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On a recent installment of "American Pickers," the guys picked what I think they called a "moto-wheel" which was a motor designed to attach to a bicycle to turn it into a quasi-motorcycle. It was manufactured before WW I.

Anyone familiar with this contraption?

as always
Garrett Meadows

Sure, seen them and read about them. Don't have a picture handy but my bet is that Gusha will.

As I recall, there were several that made gasoline engines that would mount on a bicycle during the 50s. I was just a kid but remember one of the guys that worked for my father had one. His was basic crude -- a small engine that fit behind the seat with a putt putt sound you could hear coming a block away. As I recall the one he had required pedaling the bike to get to speed. He reached back and did something to drop a wheel down against the tire. Friction would start the engine and he would continue on. Can't remember if he had to do anything special to stop but it didn't go very fast. Also can't remember if the speed was constant or if there was a throttle. Being fairly slow, I expect almost anyone could pedal a bike faster than his would go powered -- but he didn't break a sweat which I guess was the whole idea. I remember he would put his feet on a rest and sort of lean back as far as his arms holding the handlbars would allow while the engine did the work.

Here is a 60s or maybe 70s version and I believe the basic same concepts are still being made today.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Aquabug-Tanaka-Japa ... h=item56864ac397:g:b6kAAOSwInVXHnUc

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Well said Howard, especially against the backdrop that so-called cargo bicycles were in use. Their boom has been around the 1940s and 1950s. To come up to Dave's expectation please find attached a flyer of the German company Fuchs (Fox), which had been specialized in motorized bicycles and outboard engines.



images source: nsu-quickly.de
Click to enlarge!

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You are talking about a Smith Motor Wheel... later known as Briggs & Stratton Motor Wheel. These were made for several years starting in the teens. The were motorizing attachments for any full-sized bicycle.

They also used another version of the Motor Wheel on a lightweight 4-wheel buckboard that was known as Smith Flyer then Briggs & Stratton Flyer.

There was one featured in a recent Hemmings blog. Have the catalogues for all years and models.

None of this stuff was around in the 1950s. The motorizing kits from the 1950s were many, but the most popular and prolific was known as Whizzer. It was a motor kit for any balloon tire bicycle, but for some weird reason, people today keep trying to spread the idea that this was a Schwinn thing: it wasn't.

All Whizzers were belt driven except for the first two series which were prewar and friction drive. The only fairly known friction drive motor kit for bicycles in the 1950s was known as "Travis"... named after a movie starlet.

Of course this stuff was all made in the USA. None of it would have worked on European lightweight bicycles with skinny tires and very light frames. Or perhaps the wording should be, "were not intended for use with lightweight skinny-tire bicycles as were prominent in Europe." There were some Whizzer kits and full motorbikes made in Luxembourg and Belgium, but this was an American company.

<iframe width="500" height="375" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8GuJU9FFBEo?rel=0&showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Thanks for posting the video because it did bring back memories. I don't remember the engine hanging down on the side like that second bike did on the one I mentioned earlier. Maybe his was one the Whizzer models but too long ago and don't think I was more than 7 or 8 so memory for details is fuzzy. The putt putt noise sure was familiar.

He had a process to start the engine. The roads were dirt around the mill where he worked and I remember he couldn't start the engine unless bike was on a hard surface. If he tried on dirt -- even hard dirt it wouldn't do. When he left work he would pedal down the dirt drive and veer off at an angle toward a concrete slab that was next to the house and dads office. By the time he reached that point bike was at speed and he could do whatever to the engine to start it on the hard slab. The slab wasn't that long and there was a tree at the end and fence on the side. Sometimes he wobbled when reaching back. Mom thought for sure there would be a time he was going to crash into the tree or the fence and wind up in the yard.

Just looked on Google earth and not surprisingly after 60+ years there have been changes to the property. Fence and tree is gone but the mill foundation and the concrete slab he used are still there.

It took awhile to relocate this info. It will add new light to www.auto-motives.com/carsforsale/1923briggsstrattonflyer.html discussion.

Jed knows quite a bit about these and also the electric Auto Red Bug, he also has quite a few of each.

Fred D

From about 1900 thru the mid 1930's there was at least 300 different motorcycle mfg'ers in the US. Some of them very obsure even to this day.

Many variations of eng'ring configurations of motor drive c ycles.
Some very odd.

Do a search on either MoNocycle or MoNo wheel (that is an "N" not a "T") A large 6 foot hoop with engine and rider setting INSIDE of the large wheel.

AS a side note:

The term Motocycle (no "r'") was a common term used ffor motorcyclee prior to the war. Especialy in the 1900 - 1920 time frame.

So any searches or Googling might narrow results in the "r" is left out of the term "motorcycle".

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Yes... but the original issue was about a motorized bicycle. And that's a far cry from a motorcycle.

While terminologies today have been hopelessly blurred and almost rendered meaningless, in North America-at least up until the 1960s, there were numerous very clear designations for motor-driven 2-wheelers:
? Motorized bicycle
? Motorbike
? Motor scooter
? Mo-ped
? Motorcycle

These categories/definitions were once clearly understood and marketed in such fashion. And while there are folks today who might argue endlessly that early motorcycles were based on bicycles (indeed they were-but only at their inceptions) the categories and definitions used to be very, very clear.

As for the "monocycle" there were several of these over the years. One is pictured in an old Smithsonian publication I have (was once a consultant for them). However, the most recent "monocycles" were in the 3rd edition of "Men In Black" movie. Yes.

Finally... it is an unknown fact among today's people, but Creative Industries of Detroit (yes the same folks who made the Panthers and Request) also attempted to get into the motorscooter and lightweight motorcycle business. They built several prototypes including a 3-passenger model that used components from fabulous Salsbury motor scooters. The brand would have been known as "Viking." Do I have pics and all the info? Why, of course! Fact. Watch for it in the upcoming book about Creative Industries.