Showing posts with label Motorcycles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motorcycles. Show all posts

Thursday, August 31, 2023

The Work Truck Blog: Not a truck at all.

The Work Truck Blog: Not a truck at all.:  

Not a truck at all.


 A Ural motorcycle with a sidecar.  Urals are Russian knockoffs of the World War Two era BMW, and frequently have sidecars. They were designed for military use.

Monday, September 5, 2022

Tuesday, September 5, 1922. East Thrace, Missoula, San Diego. Big Pictures, the result of the Greek Defeat, Air Records, Motorcyle Races.

Missoula from Penwell block, September 5, 1922.

Turkey stated a demand for East Thrace, which had been ceded to Greece in 1920.

East Thrace.

This meant that Turkey was declaring that it wanted to reclaim recently lost territory, lost to Greece, across the Bosporus.  This would of course give it completely control of the straits, and hence entry into the Black Sea.

Greeks had comprised about 38% of the population there before the Greco Turkish War, and Bulgarians about 4.3%.  Bulgarians had been subject to a pre-war set of expulsions and violence due to the Balkan Wars that foreshadowed World War One which, at the same time, increased the Muslim population as Muslims fled into the area for refuge due to Ottoman lands being lost elsewhere.  Greeks would now be subject to the coming population exchange between Turkey and Greece, which also impacted the remaining Bulgarians.  In 1934 the Jewish population was expelled in the Thrace Pogroms.

Today, 15% of the Turkish population lives in the region.


Dealing with speed of a different type, motorcycle racer Billy Denham was photographed at a motorcycle race.



Denham is wearing elements of the wool U.S. Army uniform of the period, to at least the extent that he's wearing a wool service shirt.  Note also that he's wearing a tie, something you wouldn't see a motorcycle racer wear now, and for good reason.
 

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Thursday, July 20, 1922. Echoes of wars.

A press photographer in Washington, D. C. took a photo of men on motorcycles.

Another took a photograph of the dedication to Lt. Samuel J. Harris, U.S. World War One veteran who had died during an insurrection in Lithuania, where he was serving as a volunteer.

Around 1,000 Americans had volunteered to serve the Baltic nation against the Reds in the same time period.



German colonies were transferred officially to European powers under League of Nations' mandates.

Limerick was taken from the IRA by the Irish Army.  The Irish Army also shelled IRA held Waterford.

Friday, June 24, 2022

Saturday, June 23, 1922. Portents.


The Saturday Evening Post hit the stands with an enduringly popular Leyendecker illustration.


Judge, which had recently combined with Leslie's, made fun of the cost of a dinner date.

Walther Rathenau, German Foreign Minster, was assassinated by right wing German nationalist.  Germany's march towards Nazism was commencing.

On the same day Hitler began serving his prison sentence.

The American Professional Football Association voted to change its name to the National Football League.

The English Ladies Football Association hold its only championship.

Japan announced it would withdraw its occupation forces from Siberia, save for Sakhalin Island, by the end of October.

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Thursday, September 1, 1921. Launchings


On this day the first "Super dreadnought" USS Washington, a battleship of the Colorado Class, was launched.

Jean Summers, daughter of Senator Summers, who did the honors.

She'd serve only three years and then be sunk as a target, due to the Washington Naval Treaty.

One heck of a waste of money.

Monday, August 23, 2021

Tuesday, August 23, 1921. The pieces of the Ottoman Empire.


President Harding signed the New York Harbor bill into law.

I have utterly no idea what the statute did, but the photograph is of fairly high quality.

Faisal I bin Hussein bin al-Hashemi was crowned King of Iraq.  The kingdom was sort of a consolation prize for not getting Syria, and not a particularly good one.  In later years, he'd note that "this country is ungovernable."


In another part of the former Ottoman Empire, the Battle of Sakarya commenced in Turkey.  It would prove to be a long, and pivotal, battle in the Greco Turkish War, with the Turks ultimately prevailing three weeks later.

And a photographer took the following photo contrasting new and old two wheeled means of transportation.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Electric

0 TO 60 IN 3 SECONDS

Get instantaneous power the moment you twist the throttle. No clutch to release. No gears to run through. All you do is flick your wrist and take off.
What Harley-Davidson has to say about their 2020 Livewire

Their day has arrived.

Electric vehicles, that is.

