1902 ORIENT MOTOR BICYCLE
Speed and endurance were the qualities that established Orient, America’s first motorcycle manufacturer. This 1902 model is still raring to go…
Push those pedals – it’s a bike from America’s first motorcycle maker
Remon Lanting peels off the highway and weaves his Ducati 1098 through the back streets before turning into the parking lot, past parked cars and trucks and through huge doors into the maintenance shop. He is already taking off his Arai when I pull up alongside him.
“It’s over there,” he says, gesturing with a thumb. I’d come a long way to see the Orient, one of the oldest American motorcycles in existence. So you can imagine the look on my face when I saw a plastic tray underneath the engine and a puddle of black oil. “I always drain the crankcase when I finish riding it,” says Remon by way of explanation. “And then I give the engine a fresh charge before taking it out again.” “Hello Phillip!” shouts Remon’s grandfather as he walks into the cavernous workshop. “Good to see you! You’re here to ride the Orient again!”
Again? I don’t remember riding it before. “It was in 1991, when you were here for the Anglo-dutch Trial,” says Jan. “I’d just finished rebuilding the engine and asked you if you’d like to try it,” he continues. “We thought it would be much too tall for you, but you just jumped on and disappeared for half an hour. You must have been enjoying yourself!” Nearly 30 years ago... that was before his grandson was born. My, how time flies when you’re having fun.
Picking up a spanner, Remon tightens the drain plug, opens the tap at the bottom of a glass container as big as a beer mug mounted in the front of the engine, and watches as oil disappears into the crankcase. There’s enough for three charges, each of which is good for a 50km ride. Any lubricant left after that distance will be drained into a Greta Thunberg eco-pot before another fresh charge is dribbled in.
Then Remon inserts a brass ‘interrupter plug’ into the terminal block behind the headstock to complete the circuit that connects the battery to the ignition coil, both of which are housed in a tin box mounted under the top frame tube directly behind the cylinder. On the right side of the crankcase, hidden under an aluminium cover as plain as a Pilgrim Father’s pie dish, is the contact breaker mechanism. It is driven from two gears in the timing chest, one of which carries the exhaust cam that works direct on to the tappet stem. Ignition advance is controlled by a lever fixed to the battery box, while a twist-grip ignition cut-out is mounted on the left handlebar – turn the grip outwards to make contact.
The throttle slide is operated by rotating a small handle on the top tube below
the saddle nose, and this connects to the carburettor by means of a long, vertical rod. An induction pipe, almost as long as the engine is tall, feeds the mixture up to the combustion chamber by way of an automatic inlet valve.
After plonking his pudding basin on his head, Remon floods the float chamber, sets the throttle and ignition, and moves yet another lever to hold the exhaust valve off its seat. After a couple of turns of the pedal cranks, he releases the exhaust valve and the engine pop-pop-pops into life. Advance the spark, open the throttle and he’s away, buckling his helmet strap as he rides out of the yard while steering with a little bit of body lean. I need to get a move on if I don’t want to lose him.
Described in 1903 by US magazine The Bicycling World and Motorcycle Review as the oldest American-made motorcycle, the Orient was built by the Waltham Manufacturing Company of Waltham, Massachusetts. The business was set up in 1893 by Charles Metz, an inventive cycle racer who designed his own bicycle and got funding from a group of local businessmen. By 1897 production had soared to nearly 15,000 Orient bicycles a year.
Success on the cycle tracks certainly helped. Metz signed up top racing cyclist Albert Champion for his track squad, and it was probably the Frenchman who convinced Metz to build a motorised bicycle as a pacer for record breaking and the popular hour-long match races. The first Orient tandem pacer used a De Dion-bouton motor, but Metz and Champion (who went on to start the Champion spark plug company that still bears his name) soon began using Frenchmade Aster engines as well.
Of course, both tandem riders had their own pedals, but while the man in front steered the contraption and crouched down to reduce drag, his partner looked after the engine controls while leaning back to provide a wind break for the cyclist. Waltham Manufacturing was soon making tandem pacers for other cycle teams, and tricycles and automobiles for the public. Next step: motorcycle production. Much of the development work was done by John Robins, who worked with Metz in the corner of the experimental room which had a sign above the door which read: ‘No Admittance Except by Order of the President’. They tested a chain drive, but that was too harsh. A flat leather belt was much more successful, especially with a Simplex belt tensioner with a long lever shaped like an inverted question mark and a jockey pulley. It could also be used as a rudimentary clutch. An ordinary bicycle frame wouldn’t survive the hammering it would get from being ridden over rough roads at speed, so a new long-wheelbase frame, with a vertical tube running from in front of the saddle to the pedal crank, was made from heavy-gauge tubes.
“I don’t know so much about other makes,” said Robins when he was interviewed in 1900, “but with ours we have got the vibration question just where we want it. In fact, there isn’t any vibration to speak of, and anyone who tries one of our machines and expects to find it is going to be disappointed. With the chain, as used on our first machines, I will admit that there was plenty of vibration. It was largely for that reason that the chain was discarded and the belt put in its place. We saw that it would not do. The rider would have been shaken to pieces, and the machine, too, for the matter of that. We tried the belt and it worked like a charm. In fact, from an experience based upon an exhaustive test of the machine, extending over a number of weeks, during which I covered three or four hundred miles of all kinds of riding, I have no hesitation in saying that we are pretty well satisfied with the machine.”
