This Week In History:
This week marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Brooklyn Motorcycle Club, known by their chosen name as the Invincible MC. Formed by an elite group of motorcycle enthusiasts on a brisk Tuesday evening in 1911, the club was established to act as a cornerstone for local motorcycle culture. The Invincible MC took their name in part from an existing social and political club of the day, and though the two clubs were separate organizations the new MC arranged to share use of the social club’s $30,000 property. The Invincible’s clubhouse, shown in the background of this photo was located at 78 Herkimer St. and featured an array of amenities including a library, restaurant, gym, billiards room, and bowling alley, all of which were at the unlimited disposal of the newly formed club. Remarkably the original house still stands today just off of Atlantaic Ave in the heart of Brooklyn, though it appears to be vacant and in a state of disrepair.
Membership to the club was limited to 50 men and was setup to be quite exclusive, only allowing the top class rider to enter its ranks. As such, several of the 27 original founding members were counted as some of America’s top professional racers. AG Chapplle, Walter Goerke, and John U. Constant of the legendary Indian factory racing team were all charter members of the Invincible MC, John U. Constant even serving as the club’s secretary. The Invicibles wasted no time in organizing their first event, a 150 mile Spring Run up the north shore of Long Island was scheduled for May 21st and would be the first of countless events put together by the new club. Unfortunately the men in this clipping were not individually identified and the quality is too poor to pick out the faces, though I do believe that is Walter Goerke on the far right, one of the Invincible’s Executive Board members and pioneer champion of the Indian team. Here captured in their first ever photograph are a few of founding members of the Invincible Motorcycle Club of Brooklyn NY in front of their clubhouse the last week of March, 1911.