I have an 89-year-old friend (here in Australia) whose uncle built at least nine motorcycles and a car before he was killed riding one of the bikes at the end of 1904. Those were the days!
If anyone's interested, I've written an article about the nine bikes built by Charles Mayman in the latest issue of my on-line magazine Serpolette's Tricycle. The design for the bikes was inspired by, but not copied from, the "English Mechanic" magazine, which in the day supplied drawings so that amateurs could make just about anything from scratch. It had designs for bikes, trikes and cars powered by steam and i.c. motors.
Anyway, something for holiday reading.
http://earlymotor.com/serpolettes-tricycle/pdf/serpolettes-tricycle-06.pdfCheers
Leon