Metz revealed the new two-wheeler to the public at Boston’s Charles River Park racetrack on July 31, 1900. With Albert Champion in the saddle and the latest Aster engine between his legs, the Orient covered five miles at an average speed of 41.27mph to win the first officially recorded motorcycle speed competition in America. Point made, the motorcycle was rushed into production and sold through
‘THE FIRST OFFICIAL ROAD RACE IN AMERICA TOOK PLACE ON MAY 30, 1902 – ORIENT RIDERS FILLED THE FIRST THREE PLACES’
Orient cycle dealers all over the country. By October it was reported that ‘orders for the motorcycles were being received daily, and every effort was being made to hurry the time of their delivery’. Orient motorcycles were being sold through Waltham Manufacturing’s agents along the east coast and as far away as California and even Hawaii.
In early spring of 1901, Frank Clark of Baltimore became the first motorcycle rider in the US to cover 100 miles within eight hours. The time limit included stops for refuelling and lubrication, and repairing a puncture. The last two miles were covered in five minutes. Metz made the most of it by taking out adverts in bicycling magazines. ‘The actual running time was six hours, against a strong headwind, under unfavourable conditions, over the rough and steep hills of Maryland, without a mishap to the motor,’ ran the advert. ‘Unless you are living in the past, order your Orient Motor Bicycle today.’
The first official road race in America took place on May 30, 1902 – and Orient triumphed again. Six men started and five finished the 10-mile route from Irvington to Milburn, New Jersey. Orient riders filled the top three places. Wyckoff was fastest with a time of 18min 17s, but refused to have his engine stripped to check the cylinder bore was within the 2¾in limit, so the honours went to WT Green who crossed the line 61.5s later with an average speed of 31mph.
By that time the Orient was being imported into Great Britain by the Remington Automobile and Motor Agency, based in Westminster, London. Remington’s adverts claimed a speed from 3 to 45mph and promised prompt delivery. To prove just how good the American motorcycle was,
Remington’s rider won the first race at Bexhill-on-sea, officially recognised as the birthplace of British motor racing.
Despite this success, Metz wasn’t satisfied with the performance of the Aster engine and set about designing his own. While the Aster featured a heavy bronze crankcase split horizontally, Metz used a vertically-split aluminium alloy crankcase. Cast iron was used for the cylinder, with 17 fluted copper ‘radiating flanges’ closely stacked on the outside to give a larger surface area than would be possible with iron fins. That was one idea Metz pinched from Aster. Four long studs from the crankcase passed through the fins and the cylinder head, the front pair mating up with two engine mounting brackets which bolted to the frame just behind the steering head. The conrod was a steel forging, with tool steel, hardened and ground true, used for the mainshafts and crankpin. Big-end and main bearings were of phosphor bronze, as was the small end bush. Each carefully balanced flywheel weighed 18lb (8.2kg).
Metz used nickel alloy for the exhaust valve, and wanted to go one up on the French by using steel piston rings, but they didn’t last long and the engine soon lost compression. He admitted that the Europeans knew what they were doing when they used cast iron rings – and had to admit he’d made a mistake by using American cork for the float in the new carburettor. It was heavier than European cork, and caused excessive flooding. Open another bottle of Bordeaux... With a bore and stroke of 76 x 83mm, the Orient engine had a capacity of 376cc and could be safely revved to 3400rpm. Engine speed was limited by the automatic inlet valve, which was sucked off its seat by the descending piston. A stronger valve spring would prevent valve bounce at higher revs, but it would be much harder to start the engine. On May 31, 1902, Metz showed just how good his engine was at the speed trials organised by the Automobile Club of America on Staten Island. He covered the mile in an electrically timed 1min 10.4s (51.28mph), carving nearly 25s off the previous class record. His time for the kilometre was only 43.6s. ‘His performance was quite an eye-opener to the spectators,’ reported Motorcycle Review. ‘Of the 26 vehicles that made the trials before one of them crashed into the crowd, killing two people and injuring five others, only one bettered Metz’s record, and that was a big 60hp Mers racing car, which did 55.20s. The nearest to Metz’s time was 1min 12s by a 10hp steam car.’ The Orient was running without a muffler. Must have sounded awesome...
By the middle of the year, the new Orient was in full production and riders were cleaning up in competitions all over the country. Wealthy sportsmen bought them. Farm hands put $10 down and paid the rest on the never-never. Lucky telegraph linesmen, postmen, police and army despatch riders got to ride them for free.
But not everything was rosy at Waltham Manufacturing. While his partners wanted to concentrate on the automobile side of the business, Metz was passionate about motorcycles. After being bought out, he left to become editor of the motorcycle section of the Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal. He wasn’t banging a typewriter for long, though. In 1903 he began manufacture of the Metz motorcycle. There would only be minor changes to the Orient motorcycle before production ended in early 1905.
With engine number 210, the Lanting family Orient is one of the earliest of the Metz-engined motorcycles. It was discovered in England in about 1950 by Norman Manby, the boss of a ball-bearing manufacturing company, who restored it an rode it in vintage club events. Manby was told by the daughter of the captain of a British cargo ship that it had been bought at a US Army surplus sale, and that her father brought it home before the Great War. That might explain the number painted on the fuel tank.
Remon has been riding the Orient ever since he got a motorcycle licence. No wonder he rides it with such confidence. He is happy filtering through traffic and cruising at 40mph – even though stopping relies on killing the ignition and a brake that is basically a block of carved aluminium pushed down on the tyre.
When Dutchmen stop on the road, it’s often for coffee and cake. While I finish my Boterkoek met abrikozen, Remon kneels by the engine and opens the tap to run another gulp of oil into the crankcase before looking up at me.
“Are you ready to ride the Orient again?” he says with a grin. “See you in half an hour!”
‘WITH BORE AND STROKE OF 76 x 83mm, THE ORIENT ENGINE DISPLACED 376cc AND COULD BE SAFELY REVVED TO 3400rpm