The First Motorcycle To Hit 100 MPH!

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How fast do you dare go on Two Wheels? This is the story of Lee Humiston, the first man to hit 100 MPH on a motorcycle back in 1912, riding an Excelsior motorcycle on a Board Track Motordrome in Los Angeles.
To be the fastest is a drive held by only a few, but for those who have it, the pursuit of speed can be life-changing, all-consuming, and, at its worst, even fatal. Still, the pursuit is a never-ending quest to push slightly beyond the limits, be them of others or ones self. Still, for the scant few who were bold enough, fearless enough to push the farthest before anyone else, their names are the ones forever etched into history as the pioneers of speed, the first to make the mark. This is the story of one such legend, Lee Humiston who will forever be remembered as the first man to take a motorcycle to triple digit speed by hitting 100 miles per hour back in 1912.
Since hitting 100, it has been a carrot dangling in front of almost everyone to throw a leg over a bike, made all the safer with the improved equipment, recreational tracks, and outrageously capable machines.
Every milestone, however, has a first, a pioneer who cast all doubts aside and reached for the unknown, and for the venerated century mark, that trailblazer will forever be Lee Humiston.
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This video is a companion to the articles detailing the history of American motorcycle culture, published exclusively at ArchiveMoto.com.
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Support this history, consider becoming a Patron at the new Archive Moto Patreon page at / thearchivemoto .
Written, Narrated, Edited, and Produced by Chris Price, Archive Moto.
Music:
Respawn - Vieveri
Idiosyncracies - Gavin Luke

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Опубликовано:

29 фев 2024

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Комментарии : 31

@Porsche996driver 2 дня назад

Very well done. Even some of the documents from 1913 were so clear and well-printed!

@ArchiveMoto 22 часа назад

Thanks so much, Im glad you enjoyed it

@mattheide2775 4 месяца назад

Board Track racing was about the most dangerous and famous form of motorsports. It reminds me of chariot races in the Roman times or maybe even gladiators 😊 Great video

@ArchiveMoto 4 месяца назад

Well said, and thank you

@metal-lm6ue 4 месяца назад

Hundred mph and I’m the hundred like thumbs up 🎉. I ride lightweight bicycles with gas motors it’s the most fun thing to do. I find that people nowadays are hung up too much with high prices and regulations to enjoy motorcycle fun these lightweight motorcycles I ride aren’t as fast as a 100 mph board track racer yet the feeling of going 40-50 on a bike is amazing and full of good feelings 😊

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Right on! The feeling is universal and often first discovered on bikes as kids, engines, motors, or gravity, its all about being in the wind in the end… ride what you like and enjoy every second.

@tommaguzzi1723 3 месяца назад

there is more enjoyment to be had riding a slow bike fast than a fast bike slow. i have finally down sized from 100 hp plus machines to 40 hp and i am back to being a teenager. Slow is the new fast.

@user-cl6sj1jq9c 3 месяца назад

Favorite commentary channel (It's Jakobi btw)

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Good man, good man! Thanks for the support 👊🏻

@tomwinegar3555 3 месяца назад

Great work as always. Awesome to hear the little details like how his fuel line clogged twice from tank solder. Really puts you in the moment.

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Thanks so much Tom, I appreciate the kind words.

@Porsche996driver 2 дня назад

Clogged twice from tank solder - doh! 😅

@ThomasWBaldwin 4 месяца назад

Real bikes. real men.🏁

@Porsche996driver 2 дня назад

Can not imagine going down on a board track at 100mph in a wool sweater and pants. 😅 Wouldn’t it be amazing to go back in time? Love the Brand marketing, especially the X for Excelsior - also written as X-C-L-R ha they were 100 years ahead of viral social media 😅

@ArchiveMoto 22 часа назад

It is all so very interesting and something I think it would take a time machine to ever truly experience again. As for the brands, that aspect alone would be worth taking in, imagine Harley and Indian competing with 2-3 dozen other American brands today.

@martinhiggs7027 3 месяца назад

Thank you so much on your Doc's about a lost sport that was huge and the biggest for gambling as well ! the California tracks had open betting just like horse racing ! this is always overlooked in your Doc's! very understandable as info would be hard to find as betting was Always on the HUSH !

