ex-concentration camp inmates. How he is not hated by his employees but by the fanatics, and more than once he is in trouble with the crazy politicians. The army comes more than once to his rescue, and also to the rescue of men, hunted despite his protest by the Gestapo in his factory. Not because of pure humanity, but because they need arms...arms...arms. And Schinlder is even not keen on producing many of them or very good ones [and produced only one truckload of ammunition in 3 years! - ed.] ...he just wants to keep himself and his labour force out of trouble. And he eventually succeeds!
Near the end of the war, when Poland became for the Germans again a hot place, they moved the factory westward, to Moravia. Schindler insisted on taking his labour force and staff with him and while millions of others died in concentrations camps, Schindler fed them quite well, clothed them and gave them human living conditions. And when, in May 1945, everything broke down for the Germans, he had rescued about 1200 men, women, and children who, without him, would have died.
After the war he went to Argentina, but returned in the Fifties to Germany, where he became - at Frankfurt - the owner of a cement factory...still keeping contact with many of these men and women that he rescued and who forever will be thankful to him [in fact his former employees funded him after the war - ed.].
Oskar Schindler, in his period as a racing motorcyclist, was not a famous man. Fame came to him, when his own feeling for humanity proved stronger than anything else and when he, the German, stood not behind a crazy ideology but behind the many British, French, Czechs, Poles, Belgians, Dutchmen and other who, without him, would have died.
The Current: How Moto3 Opened The Door For NEXT Electric
NEXT Electric Motors CEO Xulei Xu is excited about the future of electric mobility, and his company co-founders Estefanía Hernández, Antonio Navarro Herrero and Ben Holzemer are driving the company forward with the NX1, an electric moped reminiscent of a futuristic Honda Elite.
Xulei, when and how did the NX1 go from concept to production?
The project started exactly one year ago. It's crazy to think that in May 2017 the four co-founders of NEXT Electric Motors didn't know each other yet. But thanks to the help of the Miguel Hernandez University in Spain, who introduced us last year, we have the opportunity to be here today and together.
On one hand, we have Antonio and Estefania who won the World Championship in Innovation in Motostudent 2016. After that experience, they started to think about the idea of creating a company to apply all their experience and expertise gained during the competition.
For those who are not familiar with Motostudent, it’s an international championship where students from 70-plus universities around the world design and build a Moto3 motorbike from the MotoGP World Championship and compete each against each other. Currently, we’re also building an electric motorbike to compete in Motostudent 2018 that will take place in Spain’s Motorland Racing Circuit next October.
On the other hand, at the same time, Ben and I also had the idea of creating a company to produce of electric motorbikes because we’re strongly convinced that it’s the future of mobility.
During our first meeting together, we immediately realized that were perfectly compatible and had the same ideas about the future of electric vehicles. Since that moment, we started to work really hard and we expect to deliver the first units of the NEXT NX1 in winter 2019.
We all come from very different backgrounds and that's what makes us a strong and complete team. The experience of the team ranges from Junior World Championship track engineers, experts in marketing from multinational companies, international trade specialists and finance guys who worked for international consultancy and private equity firms. However, there is something that glues us together: the passion for motorsports and technology.
Tell me how NEXT Electric Motors is being accelerated in Lanzadera through the Garaje program.
Lanzadera is probably one of the best things that happened to us since we started the company. They are extremely helpful and are accelerating us providing all sorts of resources: coaching, office space, and training covering the different parts a business, financing, networking, etc. They have a great staff that’s helping us to achieve our goals.
We truly believe that the future of transportation will be electric, not only in two-wheeled vehicles, but in any mean of transportation you could imagine. The main handicap that we have nowadays is the capacity and the recharging times of the batteries. Although there have been significant improvements in the last decade, we believe there’s still a lot of room for improvement to develop new materials and technologies in energy storage devices that will boost the massive adoption of electric vehicles worldwide.
When might the NX1 be available in the United States?
Our short term plans are to start delivering the first units of the NX1 in Spain next winter and then expand the operations to the rest of Europe. We don't have yet a clear timeframe for the US, but once the European market is consolidated we will definitely seek new markets, and the US is very attractive for electric vehicles.
Road Test: 1936 Brough Superior SS80
The Vintagent Road Tests come straight from the saddle of the world's rarest motorcycles. Catch the Road Test series here.
Too much tap, tap, tap on the Mac, not enough wrist-turning brrumm brrumm, makes Jack a dull lad. So, at the end of the northern hemisphere's riding season, on a cool but clear morning in London's Chelsea district, the offer of a road test on a nice old Brough Superior was like a cup of warm tea in cold hands: a very good idea.
