My Date with the History of Motorcycles

Milwaukee is famous for two things, first its home of Harley Davidson and then its also home of one of the finest breweries of America. So during my stay in Milwaukee i decided to take the opportunity to visit the base of Harley Davidson. First of all it was amazing to see their power train operations but the real glamor of the trip was the visit to Harley Davidson Museum.


It was great to see the history of motorcycles along with illustrative models to describe the working of engines, interactive system to tell about the complete product life cycle right from the concept stage, all the engines of Harleys in working condition and an interactive system, with which you can listen to the patented sound of various engines. It was not my first trip to a motorcycle factory, but still the experiences could not be compared with any other thing. And at the end of it all, I was allowed to configure my own Harley, and then it was sent to me by e-mail (unfortunately only the photograph).

It was nice to see the bikes built through the past 105 years, with the oldest ones resembling closely with Hero Jet kind of bicycles. with just an engine on the frame and guess what all the controls were on the top of fuel tank. You look at the photograph and you will end up saying.. oops that's an Harley, but once one goes through the whole range, s/he will realise that its not just the living creatures that followed Darwin's theory of evolution.

Just look at the stand of the bike, It would have been difficult for sure to the bike on stand.

And guess what a bit modern bikes in 1910s were even used for motor sports including Motor Cycle Polo (well you replace horses with Bikes) and racing.

It was amazing to see the way American Industry responded (might be it was an obligation) to the requirement by the nation at the time of war. During both the world wars Harleys played significant role and for some years even civilian models were completely blocked to dedicate all the capacity for defence production, and if some capacity still remained that was utilized to produce bombs. Even at Kohler, the scene was same, I wonder how a ceramic products factory can produce bomb shells but it has happened.

After the end of World war II, Harleys were back in action amongst the common people. and then started the era of experimentation with the bikes, and I tried capture a few of them I found most amazing. I have seen such bicycle with a couple (or more ) paddles but a motor bike with two engines and even two fuel tanks is a bit too much.

And then a tiny Harley, I still remember the tiny Rajdoot, but the size of this Harley was good enough to qualify it for children, which can fit in the back of a station wagon, but it was made of fully grown people.

Following I am not sure from which angle gets the qualification to be called as bike, with an engine as big as Tata Mini truck.

Then is the one which is a tribute to the long standing relations between Pakistan and America. You can compare it with pakistani trucks, looks like the designer was deeply impressed with the visual appeal of those trucks but I have enough reasons to believe that the experiment was not successful. (Actually this was done by some one who was supposed to stay home as he was ill)

Finally the engine room, which had all the Harley engines till date. I will post the videos later, which contain sound of Harley engines. The section also had very good illustrative models to explain the working of a four cylinder engine, gear box, fly wheel (and its gyroscopic action, which contributes to stability of bike). I think this would have made the Internal Combustion engines subject easy for us way back in 2002.

After all that gyan, I finally get a chance to sit on a modern looking bike made by the same company with Buell Brand.

You can see other photographs at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ashutosh.chandel/HarleyDavidsonMuseum

I am visiting Miller Brewers this Saturday and will update you all about the beer making.