Motorcycle Illustrated 1908

[Sal Paradise]

I found this amazing book, which I once posted about on another forum. Its Motorcycling Illustrated 1908 and its a treasue trove if you want to know about the very beginning of the sport. They were very much like us. To put it in perspective, the great financial panic had just occured and they were living in their own great recession. Maybe we should take a page from their book and just ride our asses off and not worry about it. Anyway that is definately not the point here, the point here is motorcycling.

I became very interested in the story of the Federation of American Motorcycling endurance run which you can read about beginning on page 13.This was extremely challenging including riding a riverboat, a train, and slogging through the muddy roads of 1908. Those same roads are paved but they do still exists. I am seriously considering following their course which is about 175 miles from NYC through the mountains and back, photographing the whole route as it is today and adding any historical photos I can find of the towns. They give detailed directions and I know the area so I will be riding the exact same route and photographing the same buildings and towns. For instance, they mention an old trolley line in New Paltz. I can get a photo of the trolley in the Historical Society and I know where a small portion of the old brick trolley bed still exists. The riverboats don't run any more but I can get a ferry to Catskill and I can go down to the docks in NYC and photgraph them so I should be able to document that part of the trip. They kept their gasoline in whiskey bottles , so I can try that too for a laugh.

I would like you guys to take a look and indicate if you find this interesting and should I do it and post the report? Also they went with 6 riders, so I am looking for anyone who wants to do it with me. Route is shown on page 17. Planning on doing this soon. Its going to take me a week or so of detective work with Google Maps and then a couple of days of riding and looking to figure the exact route from descriptions and directions that were written 100 years ago.

Sal Paradise
Motorcycle Illustrated 1908

 

[strokerlmt]

Sal....that was really interesting. I think running the same ride would be fun.
Good luck....
LMT

 

[outwestrider]

Endurance run

Sal - Would love to see this from today's perspective - great read about how they did it in '08 - true adventurers of their day - thanks for the link.

 

[Kirkus51]

There's always a ton of routes that are out there that have historical significance. I saw/heard about something called the "Blue Triangle Route" and can't for the life of me get any information on it. It's a route thru the national parks in Utah that was a combo train/bus tour the Railroads used.

And I had a ball going over Rollins pass here in Colorado when it was open all the way thru. It was an old train bed and was fascinating to go over. Now it's a jeep trail. I'm assuming the wood trellis over Devil's Slide finally rotted away.

 

[D9]

What a find... looked through... mostly diggin' the old advertisments... good stuff!

 

[EDG1911]

What a find... looked through... mostly diggin' the old advertisments... good stuff!

Yeah, I like this one...

I wonder if anyone has a copy or a scan of the "valuable little book"???

Thanks for posting it SP. :banana:

 

[henrys]

Nice find! I too am digging the advertisements. It's amazing how many motorcycle manufacturers there were in 1908...

 

[Kirkus51]

Nice to look over. It always fires the imagination as to what it was like in those days.

 

[Sal Paradise]

I think they were a lot like us. The advertisements are awesome, the letters they write are like our posts.
I even saw a couple of flame wars, one was arguing magnetos versus total loss battery systems. The battery guys were saying the magntos were too complicated. Magneto guys were praising the reliability. I wish I could tell the pro magneto guys " you were right, man."

One big difference is motorcycle clubs are really just clubs.

I read a couple of used Bikes for Sale ads that just gave the owner's name and town. Awesome.

 

[Sal Paradise]

First Leg

Google map of run

GOOGLEMAPFIRSTLEG

Original Text description - original magazine description of route1908
From reading the descriptions of the run, I was able to deduce more or less the original route. Its pretty close. Funny but things like railroad trestles, streams, bridges and such are still there. My plan is to ride as close as possible the exact route. To be a bit more sympathetic to the original guys, I will leave the Bonny home and ride the 250, in an open face helmet. As an added bonus much of the area has no cell coverage and the bike I will ride is nearly 30 years old. I wont carry my gas in whiskey bottles, but maybe I should.

Tommorow I will be on a construction job near where the race starts. I plan to ride the bike to the job, and then after work ride as much of the route as I can. First leg is 70 miles +- . Total vertical is around 2500 feet. One problem is that photographing a run like this is incredibly time consuming.


I have been reading about this endurance run, there is quite a bit written about it and I will post some of what I have read as well.



