Today in motorcycle history, March 8, 1909

  Beatrice Shilling is born, the daughter of a butcher in Waterlooville, Hampshire, UK.

  After being encouraged by her employer (she worked for an electrical engineering company) she received a degree in Electrical Engineering at Manchester University.  She then went to work as a research assistant at the University of Birmingham before being recruited as a scientific officer by the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

  During the Battle of France and Battle of Britain in 1940, it became apparent that the Rolls-Royce Merlin powered RAF fighters had a serious problem with their carburetors while manuevering in combat.  Sudden lowering of the nose of the aircraft resulted in the engine being flooded with excess fuel, causing it to lose power or shut down completely.  Not such a good thing while on the chase of-or being chased by-a Messerschmitt. 

  Beatrice Shilling devised a simple, yet ingenious, solution that was officially called the R.A.E. restrictor.  This was a small metal disc with a hole in the middle, fitted into the engine's carburetor. Although not a complete solution, it allowed the pilots to perform quick manuevers without loss of engine power.  By March 1941, she had led a small team on a tour of RAF fighter bases, installing the devices in their Merlin engines.  The restrictor was immensely popular with pilots, who affectionately named it 'Miss Shilling's orifice'.

   Prior to World War II she was an avid motorcycle racer.  She beat professional riders such as Noel Pope on his supercharged Brough Superior.  She also made her name known by lapping the Brooklands circuit at 106 mph on her cammy Norton M30, earning herself the Brookland Gold Star in the process.

  Beatrice raced her M30 untill 1939, at one time even fitting it with a supercharger.  But with the declaration of war racing ended at Brooklands and the Norton was returned to a road machine to become Beatrice's chief means of transportation for the next fourteen years.

 

Her Norton in the picture above, taken in 1935, is a 490cc M30.

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Today in motorcycle history, March 7, 2011

  One of my favorite East Coast bike bars of all-time, the Sawmill Tavern in Schenectady, New York, serves it's final Sunday free brunch.

 

  After spending the past 1,500 or so Sundays making sure he had enough food to give a lot of people a free, hot meal, Don Birch took a Sunday off — a casualty of the same hard times he tried to make easier for others.

  The longtime owner of the Sawmill Tavern served up what he said was the last of the free buffets he has offered every Sunday afternoon since 1980, two years after opening his biker bar in the Little Italy neighborhood in this economically depressed city on New York's Mohawk River.  

  Anyone who needed a meal — the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly, whole families struggling to make ends meet — could show up at the Sawmill Tavern on the corner of South Avenue and North Jay Street no questions asked.

 

  As Schenectady's economy worsened, the number of people who showed up each Sunday rose to about 200.  Birch says he can no longer afford to pay for the free meals out of his own pocket, even with food donations from local businesses and a farmer who provided potato's.  He lost his job as an assistant plant manager at a locomotive factory when it shuttered two years ago amid a cratering economy and rising unemployment.  A typical Sunday spread featured chicken, ribs, meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs, vegetables and mashed potato's.

  For the final meal, Birch served prime rib to about 180 people that showed up despite a cold, steady rain. 

  If you're ever in Schenectady, on a bike or not, make time to down a few at the Sawmill.

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Buffalo, NY circa 1966

Today in motorcycle history, March 6, 1900

  Gottlieb Daimler dies.

 

  Daimler and his lifelong business partner Wilhelm Maybach were two inventors whose goal was to create small, high-speed engines to be mounted in any kind of locomotion device.  In 1885 they designed a precursor of the modern gasoline engine which they subsequently fitted to a two-wheel, wooden rigid frame ("Swingarms are for pussies!", Maybach would scream) which became known as the first internal combustion motorcycle (a version with a 10" over springer, drag bars, a king/queen seat and flame paint job was in the works for spring, 1889) and, in 1886, they attempted to fit their engine to a stagecoach, and then a boat.

Today in motorcycle history II, March 5, 1990

  Jimmy Carter's sister, Gloria Carter Spann, dies from pancreatic cancer.  Gloria and her second husband, Walter, spent much of their time out of the spotlight and in the saddle on coss-country trips aboard their Harley-Davidson.

  During their years as motorcyclists, Gloria and her husband became "den mother" and father to the younger riders.  The Spanns planted a large garden for the bikers each year and canned the vegetables to serve as they often had unexpected guests.  Their farmhouse was arranged for multiple cots or sleeping bags.  Walter constructed a four-hole outhouse to accommodate bikers who were cruising through the South or headed down to the races at Daytona.

  When she died she was buried in the Lebanon Church Cemetery near Plains, Georgia where her parents and brother, Billy Carter, are also buried.   Gloria Carter Spann's tombstone reads, "She rides in Harley Heaven."

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Today in motorcycle history, January 21, 1905

  Another past tale to tell...

  Small ads are placed in the "Automobile and Cycle Trade Journal". These advertisements offer Harley-Davidson engines to the do-it-yourself trade. By April of 1905, complete motorcycles were in production on a very limited basis. That year, the first Harley-Davidson dealer, Carl H. Lang of Chicago, sold three bikes from the dozen or so built in the Davidson backyard shed.
   Some years later the original shed was taken to the Juneau Avenue factory where it would stand for many decades as a tribute to the Motor Company's humble origins.
   Unfortunately, the first shed was accidentally destroyed by contractors in the early 1970s during a clean-up of the factory yard.
   Oops.

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Today in motorcycle history, November 2, 1934

   I'm on vacation so here's a blast from the past...

   Englishwomen Theresa Wallach and Florence "Blenk" Blenkiron, set out on a Phelon & Moore 600cc single-cylinder Panther motorcycle equipped with a sidecar and a trailer and rode from London to Cape Town, South Africa. No modern roads, no plan B, just a giant set of balls that any man would envy. Both women were already accomplished competitive racers, who were savvy enough to raise corporate sponsorship– which just goes to show how seriously they were taken as motorcyclists. The duo rode straight across the Sahara through equatorial Africa, and South to the Cape, on the long and brutal trek without so much as a compass. Undeterred by nomads, sand drifts, heat, rain, breakdowns and politics. A feat that no man had dared to even attempt. Keep in mind this was 1934.
   Theresa Wallach was elected to the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2003. Other than being a motorcycle adventurer, she is an author who founded Easy Motorcycle Riding Schools, Inc. and published a training manual of same name and was the first Vice President of Women's International Motorcycle Association (WIMA).
Her life-long love affair with motorcycling is summed up in a quote from a 1977 interview with Road Rider Magazine.
   "When I first saw a motorcycle, I got a message from it," she said. "It was a feeling – the kind of thing that makes a person burst into tears hearing a piece of music or standing awestruck in front of a fine work of art. Motorcycling is a tool with which you can accomplish something meaningful in your life. It is an art."
   Theresa Wallach remained an active member in WIMA up until her death in 1998 at age 90.

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