The 1914 Cyclone Motorcycle is truly one in the row of the legends. Do you have the guts to ride a bike that has no breaks, no clutch and that runs 110 mph? I'm pretty sure, I have not. But what makes that bike to a legend? Let's take a look at some facts...
The Cyclone was manufactured by Joerns Motor Manufacturing Company in St. Paul, Minnesota. The company was founded in 1912 and abolished in 1917. Various sources tell that 300 Cyclone motorcycles where build, but only 6 of them are known to exist today. A Cyclone from the private collection of former actor Steve McQueen (1930-1980) was sold early 2015 for $775000, making the Cyclone to the most expensive motorcycle ever sold. But that's just the price for a legend, not the facts that created the legend.
Starting in 1913, the Cyclone was used in board track races. As common, board track bikes had no brakes. You had to stop the engine to stop the bike. Because a transmission was missing, too, there was no need for a clutch in the Cyclone. And because the engine runs best at full rpm, some bikes didn't even had an accelerator - once the bike was running, you were on the highway to hell...
The Cyclone was a killer on the board tracks. In 1913 a Cyclone reached 108 mph on the board track in Minneapolis. One year later the Cyclone of J.A. McNeil made it to 111 mph in Omaha, but this record was not accepted by the Federation of American Motorcycling, because noone thought that it is possible to drive that fast on that track.
To compare the speeds: the motorcycle land-speed record (two runs on a fixed distance) of 1903 was 64 mph. If we skip the 136 mph of Glenn Curtis from 1907 with a V8 aeroplane engine, the next official speed record was an Indian at 104 mph in 1920!
The innovative technology, the success on the board tracks and the fact that the company only exist a few years turned the Cyclone motorcycle into a real legend...
..and, of course, I like the yellow.
