This is a blog that focuses on interesting or funny stories from history. These are thing you did not learn in high school.
Cool Places- The National Motorcycle Museum
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Well this is not a story, but just a blurb about one of the coolest places I have been in some time. If you are a person who loves motorcycles or just dig vintage styling, then the National Motorcycle Museum in Anamosa Iowa is a place you should check out. I visited there on February 13th and was very impressed by what they have going on there. You get to see a wide variety of bikes from many countries and across many eras. You especially get a rich appreciation for the early years of American motorcycle manufacturing which was very diverse unlike today. I have included a TON of pictures and even a few videos for your enjoyment. Be warned, I am a TERRIBLE videographer, and on one clip I say "ya know" an annoying amount of times. That was because there was a photographer setting up a photo shoot near me and looking at me like I was crazy, which caused me some social anxiety. I don't think she noticed my small handheld Nikon at first.
Mid 60's Triumph Bonneville 650. When the UK was at the forefront of bike manufacturing
Replica of 1885 Daimler...the first real motorcycle
Mertz Cycle Car- Made back when these motorcycle engine powered vehicles filled the niche between the higher priced cars and motorcycles.
Evel Knieval's Stunt Bike....well one of them
And of course...his suit
30's Norton Road Racing Bike
Above and Below- A Von Dutch custom Triumph
Above and Below- The Custom Harley from the movie Easy Rider
overview of one of the areas
Ice cream motorcycle
Above and Below- Curtiss motorcycle(see my blog on Glenn Curtiss)
Above and Below-Sears used to make motorcycles in Chicago
Above and Below- The Brough Superior, the choice bike of Lawrence of Arabia
Above and Two Following Below-Thor was an American motorcycle maker in New York
4 Cylinder Indian
Above and Below- Pierce was famous for cars(prominent in the Great Gatsby), but they also made bikes. Here is a 4 cylinder model.
Excelsior was a maker based in Chicago
Vincent was one of the premier performance bikes of the 1930's through 50's in the UK
Above and Below- Husqvarna still makes dirt bikes, but they did make V twin standard at one time too
A very rare Henderson 4 cylinder
1930's BMW Boxer Twin
1930s BMW single
Board track racing bikes from the 1910's
Germany's NSU was the largest bike maker in the world in the 1950's
Germany's Opel is famous for cars, but like BMW they also started as a bike maker
Custom 70's Moto Guzzi "flying V"
1938 Triumph Speed Twin. This design would forever change Brit bike manufacturing. The parallel twin engines would be used until the 1980s. Other makers such as BSA and Norton would eventually use this layout.
A BSA V twin of the 1930s
Above and Below- A Harley powered ice boat. The engine drove the propeller which would pull the ice boat over frozen water.
An Indian board track racer from the 1910's.
1930s Cycle Car
A Harley bike that has been fitted with a 1957 283ci Chevy V8
1960's Drag Racing bike powered by a Triumph 650 engine
A supercharged Vincent powered drag bike of the 1960s
Above and Below- A salt flat speeder powered by dual Yamaha 650 twin cylinder engines.
A Harley powered drag bike from the 70's/80's
Twin Yamaha powered drag bike of the 70's/80's
A wall of engines, many of them 1950's and earlier.
Above and Below- An early survivor of the dawn of the motorcycle club era that started in the late 40's and early 50's
Another cycle car- this one was built for racing
The museum is full of these sorts of displays which explain the technology, many reproduced from original company literature. Here you see one talking about Indian engines and design.
A custom 1970's chopper based on a Honda 750cc inline 4 cylinder drivetrain
A Triumph with the "bathtub" body work
TONS of vintage signage and other gas pumps
An Excelsior that has been modified to be a hill climbing bike. These are the ancestors of the dirt bikes of today. Hill climbing is also still going on.
A panhead Harley powered giant snowmobile.
A wide array of British, Italian, and Japanese racing bikes
If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that I am an automotive enthusiast. Well prepare yourself for another interesting story about the history of vehicles as we tell the story of Joan Claybrook, a bureaucrat that crusaded for a "safe motorcycle". First of all....who is this Joan Claybrook? Well Joan Claybrook was the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) during the Carter administration. Claybrook was a disciple of Ralph Nader, the man that killed the Chevrolet Corvair with his 1965 work "Unsafe at any Speed". A decade after Nader, new regulations had made American cars safer with things like padded dashes, impact absorbing steering wheels, dual circuit brake systems, and standard seat belts. However, the bike you bought new off the showroom floor was essentially the same as it was for decades in terms of safety. Some advances in disc brake technology made stopping more efficient, but it was more a market driven need
Across this land, many of us are getting ready for the impending Christmas holiday. In America we have some interesting Christmas traditions. We have that creepy little elf on the shelf, marathons of movies such as A Christmas Story, A Christmas Carol, Its a Wonderful Life, etc. We have cute Coca Cola polar bears and shopping mall Santas. Essentially we have a very Norman Rockwell sort of Christmas in the United States. It is nice for the kids and for the whole family. However, Christmas traditions in certain parts of the Old World are just down right dark and/or wrong in comparison. Here are a couple. Zwarte Piet In the Netherlands, they have a dynamic duo for the Christmas holiday. There is the usual Saint Nicholas that we know today. The Dutch call him Sinterklaas . And then there is the servant...named Black Pete ( Zwarte Piet). Over time the image and background has changed for this character. In earlier medieval times Zwarte Piet was some sort of chained black devil or
It is rare that a man can say that he fought for three different sides in a war. However Yang Kyoungjong could. And what makes his story particularly amazing is that never once did he volunteer, instead he was conscripted every single time. Here is his story His adventure began in 1938. Now most basic history books show World War Two started in 1939, and while this is certainly the case for Europe, the war in Asia goes all the way back to 1931 with the initial Japanese invasion of Chinese Manchuria. In 1938, eighteen year old Yang, a Korean national was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. At the time Korea was a Japanese colony and Koreans were often drafted into service, especially for support roles. A year later Yang found himself stationed with the Japanese Kwantung Army along the Mongolian border with Manchukuo (Japanese name for occupied Manchuria). At the time Mongolia was a communist state allied closely with the Soviet Union.That is a nice way of saying that Mo
Comments
Post a Comment