I've predicted this for quite some time, but the sudden arrival surprises even me.  I frankly though that electric vehicles would really seriously start to come in, in about ten years, and their fully adoption take another ten after that.

I was wrong.

They're hear right now, and 2020 will really start being their year. 

A friend of mine who was in California last week reports seeing Tesla's everywhere.  Looking at their site, they commonly report their vehicles as having a 300 mile range.  Ford is introducing the Mustang Mach E as an electric vehicle next year, also with a 300 mile range. And Ford's introduction in that fashion is brilliant. The Mustang Mach I was the heavy duty muscle car variant of the Mustang, back when muscle cars were a thing.  The Mach E is a muscle car, albeit an electric one.  One that will be marketed like this based on its performance, and already is.

That's the same approach that Harley-Davidson is taking on its Livewire, which you can buy right now.  The heavy duty motorcycle manufacturer with bikes famous for their V Twin engine and sound are flatly claiming that the Livewire is the motorcycle of the future.  As a city bike, it remains fairly short range at 146 city miles, it boast impressive performance and looks like a Harley, and doesn't, at the same time.  On Harley's website the Livewire is the first bike you see.

It's also really expensive and none of the electric vehicles are cheap. But Tesla did manage to get their new truck down to the price that a lot of 4x4 trucks are, and their cars and Ford's Mustang are competitive.  My prediction on the Tesla truck is that it will go nowhere as it was clearly designed by people who don't know anything about actual trucks, but Ford is coming out with an electric F150 in 2020 or 2021.

Electric F150s will be city trucks at first, I suspect.  A range of 300 miles, which is about what the Tesla gets, is probably what it will get as well. But it's been designed by people who know a lot about trucks.  It'll be popular for businesses that use trucks in the city. The average plumbers truck, or light work truck, probably doesn't go 300 miles in an average day.  So it'll break in.

The remaining problem is range.  My diesel D3500 has a range of about 600 miles, twice any electric vehicle. But these are just breaking in and most people, most places, don't drive 600 miles in a day.  Within five years that 300 miles will be 400, and then higher, and then they'll rapidly start to overcome other vehicles.

At the same time, focus is really going to start to come on in regard to charging stations.  They're expanding now, and Wyoming's Senator John Barrasso pushed through a bill to fund charging stations nationwide, drawing the ire of some groups.  But beyond that, a visit to the Tesla site shows Tesla already marking options to convert your house into a solar powered, at least partially, charging station. That may seem wild, and any proposal to install solar powers on our roof, besides cost making it unfeasible, even though we have all electric utilities and heat, would meat with an objection from long suffering spouse, but that day is coming as well.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Some things throw back.


Note:  I have a lot of old threads I started, but never posted.  The ship has sailed on the topics for a lot of them, so they're just going.  But this one didn't have any text.  I'm not sure if I ever intended that it did.

Anyhow, a modern Royal Enfield motorcycle painted by the Indian manufacturer to look like a motorcycle in World War Two service.  I wonder how it would actually do in rough country?

Monday, July 22, 2019

Tuesday July 22, 1919. The Motor Transport Convoy makes Iowa, Volstead Act Passes the House.


The Motor Transport Convoy made 90 miles on this day in 1919, besting their previous record set yesterday, arriving in Clinton Iowa after 10.24 hours on the road.

On the same day, in Washington D. C., where riots had finally been stopped, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Volstead Act, the bill to provide for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment.

Andrew Volstead.

The act was named after Andrew Volstead, who introduced the act.  It was actually largely drafted, however, by Wayne Wheeler of the Anti Saloon League.   Volstead, a lawyer and a Congressman from Minnesota was chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee at the time, and supported the goals of the bill.

Wayne Wheeler.

Volstead would go down in defeat in 1922, when he failed to secure an eleventh term in office.  He would, however, go on to work for the National Prohibition Enforcement Bureau in the role of its chief legal adviser.  Upon Prohibition's repeal, he returned to private practice.  He lived until 1947 and died at age 86.  Wheeler, also an attorney, would not persist as long, falling into criticism as Prohibition proved rapidly unpopular, and dying at age 57, just two weeks after his wife died in a tragic fire.


Sunday, July 7, 2019

Monday, July 7, 1919. The 1919 Motor Transport Corps Convoy departed Washington D. C.. .

with an intended destination of San Francisco, California.

World War One vintage Motor Transport Corps recruiting poster.

