I’ve always been fascinated with vintage engineering and this particular example is quite remarkable. Exactly who first came up with the idea of using a wheel’s spokes as suspension seems to be somewhat elusive but the idea itself is quite brilliant. Or it could be utterly terrible. I’m having a hard time imagining how a motorcycle like this would handle.
So far as I am aware there aren’t any companies manufacturing these today, which seems kind of a shame as for one thing, it would allow a person to build a hard-tail motorcycle that doesn’t try to slam your arse through your nose every time you hit a bump.
This brilliant find comes via Frank @ The MotArt – A site that well and truly deserves a spot in any self respecting chap’s bookmark folder.
Further Reading Hemmings
Pictures – Motor Mechanic Magazine, April 1917.
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
