Good Luck & God Speed Cannonballers!

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Just over 110 years ago, in the summer of 1906, years before the fabled Erwin “Cannonball” Baker began making his legendary transcontinental runs, a veteran rider from Cleveland, OH mounted a 2 1/4 HP Indian single and set off across the country. In a bid to drum up publicity, George Hendee, co-founder and president of Indian Motorcycles enlisted Louis J. Mueller to cross the country on one of Indian’s new machine’s, an attempt to break the standing record of 50 days set by George Wyman in 1902. On August 10th Mueller set out from San Francisco accompanied by Springfield’s George Holden, a fellow racer and the first of Indian's franchised dealers. Holden was brought onboard to ride with Mueller for a few days before boarding a train and acting as a spotter for the trip. Having a reputation as a “rough rider,” reports at the time predicted that Holden would not allow himself to retire from such an adventure and would make the entire trip on two wheels as well. However, after a nasty spill 12 days into the journey which left Holden’s leg injured and his Indian’s frame mangled he reluctantly boarded a train headed for Nebraska, periodically rejoining Mueller for the remainder of the ride. Traveling 3,476 miles over roads and trails that would challenge even today’s most skilled dual sport riders, Mueller arrived in New York just after 9pm on September 12th after only 31 days, 12 hours, and 15 minutes. Not only did Mueller’s time smash the previous transcontinental motorcycle record, but it also beat the standing time made by an automobile as well, making Mueller the fastest man, and Indian the fastest machine to have made it from coast to coast. 

Today so many of my friends begin an adventure in that same spirit, a journey which will create a lifetime of happy memories, character-defining challenges, and spawn countless campfire tales for years to come. I wish nothing but the best of luck to the participants of the 2016 Motorcycle Cannonball, a race over the next 3 weeks from Atlantic City, NJ, to Carlsbad, CA, onboard machines built a century ago. Im rooting for you all, especially my AMCA Smoky Mountain Chapter brothers. Good Luck and God Speed my friends.

Here is Louis J. Mueller and George N. Holden at the end of their transcontinental adventure in September, 1906.

Thank you for your support!

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I will be taking a bit of a hiatus from Archive, I do hope to be back soon, but until then thank you all for your support of this little project of mine.

-Chris

www.ArchiveMoto.com

Bobby Hill, Lakewood Speedway 1948

I was thrilled to see that Indian chose to include veteran racers Bobby Hill and Bill Tumanduring the celebration of Indian's return to professional American motorcycle racing. This shot of The Columbus Comet Bobby Hill is an exclusive from the pages of Georgia Motorcycle History, available in the Archive Store Here. It was taken on August 8th, 1948 at Atlanta's Lakewood Speedway. Indian's #71 Bobby Hill threw his Sport Scout around the dangerous curves of the Lakewood mile for the AMA's Class C 10-mile National against legends like George Delong, Billy Huber, Buck Brigance, and Atlanta's own Ted Edwards. When the checkered flag dropped, Bobby and Harley-Davidson's Billy Huber were so close that the first and only draw in the history of the AMA was declared. Over a dozen exclusive photos of this race are included in Georgia Motorcycle History, just one series of over 250 images that tell the origins of American motorcycle culture through the photographs of Georgia, pick up your copy today Here.

The Detroit Motordrome, July 1913

 “It serves no useful purpose either with reference to the development of the rider or the machine. It is speed madness, pure and simple. Its purpose is to cater to the lust of risk on the part of those safely seated in the grandstand. The exploiters of motorcycle racing have everywhere shown that their sole aim is to provide thrills (at the cost of others’ lives) and their sole object the collection of money from such thrills."

A quote from the editorial page of The Detroit News in the summer of 1913. The scathing commentary was accompanied by a cartoon entitled “A Pagan Holiday” in which Death, with his sickle and a shield bearing a dollar sign stands with a rider beneath his foot at the bottom of a motordrome as the crowd gives unanimous thumbs down, as if spectators in a Roman coliseum. The piece was run following the death of 22 year old Emil Haloubek, an Austrian aviator that died after crashing at the newly opened Detroit Motordrome the afternoon of June 5, 1913. Haloubek was running practice laps as part of an evaluation for Don Klark, Detroit’s racing team captain who was interested in recruiting the fearless young amateur. The Detroit Motordrome, a 1/4 mile circular board track with 60 degree banking had just opened it’s gates on May 24th, and though the public outcry spurred on by articles like the one from which this excerpt was taken threatened to close the stadium down, the venue’s management insisted that it was a freak accident and the gates remained open at Detroit for two more seasons. Haloubek’s death pushed the racer body count to over a dozen since the perilous sport began a few years prior, a number which the spectator death toll would soon surpass with the tragedy at the Lagoon Motordrome that July which claimed the lives of rider Odin Johnson and 7 spectators, the youngest of which a 5 year old boy. The growing distaste for the motordrome spectacle across America only added to the sport’s diminishing viability, and scenes like this one, from a photograph taken inside the Detroit Motordrome in July of 1913 would become but a distant American pastime within a few short years.