The SPEED RECORD NO ONE can beat after 55 Years

the fastest motorcycle in the world built by a six year old boy with his own hands what you are about to hear is an incredible story made of passion courage perseverance and recklessness the story of men who made motorcycles their

speed

their reason for living demonstrating how money and age are never limited if you are moved by passion this is the story of Bert Muro Herbert James Murrow this is the original name he is a man from another time and I say this literally because he was born on March 25, 1899 in Invercargill a remote town in New Zealand and his passion for motorcycles began in 1915 when he bought a Douglas, his first two wheels and for the young man it was love at first sight.

He was so in love with motorcycles that in 1919 he added a klino to his garage, but the spark that will give life to this incredible story will happen the following year, when he buys an Indian. We are talking about the motorcycle with a 600 cc engine, three gears, rigid rear frame with clutch pedal, capable of running at the incredible

speed

of 80 kilometers per hour, he remembers. what we are talking about 102

years

ago, it was a great speed for the time and it is difficult to understand what exactly he came up with, but Bert decides that exactly that will become the fastest motorcycle in the world, so he started. modify that Indian in 1926 and he did it for 22

years

and the Muro himself on the side delivered to his English friend John Andrews in 1971 he wrote to him that he worked on that motorcycle every weekend and every night of the week to participate in any possible race organized by his town racing uphill quarter mile inside the car speed of more than 1 mile setting many

record

s and among these

record

s one stands out in particular because in a consumer race he managed to run his motorcycle 49 kilometers with only a liter of gasoline and you What's even more incredible is that Birth prepared his bike only with handmade parts that he built himself and you know how he made the pistons that he used to pour malt and aluminum into the sand on the beach near his house, so imagine this man going to the beach among children playing with sand castles he was pouring liquid aluminum to build the bicycle pistons and birth he recycled everything he found and with these methods over the years he built connecting rods, crankshafts , pistons, flywheels, lubrication systems, anything, all this without any study behind it.

It was pure genius, so at one point Bird realized that pouring liquid metal on the beach probably wasn't the best possible idea, so he started going to a foundry where he learned a lot about metals, so Bird kept redesigning pistons every year and we are talking about a time where sustainability was not even a word and at that time Bird was recycling everything and in the corner of his garage when I read it the first time I said Ok, I want to do the same Bert displays some pieces that he built accompanied by the description offerings to the god of speed and since 1927 the only component that he did not manufacture himself was the carburetor so at this point do you think that the modifications ended here no, we are only at the beginning because after modifying the engine and simply burned out he realized how important aerodynamics was and it took him five years to build a fairing capable of giving him advantages and that's why the first prototype was built in aluminum hammered by hand with a hammer, okay, so we saw a lot of work, but that? about the results in the end all this work paid off or not in 1927 in inverloch beach he won the speed victory on motorcycles equipped with sidecars with the surprising speed of 124.8 kilometers per hour and we are talking about 1927 and this is only the first of the main records he achieved and unfortunately, in addition to the records, also accidents played an important role in his life.

The first major accident occurred in 1927 at Aspendale Speedway. The bird crashed at 145 kilometers per hour in a dirt race. A big accident that made him go. house with many injuries but still in one piece but the most serious accident occurred in 1937 during a speed race on the beach it happened that another driver unintentionally hit Bert and the accident was terrible bird helmet broken half bird flight then fell and rolled by many meters lose almost all their teeth and the guys think about it, an accident like this would probably make everyone lose the desire for speed, but we are talking about Bird Muro, who obviously got back on his bike immediately and 1940 was probably Bird's busiest year growing up.

On every possible occasion he managed to set the New Zealand speed record at Islesbury. I hope it reads that way, which I've never heard before, and it's such a small town that if you Google it from Italy it tells you it's in England, but they're in New Zealand anyway, he said the record for speed with an average of 194.4 kilometers per hour, which is a record that stood for 12 years, but shortly after, as I said, another big accident occurred, a big accident caused a brain hemorrhage that left him unconscious for a while . hour and a half and which made him stay away from racing for 11 months, during this time his wife probably left him exhausted due to his obsession with speed, but once again in this second accident Bert shows that he has no spirit of self-preservation not only can He returned to racing, but in 1948 he left his job to dedicate his life full time to motorcycles, so Bert moved and converted this dilapidated cabin into a wonderful garage.