Church St
Catskill, NY 12414

1. Head east on Church St toward Main St
190 ft
2. Turn left at Main St
0.6 mi
3. Continue onto Co Rd 23B
1.3 mi
4. Turn left to merge onto NY-23 W
20.7 mi
5. Turn left at Co Rd 65
1.0 mi
6. Take the 3rd left onto NY-296 S
348 ft
7. Take the 1st right to stay on NY-296 S
6.3 mi
8. Turn left at Main St/New York 23A E
Continue to follow New York 23A E

12.2 mi
9. Slight right at New York 32A S
1.9 mi
10. Continue onto NY-32 S
5.9 mi
11. Slight left toward NY-212 E/NY-32 S
0.1 mi
12. Continue straight onto NY-212 E/NY-32 S
1.2 mi
13. Turn left at Main St
472 ft
14. Take the 2nd right onto Partition St
0.4 mi
15. Turn left at Hill St
0.3 mi
16. Hill St turns slightly right and becomes US-9W S/Church St
Continue to follow US-9W S

8.0 mi
17. Slight left at E Chester St
397 ft
18. Take the 1st right onto Ulster Ave
1.2 mi
19. Continue onto Albany Ave
0.9 mi
20. Turn left at Tremper Ave
463 ft
21. Take the 1st right onto Elmendorf St
0.2 mi
22. Take the 2nd left onto Broadway
1.4 mi
23. Turn left at Wurts St
0.6 mi
24. Continue onto Old Ushwy 9W
0.3 mi
25. Turn right at US-9W S/Broadway St
Continue to follow US-9W S

 

[koifarm]

Looking forward to reading this one Sal, it should be an amazing trip...! Thank you!!

 

[Sal Paradise]

Complete harley Davidson mention of 1908 FAM Run

account of the run by Jean Davidson

medals

Caption Reads
1908 Walter Davidson scores a perfect 1,000 points at the 7th Annual Federation of American Motorcyclists Endurance and Reliability Contest. Three days after the contest, Walter sets the FAM economy record at 188.234 miles per gallon. Word of Harley-Davidson's extremely tough motorcycle spreads rapidly.


Finally, it looks like somebody already beat me to it,according to this article I am 2 years late -

thedailymail

Little evidence remains in Catskill of that heady day when 63 motorcycles roared up the street other than a few timeworn photographs. Many of the old buildings are gone, but on June 11, that day will be remembered when a contingent of antique motorcycle enthusiasts congregate in Catskill to relive that moment. The public, of course, is invited.

To add to that historic revisitation, Walter Davidson Sr.’s granddaughter, Jean will be on hand to honor her grandfather’s achievements.

 

[bikeypikey]

Sal et all, if you like this kind of stuff (who doesn't???), then you might want to read a book that a buddy of mine has recently published. It traces the story of Carl Stearns Clancy and the first ever ride around the world - in 1912!

http://www.amazon.com/Motorcycle-Ad...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283138497&sr=8-1

Hope you continue with your plans Sal and look forward to the report.

Cheers,

Pikey.

 

[Sal Paradise]

I made little progress on this today.The 250 is just too friggin small and slow for this run.With the to and from mileage this would have been at least a couple hundred miles through the mountains. I know, dosn't sound like anything, but on a 250(!) in the Catskill Mountains. in 90 degree weather.... well lets say I captured some of the essence of what it truly must have been like.. I was smelling that motor as she crawled up the mountain at 25 mph..the course goes from sea level up to 2000' on the first stretch out of town then up and down, up and down ...Got part way to the course, over a 1000 foot rise and said thats enough and headed the hell home. I need to make this run with the Bonny, or possibly trailer the 250 up to the start point on cool morning. Its 40 miles or so from my house just to the start point and you don't know what slow is ......

In the meanwhile I called the catskill historical society and am working on getting some cool old pics of the roads. I need to find out a bit more about what these guys must have seen on their run.

 

[Sal Paradise]

The start

TAKE Catskill Evening Line, foot Christopher street, New York, Pier 43, boat leaving at 6p.m. Fare is $1.25 and $i for stateroom, which has two berths. Gasoline must be removed from tanks. Boat lands at Catskill, landing at about 3.30 the next morning. Mounting your machine you ride straight out Main street, following trolley car tracks, on macadam road which changes to cobblestone then to brick pavement; at the end of brick pavement and the corner of Main and Church streets is the start—Bell's Commercial Hotel, three-quarters of a mile from the landing. Those who arrive before the final day can find accommodations for F. A. M. riders, for bed and meals, at the very low rate of 50 cents each. The final start, 6 a. m., you follow the trolley out Main street.

