mystic-chris
New Member
- Local time
- 5:32 PM
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2011
- Messages
- 24
From a forum search, I can see that this subject has been covered here in the past. But I think it bears repeating (and I hope that this post isn't an infraction in the "General Discussion" category).
When discussing my hobby with anybody, I invariably bring up the story of George Adams Wyman. I'm a rather new MB hobbyist, and I recently discovered Wyman's story: As many of you surely know, in 1903 he crossed the United States on a motorized bicycle, riding from San Francisco to New York City in fifty-one days. This fact is notable enough. But when you realize that Wyman's ride officially made him the first person to make a transcontinental crossing of the United States via a motor vehicle of any kind, it makes for a truly compelling tale. And it gives us MB hobbyists a really cool historical perspective on our hobby -- and maybe even some bragging rights!
This Wikipedia entry about Wyman has all kinds of interesting information about him, his bike and his ride: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Wyman>. In that article, one thing that I thought was pretty cool was the fact that his bicycle's four-stroke engine was a whopping 200cc, yet it made only about 1.5 HP because the available gasoline back in his day was about 30 octane! That makes me feel rather high-tech with my 49cc, 4-stroke Hua Sheng F142 making up to 2.5 HP!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Wyman
When discussing my hobby with anybody, I invariably bring up the story of George Adams Wyman. I'm a rather new MB hobbyist, and I recently discovered Wyman's story: As many of you surely know, in 1903 he crossed the United States on a motorized bicycle, riding from San Francisco to New York City in fifty-one days. This fact is notable enough. But when you realize that Wyman's ride officially made him the first person to make a transcontinental crossing of the United States via a motor vehicle of any kind, it makes for a truly compelling tale. And it gives us MB hobbyists a really cool historical perspective on our hobby -- and maybe even some bragging rights!
This Wikipedia entry about Wyman has all kinds of interesting information about him, his bike and his ride: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Wyman>. In that article, one thing that I thought was pretty cool was the fact that his bicycle's four-stroke engine was a whopping 200cc, yet it made only about 1.5 HP because the available gasoline back in his day was about 30 octane! That makes me feel rather high-tech with my 49cc, 4-stroke Hua Sheng F142 making up to 2.5 HP!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_A._Wyman
