Where Did This Bike Come From?

This week on Drive for History we've focused on some of the rarest motorcycles in the world. Right here, rolling through time, are more than 350 all-American machines and literally dozens of unique motorcycles. Today, special day, let's go. be firing up the 1914 Flecher Flyer motorcycle and again,

this

is an absolutely one-of-a-kind machine. It is the only remaining example of a Flecher Flyer motorcycle today. Now what we're looking at is a chain-driven, single-speed, nine-horsepower twin-cylinder machine. primitive, but at the same time, in 1914,

this

machine was really at the forefront. Now, most of you have probably never heard of a meat or a flier.

In fact, this

bike

has been on the wheels over time, I mean, maybe 25 years here in the museum, the

bike

is very rarely ridden, it's probably been eight or maybe even 10 years since the last time. that this motorcycle worked, now the bike was found at a swap meet, my dad had bought the bike in very difficult condition, the engine was One of the cylinders exploded, most of the machine, although it was more or less preserved with the original paint, and it really had all the bones, they were there and actually a few more, so the Fleurer Flyer machine was built in Omaha, Nebraska, when my father found it.

This motorcycle was actually an unknown brand, some identifying features on the motorcycle allowed us to know what it was, but as for the brand, meat or steering wheel, it had never been investigated, so a mention to this day is all What do we know. I have been able to discover that my father appeared in this maybe a few years after buying the bicycle motorcycling magazine. He actually says August 1914. It's hard to read and he says the word meat or flier from Omaha Nebraska is that there are plans afoot to organize. a new company, so again load up your brochure with a relatively unknown brand and as far as trade publications go there is only one mention, at least one, that we have been able to find, as the story goes, Lewis Flesner was from Omaha , Nebraska, actually owned the biggest bike.

I bought in town, this motorcycle many years later was written about in an American Iron magazine, I think in 1998, maybe 2000, it appeared in the classics section of American Iron magazine and told a little bit about how Dale had found the machine and its type of single piece. Unique style and presence and shortly after the bike appeared in the magazine we were contacted by some of Lewis Fleischer's family who didn't know anything about the meat or the surviving steering wheel but actually had several photos and information. about Lewis and his early models, so they actually had the first four Lewis models, large photographs, so just a few weeks after the article appeared in American Iron magazine, we received this in the mail and, as you can imagine, really helped put some of the pieces of the puzzle together and you know, for a long time this was strictly family history and then with the combination of finding the bike, doing the preservation and getting it running again, it took my dad about a year and a half to put it into operation. uh, appearing in American Iron magazine allowed things to turn around again and the story of the man to

come

back together with the motorcycle itself, so now it's a good story that ties into an earlier motorcycle story, right here we are looking at a Yale. california motorcycle this is a 1905 yale california built in toledo ohio the yale was actually purchased or excuse me, the 1902 1903 california motorcycle was actually purchased by the yale motorcycle company uh now the california motorcycle is almost identical to this yale california the first motor vehicle in crossed the united states in the first automobile, first among automobiles or bicycles, uh 1903, a guy named george wyman left san francisco and went to new york in a 1903 yale california almost identical to this one machine and this is not much more than a motorized bicycle is absolutely primitive as it

come

s with a large external flywheel chain here to start the motorcycle. wow uh that's as primitive a motorcycle as there is if you can imagine jumping on this motorcycle in San Francisco and riding it all the way again ride push pull pedal this bike from coast to coast is quite a feat now that the story relates to Lewis.

Fleischer on his way across the country George Wyman and Wyman actually kept a very detailed diary of their trip. I think the trip may have lasted more than 50 or 60 days. They kept a very detailed diary of their trip and it was actually published in several magazines. in 1903 1904 1905 uh the articles were actually called Wyman's Journey now the magazines copies of that magazine still exist today uh what he's talking about is that he's traveling the country uh his bicycle broke down outside of Omaha, he pushes the bike into town and actually looked for it We left the biggest bike shop in town which turned out to be owned by Louis Fleischer, uh, Lewis, as you can imagine, sees this motorized bike talking to the owner.

