I just read the book “Tom Swift and his Motor-Cycle”, which was written in 1910 and is an interesting snapshot of motorcycling in it’s infancy and captures the spirit of riding well. Quick synopsis: Tom Swift comes into possession of a new “motor-cycle”, on which he has some adventures and foils a gang’s attempt to steal a new machine of his inventor Dad’s creation. Some of the information is hilariously dated to a modern reader. Take the astonishing speeds the bike is capable of, where Tom covers a 30-mile route in just half a day, and the fact that he is able to have a full conversation with a person he’s having an impending collision with. But overall there is also a lot in common with modern riders today.
Anyway, the book goes into the motorbike in great detail, but doesn’t mention some things that would probably be already known to a contemporary audience. I’m wondering how these machines were operated.
The book mentions the bike was “pedal started”. I know these bikes had bicycle pedals, does that mean you got up to speed by pedaling then fired the engine? So there was no clutch? The book doesn’t mention one. The controls it mentions are a throttle lever, a spark lever, and an exhaust control. I presume the throttle lever is obviously the throttle, but the book implies there was no return spring. I’m not sure about the purpose of the spark lever. Apparently the rider used it to adjust the spark, but what is exactly meant by that I’m not sure. The exhaust control is something mentioned only once in the beginning of the book, when the original owner of the bike was kicking up a huge dust cloud since he left the exhaust open. It’s purpose is also unknown to me.
Can anyone shed some light into some of these controls?
P.S. I didn’t know if this belongs here or in Cafe Society but since the question is more of factual how-to than a discussion of literature, I posted it here.
I know one of the answers Rick ejaculated!
the spark advance lever allowed the driver to slect when the spark would occur during the engine cycle. Advancing the spark (making the spark fire earlier) adds power, but makes the car hard to start and too much advance can damage the engine. Retarding the spark, allows for easier starting, but robs power. Later mechanical and vacuum systems took over these tasks. Now of course it is all done by computer.
As much as I can, yes I’ll try. But be forewarned that I don’t have ANY experience with motor-cycles/bikes of that era.
What I DID have was a 1964 Sears MoPed with the pedals.
How it worked was thusly:
To start the engine, you set t he thing up for start and kicked the (bicycle-stlye) pedal thusly, just like a kick-starter on a motorcyle. Then you put it in gear with a combo clutch/gearshift. (2 speeds on that MoPed)
If one wanted to pedal the thing, one turned off the engine, engaged the clutch and just pedaled. It was much harder to pedal than a bicycle, and fer-get about going uphill.
But no, ou did not have to pedal the engine faster and faster until it started. You just gave the pedal a shove and the engine started.
Hope this helps a little bit in researching this, anyway.
I’m interested in this stuff too. I recall seeing a John Wayne move which was set around the same time. It was a “late” Western, like The Shootist, and in the movie one of his grown sons owned a motorcycle.
As for the 30-mile half-day journey, remember the roads were probably a lot worse in those days. A online companion site to Brideshead Revisited, set in the 1920s, says that on the country roads of that time one could hardly have averaged better than 20mph in a car, so I imagine riding a motorcycle in 1910 would have been even slower.
We had a John Deere tractor with no starter. The operator had to turn the flywheel by hand to start the engine. Each of the cylinders had a stopcock built in, so the engine compression could be reduced while starting the engine. That is probably similar to the “exhuast” control on the motorcycle.
I can still remember my father opening the stopcocks (on each side of the tractor), turning the flywheel to start the engine, and then shutting of the stopcocks. Starting the “B” was always a bit of a chore.
I believe that the exhaust control you mention is the same as the cut-out which was common back in the just 20s and 30s.
This opened the exhust system ahead of the muffler and facilitated starting by removing any possible back-pressure.
Of course it was noisier than you can imagine-----and actually,though illegal,a lot Tof us ran in the rural areas with the cut-out open.
We liked to believe we were adding power---------but it was probably the noise that was convincing.
That old Harley "74"had a helluva roar!
