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In 1935 Californian E. Foster Salsbury, an innovative businessman, was impressed when he saw pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart using an old small motorized two-wheeler Motoped around Burbank’s Lockheed Airport. He had a vision for “a cheap and cheerful vehicle that would propel the country forward to prosperous times.” Salsbury hired inventor Austin Elmore to construct […]

NSU began motorcycle production in 1901, four years before they began producing cars.  The company prospered with motorcycles , and although air-raid bombing during World War II destroyed their factories, by the mid-1950s, NSU was the world’s biggest motorcycle maker.  It is rumored that the name “Konsul” was selected for this motorcycle because it incorporated

A monowheel is one big wheel with the rider and engine inside the circumference. It differs from a unicycle which has the rider above the wheel. The first known patent was issued to Allen Greene and Elisha Dyer of Providence, Rhode Island in 1869. The idea of a single wheeled motorcycle has captured the imagination

{gallery}motorcycles/mbk_magnum_racing_xr_2002{/gallery} Motobécane was a French manufacturer of bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles established in 1923.  Motobécane came from two slang words:  “Moto” for motor and “bécane”  for bike.  The company was a success and during the 1970s owned Velosolex. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1984, was purchased by Yamaha Motor Company, Ltd., and was reformed

Russia has always had a strong domestic production base for motorcycles, having its largest plant (Imz-Ural) built to produce 400,000 motorcycles per year. The difficult realities of the post-Soviet economy are demonstrated by the fact that the plant only produced 1,800 motorcycles in 2000. Since the 1990s, motorcycles have not been as popular among the

Honda can be said to have introduced motorcycling to the masses in the U.S., with the 1959 introduction of the C100 Super Cub–the world’s best-selling vehicle. The Super Cub remained in production for 35 years and sold upwards of 30 million units! The 1960s saw the beginning of what was to become a string of

Honda’s revolutionary advertising slogan, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda,” shattered the myth that bikes were only for tough guys and rebels.  Single-handedly, Honda had made motorcycling appealing to everyone.  By 1965, Honda was selling well over a quarter-million motorcycles annually.  In 1968, Honda created a bike for the baby boomer youth market,

In 1962, Honda stunned the racing world by displaying its first 50cc-class works machine, the RC110. A commercially available model of the RC110 was also introduced at the same time under the name CR110 Cub Racing, and its domestic sales started in June 1962. The single-cylinder CR110 featured a high-tech gear- driven camshaft, dohc, and

The Hercules W-2000 was the first rotary powered motorcycle offered for sale to the public through a dealer network. The W-2000, introduced at the German Ifma Show in 1970, was labeled as a full production model but in reality it was a test to see if the public would accept a rotary powered motorcycle. Full