Indians for the European Grand Prix
While the Hendee Manufacturing Co. was the largest motorcycle factory in the world in 1911, and sold more bikes to the US military during WW1, after the war they lost their sales edge to Harley-Davidson. Indian exported 50% of its output in the 1920s, and actively supported racing on British and European soil, giving factory support (meaning money and machinery) to a team managed by Billy Wells, the British Indian importer, from 1909 onwards [read the Billy Wells story here]. Wells and his special Indian racers found great success at Brooklands and the Isle of Man, which peaked in a 1-2-3 victory for Indian at the 1911 Isle of Man TT [read that story here].
Indian continued to send factory specials to Britain up until that country entered WW1 in 1914. After the war, when racing resumed, Indian carried on giving factory support to riders: the first Isle of Man TT was held in 1920, and HR Harveyson made 5th place on a 500cc Indian Scouts, while his team-mate DS Alexander made 6th. The first four places in the race were taken by Sunbeam (Tommy DeLaHaye won on one) and Norton sidevalve singles, so CB Franklin, Indian's chief designer, chose to make 'half a Scout' - a sidevalve single - for his European racers. Indian's best result at the Isle of Man TT in the 1920s was taken by professional racer Freddie Dixon, who managed 2nd place in the 1921 Senior, on a factory-supplied 500cc sidevalve single. He was beaten by Howard R Davies (who soon founded his own motorcycle brand - HRD), in the only instance where a 350cc machine won the Senior TT!
2018 Concorso Eleganza Villa d'Este
Like many contemporary brands, the Concorso di Eleganza Villa d'Este, held on the shores of stunning Lake Como, is a revival. A Concorso was first organized on the grounds of the 16th century Villa d'Este from 1929-49 (with a gap for WW2), and featured the elegant new designs from the many coachbuilders working on automobile chassis at the time (Saoutchik, Figoni&Falaschi, etc), in a grand tradition stretching back hundreds of years. But the economic situation in postwar Italy was dire, and the great coachwork houses were in transition from the large prewar pattern to the sleeker, more modern forms exemplified by the likes of Cisitalia.
Stolen Glory: Zenith, OEC, and the 1930 World Speed Record
It was the first 'battle of Britain', and a prelude to the steamroller of history that would soon overtake all the participants. The garlands accorded the World Motorcycle Speed Record holder in the years before WW2 became arguably more important than race wins for publicity, as there was no proper world championship series in the Grand Prix scene, but everyone knew who was fastest. Still, only a few factories invested the time in developing their machinery for a top-speed run, and the best results were gained using road- or track-racing engines in a modified chassis. BMW used its supercharged road racer engines (at first the WR750 pushrod engines, then their OHC 500cc motor) in longer frames with metal cladding, then developed fully enclosed streamlining by the mid-1930s. Gilera used its supercharged GP racing supercharged DOHC four-cylinder in streamlined bodywork. The British contingents - Brough Superior, Zenith, OEC, and AJS - tended to use standard frames (except OEC) with minimal streamlining, and relied on supercharged JAP pushrod v-twin engines (except AJS, who designed an OHC v-twin that was unsuccessful, but gorgeous). [For more on all these, see our series 'Absolute Speed, Absolute Power']
n 'streamliner' bodywork by Bob Berry, and sat in the Pendine Museum for many years. While that bodywork is in its original form, the OEC chassis was rebuilt, and the machine is in its original 'Montlhéry' configuration. Both the OEC and the Zenith are World Speed Record holders, but if motorcycles could talk, I bet the Zenith would have something to say to the OEC...
American Racer Portraits: 1927-33
When the sport of dirt track (later called speedway) left American shores and reverberated back from Australia in the mid-1920s, it was suddenly a big deal, everywhere in the world. The old board track racing days were over, as they were simply too dangerous for riders and spectators alike, and their popularity faced with a withdrawal of support from the sanctioning bodies of racing. Speedway riders recaptured the public's attention, using spectacular broadsliding techniques to slide around circular or oval tracks while hard on the gas, and many credit Sprouts Elder as the man who perfected the form, and brought it to Australia on a racing tour. Traveling to Australia, New Zealand, and South American in the winter months meant these riders could work all year 'round, and while at first (1925-28) Douglas flat-twin racers were the bike to beat, it wasn't long before Indian and Harley-Davidson offered their own specialized dirt-track racers in single- and twin-cylinder form.
Motosacoche and the Brothers Dufaux
Brothers Armand and Henri Dufaux were the sort of artist/engineer/inventors one finds all over the world in the late 1800s, when motorized transport was a field open to anyone with an idea for making wheels or wings move. As no 'pattern' or 'best practices' had been settled in the fields of autos, motorcycles, or planes, in their mechanical function, principles of physics, or their motive power, inspiration and weeks of labor in a workshop might result in the founding of an empire, or a whole new genre of transportation.