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Absolutely, I have always heard of the wagers, but very little ever made it to print. There is a great story from Atlanta about some side betting made at an outlaw race, it is in one of my articles on the website about Harry Glenn or the Black Streaks.

@Porsche996driver 2 дня назад

Betting on motorcycles like horses wow!!

@crashburnfly 4 месяца назад

Another Fantastic film, but people were racing bikes outside of the USA and setting records, so perhaps this should be the first 100mph in the USA. Re the 136mph? A few period press accounts mention 136.3 mph calculated from a mile in 26.4 seconds (See Scientific American magazine February 9th, 1907, page 128). But caveat it by saying “is said to have” and that this speed was in an “official” run. The timing of runs at Ormonde in 1907 was done by a very error prone approach. Two people stood at the start and end of a “mile” section and raised or dropped their hands or flags as the bike went past. Another person watched this from perhaps 1 mile away with binoculars and operated a stopwatch. In an “unofficial” run, all the people involved tended to be friends of the rider and not very experienced at doing any of this and perhaps not that impartial. How the measured mile was measured in unofficial runs was also just up to the riders and its accuracy was open to question. The majority of the period press ignored the claimed 136mph as they were sceptical. If he had really gone that fast one way, why didn’t the publicity seeking Mr Curtiss fix the failure and run again another day. Factor in how much real HP an unfaired high drag motorcycle needs to top 136mph and none of this 136mph claim adds up. It is another 20+ years of engine development around the world and the late 1920’s before special factory-built race bikes really reach these speeds.

@ArchiveMoto 4 месяца назад

Thanks, I’m happy you enjoyed the video. The Curtiss record definitely comes with a significant asterisk beside it, and will probably wind up being a video in its own right. As for any international riders to break the century before Humiston, I haven’t come across any mention, but in fairness my focus is on the American side of the culture. I’m only aware of Davidson in Brooklands in 1921, followed shortly after by Brough the next year. I hope to eventually branch out my research into early international events to better my own understanding.

@johnengland8619 3 месяца назад

Thanks for sharing,

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Happy you enjoyed it

@my2cents395 3 месяца назад

What were they using for fuel? Vincent Black Lightnings ran on Methanol.

@ArchiveMoto 3 месяца назад

Regular gasoline back in 1912, which was in itself a young endeavor with poor quality though there was high octane available compared to today. It was also increasingly expensive with the surge in Model T ownership jumping 80% between 1911 and 1912, Standard Oil raised prices to a whopping 18 cents a gallon.

@browngreen933 4 месяца назад

Curtiss' 136 mph V-8 "record" in 1907 is an Urban Myth. Guys who srudied the original reports found that the bike broke at Ormond Beach right off the line and never made speed. Later a story circulated that it made 136 mph elsewhere and that story later became conflated with events at Ormond. It's nothing more than a Curtiss publicity stunt hoax.

@ArchiveMoto 4 месяца назад

I’d love to know more, it definitely deserves a video of its own. If you have any info or can point me in the direction of some hit me up at chris@archivemoto.com

@johnmartin7158 4 месяца назад

I just read the Vintagent article and they said this was not an officially timed run. Other articles do say Curtis was into self promotion. Just like the Traub motorcycle, this is indeed a story worth investigating. Cheers.

@browngreen933 4 месяца назад

@@ArchiveMoto Three or four years ago there was a detailed article about it in "The Antique Motorcycle" magazine. I'll post the issue and date if I can find it. It was titled something like "The Fastest Man on Earth?" with a question mark. It traced the Cutiss 136 mph V-8 story through all the original accounts that the writer could find from when the events actually happened -- not what was said years later.

@browngreen933 4 месяца назад

@@johnmartin7158 Yes, most everyone says it was unofficial. Thus no way to verify it. Very convenient. Did Vintagent say the supposed unofficial run happened at Ormond or somewhere else? From this video we see how hard it was getting 100 mph out of a motorcycle when it really did happen. Yet we're supposed to accept that Curtiss slapped a V-8 engine into a makeshift 1907 bicycle chassis and did 136 mph without any official proof that it did? Old motorcycle collectors I knew laughed about it years ago, but the motorcycle world at large seems to accept it as fact. The internet world definitely.