Bird continued competing for 10 years, selling many records until 1959, when he had another serious accident. it almost killed him he crashed at 180 kilometers per hour he went to the hospital with many broken bones he was hospitalized for seven weeks and 5 months later he started running again and the years go by he is now 60 years old and can you imagine if at 32 I had a hard time walking correctly with only eight broken bones. Can you imagine it after all his accidents when he was six years old? However, he still has a dream to achieve, which is to race on Lake Bonneville in the USA, in Utah, where every year speed records are assigned so the problem was that going to America was very expensive so Birds began saving money for years and in 1962, also thanks to the help of friends and fans, he was finally able to go to Bonneville and you know how he saved money.

For the trip he worked as a cook on board the ship to pay for the trip, all this at the tender age of 63. So he finally got to Bonville and the trip of his life turned into a nightmare, you know, Bird was used to luck in the races where you go there, register yourself and then run well in the USA. No It was the same because Bird, when he landed in America, realized that to participate in the Bonneville race you had to at least register. with a month in advance and guys we are talking about the 60s 60 years ago there was no telephone there was no internet there was nothing like how you could know how to compete in that race and as if that were not enough there were also problems of a technical nature, in fact, the Bird Indian package of the motorcycle did not meet the necessary requirements to participate in the race, for example, the motorcycle was not equipped with the mandatory parachute for those races, Bird's technical clothing was not sufficient considering also the small details. the birds suffer from heart problems, so many things were wrong that the organizers decided to exclude the birds from the race, so that was the end of the dream for the birds, obviously not, because Rolly Free and Marty Dickinson intervened in favor of the birth, who were members of the earth. speed record fraternity that was very close to the AMA managers and thanks to them the commissioners turned a blind eye, let's say both eyes to the delay in registration to the technical problems and made a birth phrase, I mean, guys, really They loved him and despite all this. premises the first race in Bonneville was an incredible success for bird after another fall obviously yes because during training bird decided to put 27 kilos of mass in front of Dubai to improve stability but that was not enough because he lost control at 260 kilometers per hour The accident was simply horrible.

The commissioners got there as soon as possible knowing what they would find, but instead what they found was an animated old man who was laughing because he was alive after the accident, so with this Indian with the reduced 850 CC engine, he was able to set the record world for less than 916 CC and the speed is crazy 288 kilometers per hour for the one mile race with those bikes and you remember the fairing made with aluminum with a hammer for that race he used the fiberglass version and that casing was so narrow that during the race the bird burned its leg on the bicycle's exhaust, which meant that the elderly pilot with a lot bicycle and marked by the middle of Bonneville took enormous revenge winning the hearts and esteem of many enthusiasts and you can say, well, that's it.

He is too old for that, not at all the Bonneville that returned in 1963, but that race ended in a fight because he broke a connecting rod at 313 kilometers per hour, but that did not stop him because years later he continued working on the motorcycle, on the aerodynamics. in improving the development of everything until in 1966 she set the new record for less than 1000 cc, but that was not enough, she was not happy with it, she wanted more, she knew she could do more, so she returned home and dismounted I completely rebuilt the motorcycle from scratch and returned to Bonville in 1967 because this man never gives up and the final consecration occurred in 1967 at the age of 68 with a new Indian motorcycle completely rebuilt from scratch in the classification to which the motorcycle. 305.9 kilometers per hour and in the race he sets the world record for the less than 1000 cc category with 295.4 kilometers per hour and get ready for this record for 55 years he remained undefeated, he is a 68 year old man with half the broken bones and racing heart. fewer cylinders and runs hard with a single cylinder he has just set a record that stood for 55 years with the bike built with his own hands 60 years ago, but wait because in the test he reached 331 kilometers per hour which unfortunately did not become the official. record because that was not the official bird of the race, he participated in 10 editions of that American race supported by fans and sympathizers who came from all over the United States to see him run all this in an era where there was no internet or social networks and in In an interview, he himself tells how his operating space was an old van but in Los Angeles for $90, so his career ended in 1975 when his health conditions prevented him from renewing his life and at this point, after all this incredible career in At the age of 76 he decided to retire from racing, Harry seriously, how do you think he could retire from racing?

So if he wasn't allowed to run in future races, why not run in the illegal ones? And that's what he did. He continued running whenever he could. until 1978 when he died and leaving an intelligible memory in the hearts of those who knew him the story of Burmauro was sold in 2005 Indian film starring Anthony Hopkins as the New Zealand writer in 2006 the AMA included him in the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame and as for today he is the only new zealand who participated in invercargill in new zealand bermuro is a legend a large statue of him at his Indian Scout Fair stands in a public garden so this was the story of the Murrow bird a great writer but about A great man full of passion and tenacity, a person capable of going beyond his own limits driven by the power of dreams thanks to which if one really believes in them anything can become a reality.