This would be a long trip by contemporary standards, but in 1919 it was daunting in the extreme.  Only adventurers with cash tried to drive across the United States as a rule.  While it had been done quite a few times by 1919, it was not a short trip by any means.  People who wanted to cross the country did it the logical and safe way. . . by train.

The purpose of this trip was several fold.  A primary one was to test the inventory of trucks that the Army now owned, thanks to the Great War, in order to determine which ones were the best and weed out those that couldn't endure.  Additionally, however, problems with the railroads during World War One, by which we mean labor problems, inspired the service to see if trucks were a viable means of transporting men and equipment for mobilization in time of war.

The scale of the test was massive.  Over 250 men were detailed to the experimental operation which included repair vehicles and bridging equipment.  Vehicles were highly varied and ranged from artillery tractors to to motorcycles.  It's significance was appreciated at the time, and the Signal Corps was detailed to film the convoy in route, which was proceeded by a Publicity Officer and a Recruiting Officer who arrived in towns along the route several days ahead of the convoy.  The route was that of the already established, but far from modern, Lincoln Highway.

Lincoln Highway route as of 1916, which was the same as it would be in 1919.

Command of the overall operation was in the hands of Lt. Col. Charles W. McClure with the actual "train" commander being Cpt. Bernard H. McMahon.  Officers who were familiar with motor transport, including Bvt. Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower, were detailed to the operation.

So how did day one go?  Well, the official log of the trip gives us a picture, albeit a brief one, of the same.

Forty six miles. . . in 7.5 hours.  And that on excellent roads.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Harley and the Davidsons

Having recently finished all the episodes of Foyles War, and seeing that this historical drama was running on the the Discovery Channel, and liking Harley Davidson motorcycles, I decided to watch it.

 The founders of Harley Davidson Motor Cycle Company, William A. Davidson, Walter Davidson, Sr., Arthur Davidson and William S. Harley

Now, let me note, I like Harley Davidson motorcycles.  I don't own one. And I don't really know all that much about the company's history or those who founded the company. So, this review is an odd one in that I'm reviewing a topic I really don't know very much about.  That's important as I understand that this television drama takes liberties with its story, but I'll miss a lot of them (other than to be suspecting that I'm seeing them).  However, the concluding snippets at the end would suggest that some things I thought were liberties were not, so again, for a review of its accuracy, a person probably can't rely on this.

 Harley Davidson motorcycle on flat track, 1919.

This drama follows the company and its founders from the creation of their very first motorcycle until the introduction of its 1934 model which more or less introduced the motorcycle we recognize today.  In other words from 1903 to 1934.  FWIW, I know enough about the company to know that the film was accurate in these regards. The first Harley was built in the shed behind one of the founder's parents home, and in 34 Harley did introduce what was then a radical new motorcycle in spite of the ongoing Great Depression.

Beyond that, I think that the drama takes a huge number of liberties.  Harley was their engineer, but the story doesn't make it clear that he graduated as an engineer from the University of Wisconsin before the company truly took off.  Harley is shown getting married, which he did, but the fact that he and his wife had several children is oddly omitted.  His wife, Anna Jachthuber (nee) is shown being critically ill for a time, and I don't know if that's correct or not.  Arthur Davidson is correctly depicted as the company's marketing genius.  That he had several children is also omitted.    Arthur Davidson and William Harley were really the two main designers of the motorcycles, so what role Walter Davidson senior or junior had I don't know, other than that they had some.

Indian Motorcycles and its business leadership is depicted as evil in the film, which doesn't reflect reality.   It was just a slightly older (two years) competitor with Harley for a long time. Apparently the makes of the film thought they needed some sort of long lasting rivalry as a plot device.

So, while there are accurate details (the relationship with a Japanese company, albeit brief, did occur) there are a lot of departures from the truth as well.

Well, on to material details.

I understand that the makes of this film studied the early motorcycles at Harley's museum and I believe they are accurately depicted.  It is neat to see these (scary) early bikes depicted in such large numbers.  Various details like that are well depicted.  Clothing is predicted accurately, although the wearing of it isn't always.  Walter Davidson, for example, is shown often wearing an open collar banded collar shirt with no starched collar attached and no tie. That just wouldn't have happened in that era.  An early female motorcycle club racer is inserted in the plot for the 1930s, which is unlikely. The frequent insertion of horses, however, is accurate and nicely done.

All in all, it's entertaining, but probably not very accurate history.