Born in France (Chens sur Léman), the sons of Baroness de Rochefort Luçay, Henri (b. Sep 18, 1879) was a talented painter, studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Florence, and Geneva. Armand (b. Jan 13, 1883) studied mechanical engineering, and by 1898 the brothers had built their first clip-on engine for a bicycle. A year later they founded HADF (Henri Armand Dufaux Brothers) with Francis and Edward Cuillery Demole, based in Carouge, a suburb of Geneva. The Dufaux brothers, while French, had long family ties with Switzerland, and Geneva specifically, as their grandfather Henri Rochefort took refuge there after escaping exile (as immortalized by Manet) by Napoleon III during the Second Empire of France, for demanding restoration of the free press, and democratic life in general.
The Current: FEDDZ e-Bike
Slogdesign is a German industrial design company, and developed the new FEDDZ e-Bike, a completely re-thought version of an electric moped with a top speed of 45 km/h, and a range of 60km. It's not simply a rehashed moped with batteries, or a bicycle with an add-on, it's an integrated design that points the way forward for the industry. Slogdesign developed an open chassis which includes the interchangeable battery with a low centre of gravity. The battery is installed in a box protecting it from rain and muck and theft; to remove the battery for charging, simply unlock it and lift it out. The battery can be charged if the box remains in the two-wheeler, or out of the bike, and plugs into an ordinary socket.
The FEDDZ uses a magnetic plug connection, making it easy for the cord to 'find' the battery even in a dark storage area. When braking, reverse motor effort can recoup up to 15% of the battery power; the battery is made of high-performance lithium-ion cells , and an intelligent battery management system (BMS) uses integrated performance electronics, all originating from German technology.
The FEDDZ chassis is adjustable for rider height and sitting position, as the saddle is height-adjustable, and the foot rests can be either front-mounted or set in a sports/agility mode, while the 40mm high-riser handlebar provides for ergonomic variability. When parked on the sidestand, 'kickstand' appears on the display panel, and the twistgrip connection is blocked for safety.
The FEDDZ is bluetooth compatible and has its own smartphone app; a USB port exports data for remote maintenance and diagnosis, for servicing and is activated with an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip card. The FEDDZ can be custom ordered via their website in any paint color, along with special equipment like foil-wrapped sidecovers, colored belt straps, cargo bags, plus painted or transparent side covers. It's a sleek new urban commuter!
Around the World with Aloha Wanderwell
The life story of Aloha Wanderwell is worthy of the movies, as she lived a life of intrigue and adventure. She was 'the most traveled woman in the world' in the 1920s and '30s, and apparently the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by automobile. She was also a pilot, and a dab hand with an Indian motorcycle, which accompanied her and husband Walter Wanderwell on their travel tours of every continent. Luckily, she made films of her adventures traveling the world in the 1920s and '30s, and it was her movies that caught our attention, as the Academy Film Archive (think Oscars), compiled some of Aloha's donated footage into a short film of her remarkable life.
Walter Wanderwell's trip was part of a 'Million Dollar Wager', effectively a race between Ford-sponsored teams driving Model Ts around the world, the winner being the team visiting the most countries. Wanderwell's expedition was partly subsidized by lectures and film presentations along their route, as it left Nice, France, and traveled through Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and North America. Not long into Idris' journey, she took the stage name Aloha Wanderwell, even though Walter was married at the time; he soon divorced his wife, although he didn't marry Aloha until 1925, in Riverside, California, partly because the FBI was planning to arrest him for violating the Mann Act, which prohibited crossing state lines with a woman for 'immoral purposes'. Walter's real name was Valerian Johannes Pieczynski, who had spent the bulk of WW1 in an American jail as a suspected German spy!
'In Vietnam, You're Never Alone'
We've been following the exploits of motorcycle builder Zoe David on Instagram (@zoesecretplans) since we met her at Wheels&Waves in 2017, in the company of Frank Chatokhine and a very nice Trackmaster BSA racer. We found out she's a trained architect, who's been spending more time with a wrench in her hand than at her drafting table recently, and was very proud of the BSA she'd helped build at Atelier Chatokhine. We recently noted on her Instagram feed a string of interesting photos of Zoe riding and visiting motorcycle shops in Vietnam and Taiwan, which piqued our curiosity, so we asked her a few questions about the trip.
I went to Vietnam first, the country where I lived for 8 months (two years ago) and where I have so many feelings and good memories. And then I flew to Taiwan, where my sister lives.
At first I wanted to visit my sister who lives in Taichung as a student. But I'll never be a tourist, I can’t travel without a goal. As I said, I lived in Vietnam and met a lot of people there, and many interesting ones with motorcycles. They taught me how to make do with what you have, and stop asking for more, and that everything is possible even if you have nothing. They gave me a lot, so I wanted to give back to them, and tell their stories in Europe.
