A natural relationship to my fondness of old cars and boats, is old motorcycles. Especially the pre WW1 era bikes of board track and dirt track racing. Those were real grass roots companies and the riders were the bravest racers to ever live, ranking in my book with the unlimited hydroplane racers.

Anyway, I have this cool photo of my Grandpa Edward Sewall (standing) and his soon-to-be-brother in law Harry Reeves with a 1917 Harley Davidson. They had many bikes, and one thing he did was to build a sled using the engine and a few parts from a 19teens Cyclone motorcycle. Thought you guys might think these are neat.

a motorized sled??

awesome!

I bet it was a monster, and I bet his neighbors were not big fans of it. No mufflers.
This was way before any snowmobile patents were issued.

Nice pictures.

so he kinda had my mentality.....

lucky for you "crazy" skipped a generation

Dad and I just went out to see a few old Cyclones and other bikes. Grandpa was the draftsman for the Cyclone company. Here is one, fully restored and looking great. They made around 300, 12 are know to exist today, some in the race version, some in the street version. And yes, it is in the guy's dining room.

Also an old pic from the track, and one of the road bikes.

This engine was cutting edge in the teens, it was the pioneer in overhead cam cycle engines. Driveshafts and bevel gears are in the tubes to run the cams where other bikes had pushrods and rocker arms in the same locations. Cyclones kicked a** on board and dirt tracks.

now thats old school!!
love the exhaust

I'd love to get a vintage bike and attempt a restoration! dirt/flat track bikes are my favorite!

Yeah, me too. I'm writing a book about them, it has been an interesting journey so far.

Amazing pics and history Bill, thank you for sharing.

Current Hot Bike Magazine (Sept 2010) covered one of our mission trips about Cyclones. Here is the story:

cool story