The 10 Greatest Bikes of All Time
THE 10 GREATEST BIKES OF ALL TIME
Tracing 10 turning points in the history of motocycling
he first motorcycle
The date was November 10, 1885. Paul Daimler wheeled his father’s two-wheeled project out of the workshop and rode it about seven miles, making him the first motorcyclist in history. The motorcycle was a monstrous wooden creation that Gottlieb Daimler built primarily to showcase his compact, high-rpm, internal-combustion engine. Back then, of course, “high-rpm” meant something on the order of 400 rpm. The Boneshaker, as it was called, made less than one horsepower and topped out at around IO mph. The project was eventually abandoned as Daimler’s neighbors in the city of Cannstatt, Germany, became history’s first official haters of motorcycles, calling his machine “a threat to humanity.”
1909 Harley-Davidson V-Twin: The birth of a legend
Harley-Davidson is a survivor, a company that has withstood the test of time. Over the years, Harley has been on top, on the bottom and everywhere in between. But always, it survives.
Harley’s trademark in the industry, today as well as for most of its 85year history, has been the V-Twin engine. And although the first V-Twin was assembled long before H-D’s time by Gottlieb Daimler himself, the 1909 Harley-Davidson was the company’s original V-Twin. Its performance was severely hampered by its suction-operated intake valves, but it still was the first in a long line of engines that have been among the most imitated motorcycle powerplants of all time.
1894 Hilderbrand & WolfmÜller: An industry awakens.
By 1894, there was nothing new about the idea of a bicycle driven by an internal-combustion engine. But you couldn’t just go down to your local Daimler dealer and buy a new bike on Gottlieb’s Easy Finance Plan. The only people who rode motorcycles were people who built them.
Then came Heinrich and Wilhelm Hildebrand of Munich, Germany, who partnered with Alois Wolfmüller and Hans Greisenhof to create the first motorcycle company, Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, in 1894. They built the first mass-produced motorcycle (1000 units in three years), one that was simple and crude but could manage about 24 mph. The company folded in 1897 because it was unable to react quickly in the rapidly changing motor-vehicle business. But many others would soon follow the path blazed by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller.
1950 Norton Manx: Single-handed dominance
When Geoff Duke won the Senior TT at the Isle of Man in 1950, motorcycling took a major leap forward. Duke’s 500cc Norton-a new model that would soon come to be called “Manx”-used an upgraded version of the successful overhead-cam Single that the company had been refining since 1927, but its real significance was its chassis. The frame had a unique double-loop design that rigidly encircled the engine in tubing, and a swinging-arm rear suspension. Swingarm rear ends were not entirely new at the time, but the Norton’s success at the Isle of Man gave new credibility to the idea. And so advanced was the frame design, called “Featherbed,” that the fundamental concept remained the basis for most high-performance chassis until the advent of dual-beam frames in the early Eighties.
1958 Honda Super Cub: “You meet the nicest people..
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the Honda Cl00 Super Cub. From the moment the 50cc step-thru was first shown to the public in June of 1958, motorcycling was never again the same. Not only did this little bike single-handedly deliver the young, struggling Honda firm from the brink of bankruptcy, it quickly established itself as the biggest-selling motorcycle ever built. It was the dream of Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa to build and sell a “people’s motorcycle,” one that would expand the boundaries of the sport far beyond the small, cultish group of enthusiasts that existed at the time. The production run of the C100 lasted 17 years and totaled over 10 million units, forever assuring its place in motor-vehicle history.
961 MZ 125: Different strokes
There might not have been an MZ in every garage during the early Sixties, but if not for that East German firm’s tenacity in developing the two-stroke engine, an entire chapter in the history of motorcycling might never have been written. Indeed, virtually every two-stroke engine since the mid-Sixties has, in one way or another, relied upon the exhaust-tuning techniques developed by MZ’s Walter Kaaden for the firm’s roadracers. MZ gathered world attention in 1961 with a 125 that produced 25 bhp at 10,800 rpm, a level unheard of until that time. That year, Ernst Degner was leading the 125 GP point standings on an MZ, but he defected to the West and found himself without an MZ ride for the last round, thereby giving the title to Honda and Tom Phillis.
1938 Triumph Speed Twin: The pride of England
If British motorcycles were the biggest influence on the sport in the years immediately before and after World War II, then the 1938 Triumph 500cc Speed Twin has to be considered the single most influential bike of that time. It wasn’t by any means the first parallel-Twin, but it
was the most commercially successful one of its period, enough so to prompt the sport to look in that direction for three decades thereafter. The man primarily responsible for the Speed Twin was Edward Turner, who had created the Ariel Square-Four before coming to Triumph. In the years that followed, this basic concept was spun off into bikes like the 650 Triumph Thunderbird and Bonneville, while also giving rise to an entire generation of British Twins.
1968 Yamaha DT-1: An American love affair
The history of motorcycling in America is a study in booms and busts. There was the MX boom, the trials boom/bust, the cruiser boom and a plethora of others. But one of the most productive booms, particularly in terms of attracting new people into the sport, was the dual-purpose boom of the late Sixties and early Seventies. And more than any other machine, the 1968 Yamaha DT-1 Enduro 250 was responsible for that craze. In fact, the DT-1 was so successful as a role-model that the word “enduro” was unofficially adopted as a generic
term used to describe any dual-purpose bike of that era. Through the Seventies, thousands of motorcy-
clists owed their starts to dual-purpose bikes. And the dual-purpose bike owed its start to the 1968 DT-1.
69 Honda CB750 Four: The first Superbike.
The Japanese motorcycle business grew up in 1969. That was the year in which the Honda 750 Four was announced, sending shock waves throughout the industry. Before that, hardcore enthusiasts generally regarded the Japanese as makers of cheap little bikes for the masses. They didn’t sell big bikes or fast bikes, those people thought, they sold motorized toys.
But all of that changed the moment the CB750 came along. It was everything that Japanese bikes hadn’t been—sophisticated, powerful and big. And it flew in the face of industry opinion that four-cylinder engines were too impractical for motorcycle use. The Japanese had long since become economic leaders in motorcycling; with the CB750, they became leaders in every sense.
1980 Honda Interstate: Luxury comes to motorcycling
There had been OEM full-dress touring bikes before—H-D Electra Glides and a few attempts by the Japanese— and many thousands of homebrewed touring rigs built with aftermarket gear, but never anything like the 1980 Honda 1100 Interstate, the most complete and totally integrated touring bike the sport had ever seen. It used a wind-tunnel-designed full fairing that gave new levels of rider protection; luggage of unprecedented quality; elaborate instrumentation that included optional altimeter and ambient-temperature gauge; and a solid-state, AM/FM stereo radio with LED digital tuning, the first sound system ever built specifically for a particular motorcycle. With that 1980 Interstate, touring was ele-
vated into a new class—one in which the Honda was its only member for several years.
