"ALL ROADS ARE SMOOTH TO THE FLYING MERKEL!"

The Flying Merkel.

all antique pictures are from http://theflyingmerkel.com/ogphotos/

What a strange name for a motorcycle, at least by today's standards. Not so in 1911, when the name became popular because of an innovative front fork design by Joseph Merkel of Milwaukee WI.

Merkel's first motorcycle was introduced to the pubic in 1902.  It was a single cylinder engine, that by 1910 had evolved into a quick moving V-Twin.  Merkel must have been an engineering genius, because by the age of 14 he was working as an engineer on a logging railroad. By the age of 15, he was working in the machine shop.  This only fed his desire to learn more, it wasn't long before he was enrolled in Engineering at Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) to study mechanical engineering. After graduation, Merkel took a job with E.P. Allis Co. (later to become Allis-Chalmers Co.) in Milwaukee.

With this practical experience under his belt, Merkel opened his own shop in 1900, building parts for bicycles.  He had to have been bored out of his mind.  By 1901, he was attaching small engines to the frames of bicycles.  It is believed that Merkel built the first trike in the state of WI. way back in 1900.  How's that for a piece of history for you trike buffs?

As with many of the builders of his day, Merkel soon found himself attracted to the competition end of building these machines.  Racing is and always has been the "Mother of Invention" when it comes to mechanized vehicles, don't you agree?

Merkel began working on the front suspension of these flying machines.  He knew with better suspension his bikes and riders would last longer.  He developed a patented spring fork system.  When you look at this design, it's easy to see it is the grandfather of the telescoping front fork.  Everyone has experienced this fork design ....haven't we?

A few other innovations used by Merkel at the time (others were NOT!) is the use of ball bearings instead of bronze bushings in the engine. Another thought of Merkel was to design cam actuated intake valves, rather than the atmospheric pressure type valves that were popular for the day. Oh, and how about the throttle controlled engine oilier he designed? He was light years ahead of Harley and Indian at the time! 

In 1909, Merkel's company merged with the Light Manufacturing Company.  They moved the factory, lock stock and barrel to Pottstown PA.  They soon began marketing the motorcycle with the nickname Light Merkel. 



Later to become known as The Flying Merkel.  Now with new infusion of money, Merkel was free to experiment on frame, engine and suspension designs.  It's thanks to Merkel's experiments we now have such innovations as the mono shock rear suspension.

In 1911, Miami Cycle Manufacturing Company bought Merkel Light.  Merkel stayed with the company until 1914, at which time he sold out his shares of the company. This allowed Merkel to design and patent the Merkel Motor Wheel.

Merkel Motor Wheel USA, 1916 -1918, The Merkel Motor Wheel Co. Inc. built an engine (the engine was possibly built by Hendee) for a bicycle that came on a replacement rear wheel with fuel tank, brake and fender. The Motor Wheel sold for $75.00 in 1917 (the first model year). Other sources say that Merkel built none of the parts for the motor wheel but rather purchased them from suppliers and only assembled and sold it. Bought by Hendee (Indian) around 1919. Hendee sold them under the Indian name. 

For the Miami Cycle Company, the Merkel line-up rounded out their motorcycle and bicycle line by providing them with a high end product they lacked prior to the acquisition.  The Flying Merkel continued on without Merkel at the helm until just before the onset of World War I. After the war, Miami Cycle Mfg., like dozens of other American manufacturers, did not return to the motorcycle business. The Flying Merkel was relegated to the history books.

1917 saw the end of THE FLYING MERKELS.

Mono Shock Frames: I Wanna Know!

I’ve been seeing an awful lot of motorcycles lately with this type of design.



Looks pretty cool don’t ya think? When I look at this motorcycle, or others with this type of design, I think to myself, “Wow that looks just like a wasp!” You know, look at the thing! Look at how your ass is part of the main body of this machine, your back is the outer shell, the back of the wasp. Look at how the rear wheel appears like the stinger of the wasp. And while this particular motorcycle has a very boxy and unwieldy appearance to it, I've seen others whose sleek lines would cause a welter weight boxer to form an attachment to the machine. It would be something a boxer would want to fashion his body after: sleek, strong, sexy...




But I have to wonder, how does a frame like this work? How will it track? How will it hold up under stresses of the road? Will it twist and crumble when pushed to high velocity speeds? Will it track well around twists in the road? Will the rear end follow the front end without much effort?



I am still looking for answers regarding this type of frame. I want to test em myself. I want one of you builders to let the public test ride these bikes, I WANT TO TEST RIDE this bike…I just want to know how come there isn’t much information out here regarding these frames? How come I can’t find any review regarding how these things track and ride? I guess I’ll just have to do more research during the day today…see what I can find. I'll bet it's out here, I just don't know what search parameters to input... sigh



Update: The advantages of mono shock technology.
"In the good old days, motorbikes had two shock absorbers on the rear of the bike, as shown at the top of this section. As suspension evolved, the dual rear shocks were replaced with a single unit, but the question is why? The answer, it turns out, is pretty simple. In a dual-shock system, the suspension units are typically attached very close to the rear axle. This means that as the suspension compresses and expands, the shock absorber pistons are travelling in a stroke which is nearly the same as the full deflection of the swingarm. Hitting a large bump might deflect the rear axle upwards by 10cm and back, resulting in the same 10cm stroke in the shocks. Do this a lot and the shock absorber piston begins to behave like the plunger in one of those natty little cafetières or milk-frothers - it agitates the damper oil so much and so frequently that the oil begins to heat up and foam or froth. At this point it not only looks like frappuccino foam but it has about the same damping properties too, and thus loses its ability to perform as it should.

This is known as fading shock absorbers.



Enter the single shock absorber system mounted towards the front of the rear swingarm. The swingarm might still have a lot of travel at the axle, but basic geometry shows you that closer to the pivot, the deflection is much less. This translates into shorter shock absorber movements which in turn means less opportunity for the damper oil to froth. The ultimate evolution of this is the complex link monoshock system (also shown above), where a complex series of levers reduce the shock absorber travel even further. Typically multi-link setups like this also have some amount of variance in them so that they have a different amount of deflection in the first part of the stroke to the that in the second. This means a single shock absorber unit can respond better to changing road surfaces, soaking up the smaller bumps and shocks with ease and comfort without sacrificing the ability to respond to the occasional mountain or pothole."


Photo 1 Larry Nagel
Photos 2,3,4 from Fusion Motorcycles
Photo 2 from Iron Works Magazine.