The shift lever was on the left side of the tank-------------the clutch was on the left foot--------------------under certain conditions shifting was a bear!
Ahhh, the “Suicide Shifter” it is known as. Many custom bikes built today have these. Difference is the shifter is off the left side of the bike under the drivers thigh. Right hand on the throttle, left one bangin’ second gear and your left foot double-clutchin’ your a** off!
Good times.
A few years back, I was introduced to a friend of my cousin in Ohio. He took us out to the barn, where he was restoring a single cylinder Thor motorcycle of about the same vintage as the Tom Swift book. It had wheelbarrow style handlebars and the frame and wheels were not much bigger than a fat-tired 1950’s style bicycle. He had partially rebuilt the engine. It was up on a stand. He climbed on and said, “So far, I’ve got it to where it will do this,” then he spun the bicycle-style pedals, turning over the motor with a chuffing sound. He said the brakes were insanely underbuilt, and his research showed it would eventually go about 50mph. Before permanently parking it, he wanted to ride it to work, once.
He and my cousin were catching up on family news, and it was New Year’s Eve, so I didn’t get to ask a lot of motorcycle questions.
I’m no expert on vintage motorcycles, but some of the controls sound familiar to the design concepts of the old Model T Ford, such as the spark lever, the throttle lever, and the manual start. Our family has had one of these for years, built from parts by my uncle, so I know a little about them which might be of interest.
The throttle lever on my uncle’s '26 T is a lever sticking out from the steering column. It has an arc of metal behind it with unmarked hash lines in it so you can sort of get an idea where it’s set: fourth mark up, fifth mark, etc. As there’s no speedometer, there’s really no way to tell how fast you’re going.
The throttle and the brakes did not operate as we imagine in a modern car, where you remove your foot from the gas to apply the brake. The brake pedal merely wrapped a strap of leather round the drive shaft to physically slow the thing down by friction, and you could accidentally leave the throttle wide open while you simultaneously applied the brakes. Bit of a kludge, really.
There was no alternator. The lights ran directly off the battery.
I’m not positive a motorcycle from 1910 operates on the same principles, but I’d wager they’re probably similar technology.
My uncle’s T was definitely wired to run the battery directly from a dry cell. This may be because he built it himself; he didn’t use the spark lever or the magneto, but instead had some aftermarket gizmo installed instead.
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia says the dry cell was used at starting and low speeds, but could switch over to magneto.
Thanks for the insights. It seems motors of the period all operated in a similar fashion. I just finished the next book in the series, “Tom Swift and his Motor-Boat”, and he talks about much the same things when operating it’s motor.
There is a strong possibility that the throttle was a lever on the top of the bars, instead of the twist grip.
I believe it was either Excelsior or Harley Davidson or maybe Indian that used the first twistgrips.
Its likely that this early bike only had one gear.
Starting would involve decompressing the cyclinder, allowing some fuel to flow into the caburetter chamber, usually a little bit dribbles out, and retarding the spark.
Some very early bikes had permanent drive to the pedals and no clutch, but the gearing was so low that the rider could keep up quite easily with them.
Many bikes of this perios also had an integral stand, which stuck out backwards from the bike and was hinged somewhere near the middle.
The idea was that you swung the stand around and under the bike, making the back wheel clear the ground.
The bike would be stable on this stand, the rider would mount and pedal the wheel, and at some time when he had gained enough back wheel rotation, would activate the ‘run’ switch.
Once the engine was running, the engine would warm up, the ignition advanced, the throttle set to a low tickover and the rider would kick the stand backwards out of the way.
More than likely the exhaust control was either a cut out or a compression release. Many of the old single cylinder bikes had a compression release that kicked open the exhaust valve a tad
As for brakes, I used to restore old brit bikes for a living and one of the AJS manuals we had laying around warned the rider that the brakes were for emergency only…to down shift to slow down under normal circumstances.
OH, and Harley didn’t get a throttle return spring until 1974 IIRC. Before then the throttle stayed where you left it.