Ok, I went to Catskill, N.Y. this morning and photographed both the dock where they unloaded and the main street and church street start location. Both very easy to find, and probably much unchanged from 1908.

Here I am standing at the Catskill dock on the Hudson River. The landing has been turned into a park and tourist center. Its actually quite pleasant, especially at 8 AM Saturday morning. I imagine the dock on the right of the picture is pretty close to the exact location they unloaded their bikes.

Here is the old terminal. Now a museum. I will go back over the winter and look at the exhibits. Quite a bit on the steamships from what I could see through the windows. The whole place and the town has a nice feel, if a bit out of the way, still nice enough.

Lots of sailboats and yachts in the Catskill Creek

With that I am off toward main street, barely a mile away. The start point. Main Street Catskill has probably not changed very much. They were setting up for a farmers market and so there was no traffic at all.

The start location corner of main and Church right about where that yellow sign is in the road.

Google says this is Bells Hotel . Thats a guy playing a beautiful harp, and he has a nice amp plugged into it. The wind was blowing down main street and it was moving the strings of the harp ad the harp was doing this really cool harmonic all by itself.

Main Street Looking the other way

Its become popular to put old bikes in store windows. This one is a Jawa Sport 175, it looked like original paint, man thats a wild paint scheme!

A motorcyclist is always short on time to browse around. I had a course to run so with a final look around I headed out of town , for the mighty Catskills.

 

[Sal Paradise]

Off and Running up hill all the way

The FAM directions say - The final start, follow the trolley out Main street, turning to the right after crossing under railroad bridge. The railroad bridge is still there and still in use, I might add.

So I did as directed and heded for Cairo

First glimpse of the mountains-

Main street Cairo, ten miles out. The FAM directors got stuck here and had to take the train back to catskill after wrecking their bikes in the mud. They later took the train back to Catskill. The roads must have been really bad.

I ran another 30 miles of the course, around Windham Mountain and will post that later.

Here is what they wrote -
Winding up through the red clay roads we made pretty good time for about five miles when we struck mud 6 inches deep, and, after ploughing into and through half of it, I had the choice of landing 50 feet below or getting my shoes muddy to the top. The latter being more agreeable and better suited to my anatomy, I walked and waited to see the rest partake of the same dose. Starting off again we had not gone two miles when our usual luck returned—rain, such rain as you never saw before. Wehman, ahead on his big double Curtiss, was beating it for all he was worth and my little 3.^, hardly a match for these odds, was pushed to the utmost. Skidding and sliding with heavenward bounds I landed in Cairo two minutes after Wehman, lx>th soaked to the skin. One hour later Mr. Horn rode in, complaining of mud and falls too numerous to mention It was our intention to continue to East Windham, hut this being an ascent of ten miles we decided to wait for our belated comrades.



There is more to Cairo but not much. The train doesn't run to Cairo anymore, that was a short lived line that mainly took people to the Caskill Mountain House, a huge old hotel that burned down around 1920. That being the case, I headed west on 23, for the mountains.

Heading up the mountain on the Old Route 23B which is the road they would have used.

Will post more later-

 

[bikeypikey]

Superb! It looks like a really beautiful area. Don't keep us waiting too long Sal!

Cheers,

Pikey.

 

[Sal Paradise]

Route 23b has been nearly obliterated by the newer Route 23. Here is one of the last fragments, I have never seen a sign like this, pretty cool.

The old roadbed turned to tar and chip and then wonderful dirt roads like this for about 5 miles.

Then I came out on one of the most beautiful roads I have ever seen Greene County 40. The Catskill are virtually empty in these areas, I hardly saw a car or a cop the whole morning. I could not restrain myself, ened up just riding a dozen or so excellent miles without a picture but I finally stopped to snap a couple shots

Cutting south on an unknown road and back onto the FAM course.

Route 294 heading south, still on the FAM Route

It was an amazing day to ride into the mountains. I ended up leaving the FAM route and wandering the Catskills for a few happy hours.

There were a lot of slow bikes putting around , and I quickly learned not to hesitate - just pass 'em like they were slow cars.

 

[DandyDoug]

Nice job Sal !!

 

[ssjones]

Great story and write up. I've been up that road to Tanner Mountain and the ski resort on a nice summer evening.....in my car! I'd lot to take a spin up that road on the bike. I'm heading up to Plattekill/Ulster/Kingston on Monday, those Mountains always look so inviting. One of these days I'll go up on the bike.