I first visited Binh, a Vietnamese builder, who's absolutely unbelievable. He looks like a man who never leaves his workshop, he's even told me that sometimes he doesn't feel human, because he doesn’t really need social interactions. He works on old Ural side-cars and other Byelorussian motorcycles, like the Minsk. He Machines parts as well, he makes his own frames, is really good with metalworks, and a good welder and mechanic…and he works on the floor. This guy is one of the most important people I’ve ever met.
There are not a lot.
The first thing is that women are raised to be reasonable and girly. In Vietnam and in Taiwan (maybe less so) the troubles girls have when they ride motorcycles usually involve their mothers worrying about them finding a husband or to have a bike crash.
So there aren't a lot of women riders, but the ones that do are really tough-minded and strong women. I was really happy to meet them and to share. It was a great moment - it’s not really my cup of tea doing 'girls' things, but (I don’t know why) I had the instinct that this time it would be important to find women riders.
I think they're not really involved yet in the motorcycle culture [as we know it] to really describe what they like or don't. I think they're influenced by what we like in Europe and US, and they try to follow the flow with different government rules and different budgets. They don’t have a lot of motorcycles there, but there are more and more new bikes arriving from brands like BMW, Ducati, Yamaha, and Honda, but no real vintage bikes (only ex-military bikes in Vietnam) because it was forbidden in their country to have big bikes; they've only recently been made legal.
There are racing federations in both Vietnam and Taiwan.
I can talk more about Vietnam than Taiwan, because I used to travel all around Vietnam by motorcycle. I think the most beautiful part of Vietnam is the extreme north of the country, near the Chinese border. What you need to know before you visit is that you won’t go fast, you can’t ride as you'd ride in your country, because if you do that you will die; the traffic is completely crazy. Frank met me there, and before he arrived I told him to keep one thing in mind: "ride as if all the other people on the road want to kill you, and you’ll be safe".
I think I have a problem; I just need to do what I want. It’s quite impossible to make me do something I don’t like, which is a real problem in our business world. I found my architecture projects quite boring, and I had the opportunity to join an amazing project building a BSA Trackmaster flat-track racer with Atelier Chatokhine, so I didn’t even think about it, and started working with them. I’ve never been more happy in my life than when I started working there; I work with my soulmate and my best friend and in my passion. Motorcycles - I think it’s a chance that everybody would like to get.
I’m still an architect, but I accept only projects that make me happy, and I work full time at the Atelier Chatokhine as a mechanic and on their PR. I've also done designs for women's clothing for Gentlemen’s Factory, and many other things.
I love racing but I can’t tell if I’m a 'real racer', I really love flat track racing and sprint races, and I think that 2019 is going to be the year I try road racing! I'm actually building a Triumph for that. I think that I just live fully …
Every true person I meet is an inspiration, the people I work with, my family, my boyfriend … I think it’s my own journey because I just follow my dreams and that’s it … I don’t try to be like someone else.
What’s next for Zoé ?
We invited David Aldana to try the Trackmaster BSA we built; he's coming with us next week to the MCN festival, and we'll spend 5 days together - it’s going to be so cool! Then I think we'd better get back to machining parts at the workshop.
We'll fly to L.A this summer to return the Velocette racers we revived for Richard Vincent [after they were displayed at Wheel&Waves in 2017]. I want to try the DTRA championship maybe in 2019...and I have another bike in preparation, a road-racing Triumph T110.
I would like to design more clothes for girls for other brands, because there isnt' a lot of choice for us for riding gear. I think I can’t see further into my future haha!
Brough Before Superior
They're at the top of the money tree today, as evidenced by filling 2 of our 'World's Most Expensive Motorcycles' spots. It's a status George Brough would have loved, as his Brough Superiors were the most expensive motorcycle in the world when they were new. In today's Gilded Age, the super-rich are happy to write checks for half a Million dollars for an SS100...because it takes 20 or 30 times that to buy a car of similar status. Whether George's bikes were truly 'superior' to his rival's machines is open to argument, but the truth is, a 1920s Zenith big twin with a JAP KTOR racing engine would likely sell for more than a Brough Superior today, simply because they're far more rare, and have a better record as track-racing machines. Nonetheless, the renown of the Brough Superior is a reflection of several qualities George possessed in abundance; he was a superb rider, one of the best motorcycle stylists in the history of the industry, and equally important, he was simply a genius at PR.
"I usually look through auction catalogues to see if any Broughs are listed, and the Bonhams Stafford October 2012 catalogue had Brough Superiors, but I hadn’t given much thought to the OHV 500cc flat twin W E Brough engine listed in the automobilia section. “Good external condition, and turning over with some compression.”
