The Vincent Black Lightning was the culmination of British designer Phil Vincent's quest to create the world's greatest motorcycle. It was the racing version of his iconic Vincent Black Shadow, stripped of everything not needed on a racing motorcycle, and able to carry its rider up to 150 mph depending on the state of tune ...
It Began With a Gilded Cage and the Bicycle Craze You've no doubt heard of the song "Only a bird in a guilded cage..." and the manufacture of delicate guilded cages was the way the Heinz, Pierce and Munschauer company began business in the wake of the Civil War in 1865. The company became well known ...
The Brough Superior and the Brough "Inferior" George Brough's father, William Edward Brough, was a motorcycle aficionado and was a knowledgeable and respected maker of motorcycles, so young George Brough grew up involved in his father's business acquiring the knowledge, skills and contacts of someone very much a part of the motorcycle manufacturing trade. George started ...
If you suspect that the name "Fikobike" sounds a bit like "psycho-bike" then you understand the thinking behind oil man Lee Fikes decision to take his perfectly good 1967 BMW R60 and rebuild it into his very own Volkswagen engined Harley-Davidson eating, Fikes "psychobike" which also finished up as an Offenhauser Indy engine "soundalike". In a ...
A Motorcycle Not for the Masses George Brough's family appears to have been quite involved with motorcycles and competition. George stated in later Brough Superior advertising that he had competed in his first motorcycle event in 1906 while he was still at school, and that is two years before George's father, William Brough, established his motorcycle ...
The Honda CBX was a motorcycle that George Brough, of Brough Superior fame, would have loved. It was a bike that George Brough's most famous customer, T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) would have really enjoyed: but it was a bike that I must admit the first time I saw one I was stopped in my ...
Background Some like to say that "the best things in life are free" but this is perhaps a bit of a wishful thinking statement. The best things in life are typically costly. In order to have health you need a decent diet and exercise, and you need to be free of oppressive levels of stress and ...
Described by T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) as "the jolliest things on wheels" the Brough Superior SS100 was the ultimate motorcycle of the 1920's and 1930's. Lawrence was known for riding his Brough Superior for 500-700 mile excursions on a regular basis delighting in the big bike's speed and stable road-holding, and in its ...
Back in 1913 the world was a quite different place. The "War to End All Wars" had not yet begun, the communist Russian Revolution had not yet happened, and the teachings of Karl Marx were largely ignored by the vast majority of people in the "free world". In that era in which the truth was ...
The Indian Four Cylinder motorcycles became an American icon along with the V-twin Harley-Davidson's. Described as "The Dusenberg of motorcycles" the Indian Four was and still is a head turning crowd gatherer second to none. But this was a bike that did not start out as an Indian at all, it began with the inventiveness ...