Hey, I'm traveling from coast to coast. I started in San Francisco, I'm not even halfway there. there you can imagine what kind of inspiration that must have been for Flesher. It is not known exactly when Lewis made his first motorcycle, but we are pretty sure that the inspiration for it came from George Wyman on his trip to the coast. Now imagine that Lewis's relative. had sent us, this is the first model from Lewis and as you can see, not far from the Yale California or California motorcycle, a similar confident front end, a square gas tank just above, under the handlebars, there is a box of tools in the back, this machine.

Turns out they are chain drive motors with a slightly different orientation than the Yale California. Now, at that time, the Thor company had been supplying engines to India and engines as per the reading standard and they basically provided engines for people who wanted to get into the motorcycle industry at this time. moment when you imagine incredibly competitive, this is the birth of an industry and the guys were making these, you know, small series of machines, they say there were up to 150 or 200 of the first American motorcycle companies, so the machine de Meater is a kind of cross between one of the first Indians. or Redding Standard in Yale, California, so as time went on, Meater would uh we know of five different models, at least now this we believe is their fifth model, it's not any of them, it's not the machine shown In none of the photos are the family members. had sent us it's a little bit more advanced machine a photo of lewis flescher probably 1905 1904 and all the guy he was now if you can imagine starting a motorcycle company from scratch uh really uh, as big a company as you can back then you could assume what Flenner used in their later models, now their first two models were single cylinder machines, the later models what they focused on was the luxury Spaki engine, Spaki was a sort of buy and crate engine that They made it with seven horsepower.

Nine horsepower versions made in Minneapolis now this machine uh, it's got a lot of motor for not a lot of bike, let's get this off the lift here momentarily, uh, Chris and Andy are going to help me guys, let's put that ramp here and get this one out. thing and then I can go over some of the details of what makes this bike so special, so yeah, put it down and turn it the other way a little bit, there you have it and then, let's take this off the stand if Andy, you want grab that front wheel yeah great okay so we've got the clutch engaged let's open it back up lift the rear stand okay now while we get this down guys this bike hasn't started like I said in eight or ten years and it's the first time it's been off the table in so long so the last time the bike was used it was put in good working order, drain the fluids so hopefully it should be as easy as a little of gasoline and a little bit of oil and we will get this motorcycle running again and running well now, as I said, the spaki engine, actually it was, the spaki engine was supplied to different motorcycle companies, if you notice, just behind the meaty, the sears motorcycle also used spaky deluxe engine minneapolis used them several other machines used this same power plant spaki is a 74 76 cubic inch engine so it's actually quite large for the time and can be bolt to almost any chassis now, what you'll also notice is that the chassis, frame, forks and handlebars on these machines are also very similar and again, in really competitive times in the American motorcycle industry, guys were copying each other each other left and right using parts from common manufacturers and suppliers, so we believe that both chassis the locks and the meatier chassis, at least the frame and fork combination, were manufactured by the company Excelsior, now it is not their company Excelsior car manufacturing company, it's actually a different Excelsior motorcycle company in the same city, two Excelsior companies, both in Chicago, so this one here is not the most well-known Excelsior company is actually a little-known company that used to supply the chassis for the sparkling engine type.

Now that there are so many people copying each other, there will inevitably be guys who get down to business with ideas and technologies that establish them, apart from the other guys, one of the most interesting things about the meat or the steering wheel, lewis carnero had the idea of ​​working with the floorboards, okay, so the floorboards now keep in mind harley-davidson right now 1913 1914 uh, harley-davidson their 13 models uh the pedals only break on the roller coaster, ok now the meat machine is a pedal start and coaster brake machine, however it has floorboards on both sides which are actually working floorboards and are now beautifully cast into meat or steering wheel, here some of the coolest parts on the bike, so this one on the right side is the brake, now it actually operates the lever on this side as well, so the three ways to operate the brake on the meaty flywheel now look like a little redundant, but at the same time, like I said, this is a lot of power for a little bit of bike uh, the coaster brakes don't do you so much good having that extra floor or having the extra floor broken and the handbrake quite useful, you find yourself in different situations

where

sometimes it's not necessarily optimal to use your foot it's better to use your hand and vice versa now in the same way with the other side we have the clutch lever and we also have this uh and what it's doing is shifting the orientation here on the countershaft um simple multi -plate clutch very similar to a modern clutch, just a little more primitive, so there are two ways to engage the clutch, three ways to engage the brake.

