Golden Eagle Bicycle
the demise of the gas powered bike
Note: If you are a regular to Loose Cannon Booster you have noticed that I’m obsessed with music. This week I digress to another interest, mechanical conveyance. Yes, I’ve always been a gear-head, since my first bicycle and leading up to my current lineup of vehicles. One of the divorce contentions of my first marriage was that I had owned fourteen cars in seven years. Cruising down the road has always felt like freedom to me, plain and simple.
The Golden Eagle Has Landed
Today marks the end of an era, albeit insignificant. This day, I will try to find someone to take my Golden Eagle motorized bike away to a new home, to make it sing again–well maybe more like sputter and croak–as it rolls down the road at 25 mph getting 200 miles to the gallon. Putt-putt. I thought I could sell the thing but there’s no interest. At this point, I’d like to give it to someone who will do more than stack it amongst the rest of their junk.
So what is it that makes the Golden Eagle Bike Engine worthy of a Boost? This is a story about garage ingenuity. It is a story about new technology that builds on old technology. It is a story of speed and it is a story about the fickle nature of people’s tastes and attitudes. Hey, this could be a story about music making…
The heart of this week’s BOOST is a National Public Radio story that Taki Telonidis and I produced in 2003 about a couple from Michigan who invented the Golden Eagle and then made a pilgrimage to the Bonneville Salt Flats to attempt the world land speed record for a motor driven vehicle with a 25cc engine. It’s a fun six-minute listen:
CLICK HERE: Broadcast first on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, I give thanks to the Western Folklife Center for allowing us to explore garage ingenuity as part of its mission.
History of Motorized Bikes
Pedal bikes were invented in France in the 1860s and soon people began attaching small steam engines to help move them along. By 1900 several motorized bikes were available both in Europe and America. They look surprisingly similar to motorized bikes today.
With expense and scarcity of fuel, the efficient motorized pedal bike and its big brother, the motorcycle grew in popularity. The best known of the American motorized bikes was the Whizzer, available from 1939 to 2014. The Golden Eagle Bike Engine hung in there but finally went out of business last year. Theirs was a kit that employed an extremely light and economical Asian-built engine which sat above the back wheel and drove a large clip-on drive-ring fit to the wheel. A Kevlar belt, similar to what drives a Harley Davidson, connected motor to wheel. It was simple and elegant.
What killed the gas bike engine? I contend it was mostly about noise. if you can’t see or hear it, it doesn’t exist. Still, there are a few die-heart gas powered bike riders but they are up against scores of e-bike start-ups working to find the next greatest bike. Ingenuity and clout will determine what survives.
With astounding battery life and extremely efficient motors, the E-Bike is now the preferred conveyance for bike couriers in Manhattan. Around here, near Zion National Park, e-bikes are everywhere as people pedal and cruise to view the phenomenal scenery in silence. Even though the gas engine worked nicely it was noisy and messy. Our home is a mecca for daredevil biking. Virgin, Utah hosts the Red Bull Rampage, the most extreme biking competition in the world. Each year young athletes compete on courses that start on top of a desert mesa, traversing narrow trails with heart stopping cliff drop-offs to end on the flats below. We love our bikes.
Guilty of Consumerism
I’ve always been a sucker for old mechanical technology: vintage espresso makers, audio turntables, bikes, cars, cameras and other geared mechanisms. I used to actively search out these things but realized long ago that I’m not a good collector. I blame it on the dust.
Not much for maintenance, I’ve become brutally aware of my own penchant for consuming. So besides looking occasionally online at old Nagra reel to reel tape recorders or vintage cars and trucks, I want less. I do have a weakness for art and musical instruments but that’s another story. Teresa and I have been actively getting rid of stuff. We are learning to forego the purchase the replacements before jettisoning that which needs replacing. Give us a simple life, thank you.
The New Bikes
In the spirit of not following my own advice, we recently purchased e-bikes. With funky knees and a too much weight, the e-bike is wonderful for my life. Teresa chose a folding e-bike made by SnapCycle. We got it from a local fellow who makes his living reviewing e-bikes for his YouTube Channel. After he tests them, he sells them at a discount, and they are like new. Then there’s my bike, a fat tire’d cruiser that Revi designed to look like an early 20th century Café Racer motorcycle. I love it.
My hope is to continue riding though I know if I fall over it will most likely be a Humpty Dumpty scenario where all the king’s horse and and all the king’s men won’t be able to put me back together again. As the cowboys like to say, “keep the fork-ed side down.” And if you need a Golden Eagle, get in touch.
Postscript: The day after I posted this Darek Wong-Yee drove down from New Harmony and picked up the bike. He likes to tinker and I can tell he’s the right guy for the job. See photo below of the new proud owner.
Cool bike Hal!!
I still have my original 1955 Schwinn Spitfire one-speed. I've ridden it on the Jordan River Parkway Trail to Utah Lake. I prefer to ride my semi-recumbent 8-speed granny bike because the seat is so comfortable. I also have 2 mountain bikes. My theory is - you can never have too many bikes because so many friends don't have one and they can always borrow one of mine.