Common Thread

I'm currently reading this one. I paid $5.00 for the book according to the price marked inside the cover. I don't remember where I got it or how long ago it's been but I figured since I'm working on the jitney project, the time was right to finally get around to reading it. Decent book with lots of good info on the cars and the more well known builders. I also finished a couple of books about Glenn Curtiss recently - one a biography, the other documenting the difficulty Curtiss had with the Wright Brothers. 

Here comes the common thread of the title. Glenn Curtiss not only was one of the pioneers of aviation but he was also an accomplished bicycle racer. Additionally, he set a land speed record on a motorcycle of his own design and construction. He's also credited with inventing the twist grip throttle used on most every motorcycle for the last 100 plus years.

In The American Racing Car book one of the biographies is of Louis Chevrolet. Chevrolet started out building, racing and marketing his own bicycles under the name Frontenac. Later he was in partnership with Will Durant of General Motors fame with the Chevrolet Motor Company. Chevrolet had a falling out with Durant and lost the rights to the Chevrolet name. He then started building cars under the Frontenac name, the financing of which came from Albert Champion, who I mentioned in a post recently, himself a champion bicycle racer. It's interesting to note that Champion did Chevrolet a major wrong and Chevrolet beat him almost to death. Champion later was involved in another altercation and died as a result of a punch to the chest.

Another of the biographies is of Harry Miller. Miller was famous for manufacturing carburetors and racing engines - most notably the Offenhauser. Miller left home in 1895, headed west and got a job in a bicycle shop. He then started his own part time business making parts to convert ordinary bicycles into racers. "To get to and from work he designed and built a bicycle on which he mounted a small one-cylinder engine. It has often been claimed that this was the first motorcycle in the United States."

Fred Duesenberg of race and luxury car fame got his start with bicycles as well. "the bicycle was the great, revolutionary form of personalized mechanical transport of the day, and Fred gravitated to it as a rider, then as mechanic, then as a racer, and then as a builder of his own fast machines. At age twenty-one he had his own small manufacturing business, continued racing and, in 1898 was credited with having established the worlds records for two and three miles."

It's interesting that the bicycle craze attracted some of the greatest names in automobile racing and development both as builders and racers. If you look just at the history of the Indy 500, you see the names Chevrolet, Miller and Duesenberg, and of course many of the cars were powered by AC or Champion spark plugs, just as many of the cars still are today. The late 1800's - early 1900s were pretty exciting times. It would have been a great time to be involved in the automobile industry. Indiana was a big player back then. There would have been plenty of opportunities for young guys to be involved as mechanics, machinists, coach builders, etc. It would have been great to apprentice under some of those guys.