The machine now has a Shebler style carburetor. This is a HX carburetor. A fairly primitive Bosch magneto ignition, so there are no switches on this bike, you don't turn it on or off, the magneto provides a really perpetual spark, so it doesn't turn on the headlights, it doesn't turn on the rear lights, it doesn't turn on a horn, this bike is a bit stripped down and basic now. Again, the last time this bike ran, it was put into good working order, so I know we'll need to add gas and oil to the tank. What are we going to do?

Chris tips this. I want to check the final level. Any time you have a motorcycle sitting for a significant period of time, you'll want to check the oil level at the bottom end before riding the motorcycle, you don't want it to be full of oil, you don't want it to be dry. I kind of want it right in the middle, an engine this size requires about four ounces of oil, so Chris leaned over and when you lean the engine over the oil pools on the right side, which makes the drain plug higher, so if we get a little bit A little bit of oil comes out of this drain plug, I think there will be right through, oh yeah, there's a lot of oil in there, there will be just the right amount to run, so we have the bottom end with the right amount of oil and uh.

Right now we should start filling this up with gas and see if it shows up now, as my dad remembers it, the last time he took this bike out, he said it was going 50 miles an hour right in the middle of Maggie Valley, so here we go. What to do is turn this thing on and see how it works. It's a pretty simple starting procedure on a motorcycle like this. Yeah, let's put gas in there. Use low octane fuel with this, we don't use lead. fuel, but we like to use non-ethanol fuel, it's as little as we, there you go, we're not going to need much, go ahead, let me, yeah, okay, so with non-ethanol fuel, it just stores better, so even though we're Drain these bikes, uh, when we use them or after we use them.Sorry, you never know what kind of residue and residue will be left inside the carburetor that is left at the bottom of the tank and cannot completely evaporate, so again, the ethanol is free.

It's much easier to manage the fuel, so we're going to use this bike momentarily. I just want to add a little bit of oil to the bottom or a little bit of oil to the oil tank. Now keep in mind guys, I have a total oil loss system. This motorcycle is drip fed. There isn't even an oil pump, so total loss means that oil doesn't circulate to the bottom end of the engine and back to the bottom end. Later machines actually had a feed pump or feed system that was not pressure dependent, it was more of a volume feed.

I will show you this here on the other side. This machine actually has a dial that has a tapered needle and seat.

where

you can adjust the oil drip all the way to the bottom end, so right on this side we have about a third of the wire there. I think there's already some oil in the oil tank, so we should, uh, what we have here is a sight glass and we can turn on the oil dropper and hopefully pretty soon you'll see some drops, maybe a little hard to see. see, oh yeah, there we go, beautiful, you see it dripping, yeah, there we go, let me go back. suse turns off a little bit and again, if you put too much oil on the bottom end, that's really the way I mean it, it's like running through a swimming pool, you get to a point where the oil level really starts to go down. provide resistance instead of lubrication, so we have gas to turn the fuel back on, guys, the world's only meat or flywheel motorcycle built in Omaha, Nebraska, um, it's been a year since it raced, let's see, uh, let's see How's it going, okay, we'll tickle the carburetor. a little bit and add a little bit of choke and get on board now you have a decompressor here on the back of the throttle or excuse me on the back of the spark advance so that when you operate the decompressor you can see it working. this lever here and what it does is actually raise the exhaust valves, just a little bit is enough so you can bypass the compression valve, you don't have any compression, you should be able to spin with less resistance.

Build up some inertia on the flywheel, get that compression release down and hopefully it comes on with some gas so put this choke on and uh we should be good to go guys fingers crossed hey it's okay, and you can hear that it's just an absolute Ton of power for such a small motorcycle so high off the ground, but at the same time there's not much, maybe a 250 pound motorcycle, I'll go there, you hear the difference between that exhaust. cutout in the city out of the city quiet to run around the city you open it so pop bang buddy, there you have it guys, the world's only meaty flying motorcycle that breathes fire once again, brought back to life right here in the road to history, thank you all for tuning in.

If you've been enjoying what you see, be sure to check out drive4history.com. Remember that every penny you donate helps us power the museum that keeps history alive for future generations to enjoy. This is probably ready to jump in and go for a ride. probably needs a little bit of adjustment a little more warm up but it's probably ready to roll thanks for tuning in guys drive through the story see you next time.