Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

provides the only means of front suspension, as well as locating the wheel laterally via the U- tu be. Thus th e en gi ne is effec ti vely clamped between the front wheel bearings. O bv iousl y, fitti ng a ki ck-s tarter would h a ve been i m p ossi b le (not unless you wanted to ris k do ing a Doug Po len !), so the approved method of starting the device was to prop it on the fro nt wheel stand a nd kick th e tire wi th the sole of your boot. Allegedly, this was supposed to ca use it to burst into life bu t after frui tlessly all but wearing o ut a right Reebo k trying to perfect the necessary technique, I gave in a nd bump-start ed th e th ing, which is a p paren tly wh a t most Mego la maniacs di d anywa y. T h is is all very well , but if you do that yo u must be ready, kitted up a nd pr epared for actio n, because it don't got no clut ch I Thus, push-starting en tails getting up a head of stea m with the decompressor lever lifted, while all the time th e engi ne is fir ing, th en dropping the lever and simultaneously jumping aboard th e sprung seat as th e engine crackles into life and suddenly takes o££ at whateverspeed yo u were unwise enough to set the throttle at when you dropped the valv e lifter. This procedure is full of attendant risk, from the minor inconvenience of having your arms wrenched half out of their sockets as the Megola catapults forward while you 're still congratulating yo urself for having landed on the seat rather than the rear mud guard, or worse still, missed it all together, to failing to ensure that the front wheel was pointing straight forwards when you dropped the lever. When that happens, the odds that you will have one bar yanked out of your grip as torque reaction asserts itself and the wh eel straightens up are, er, considerable, in which event an ignominious get-off is completely unavoidable and the Megola will continue on its merry way alone till gravity takes over and it tips on its side and stalls. Luckily, we had taken the precaution of choosin g a relatively soft lawn for my initiation into the frat ernity of Mego la-maniacs, but Nancy Craig's flow er bed took a bit of a beating. H aving once mastered (well, sort of) the a pp ro ved method of getting going without fall ing o££, the ensuing slalom run among the trees and shrubs of Chateau Craig must have looked lik e something out of Keystone Cops. I mean, this thing has no clutch, so o nce the eng ine fires, you're o££ on yo ur trip, leastways till you either fall o££ or stall the engi ne, both of which solutions to stopping the Megola I repeatedl y sampled. Riding o ne on th e street even in the rela tively traffic-free days of the early 20s must have been fraught with risk, though the Touring Megola did a t least have a front brake of sorts, which is more than can be said for th e Sport racer, which instead has only a single sm all -diameter drum on the ba ck wheel , operated by a linked system matching the right ha ndlebar lever to ' the left foot pedal. And you thought GuzZi invented ,the linked brake system ? Cockerell must have realized that the setup was far fro m ideal for the road, though, beca u se the owners manual apparently recognized th e inconvenience posed by the new fangled traffic ligh ts then just beco m ing commonp lace, by advising the Megola rider to 'orbit' until the lights changed and he could depart the scene: Somehow, I have this Pytho nesq ue image of hundreds of Megola riders all 'orbiting' at the traffic ligh ts at the comer of Hollywood and Vine or 5th Avenue and 43rd Street, . . . th e more highly tuned racers, with their tiny stub ex h a u sts fo r ea c h cylinder, hi gh (er ) co m pressi on rwo- . r in g p istons a n d larger d iam et er updraft carburetor mounted on the op posi te side of the crankcase fro m the magneto, delivered a rep u ted 25 bhp a t 6800 rpm: maxim um safe revs were 7000, though in view of the a bsence of a ny rev-counter, in practice you just wound 'er on till she stop ped being wound a ny more. Well - tha t's what we did, anyway. Winding a Flying Megol a up is certai nly a uniqu e ex per ie nce i n mot or cycling, even if I have to admit (Abo ve) The air-cooled, five-cylinder side valve rotary engine displaces 637cc. (R ight) T he Megola Sport features pressed-steel m onocoque construction. (Below) The main fuel supply is in the frame, a nd feeds the engine via a plunger ha nd pump. The astrological co nno tatio ns are furthered in the engi ne, in wh ich the rotation of the crankshaft under each firi ng impulse is transmitted to the cra nkcase by a trio of planetary gears, so that the crankcase/wheel hub thus e££ectively also acts as a single-speed trans mission. The relative reducti on ratio of 6:1 results in three firingstro kes per cylinder for each revolution o f th e whee l, in turn requiring a ca msha ft with three lobes to operate th e side-mounted inlet and exha ust valves three times per revoluation, and th e Bosch magneto fixed to th e right side of th e planetary gear housing must provide a spark 15 times per wheel revolution. The oil pump is driven directly off the crank, thence th e magneto via a set of bevel gears, and the biggest challenge J e££ Craig found when he came to assume the rol e of Megola tuner was to time the ignition correctly, sin ce the alignment of the bevels must be spot-on and the magneto itself mounted very rigidly in order to e n su re accurate timing. Guessing exactly what that ought to be in terms of advance was also a laborious trial and error procedure. Though touring Megolas produced a fairly lethargic 14 bhp at 4800 rpm, I on ly did so in a straigh t line. The combination of sheer co ward ice and considerable mistrust of those 28-in ch beaded-edge tires' ab ility to withstand significant side loads - i.e, they 'd probably roll o££ the rim l - made my progress aro u nd turns somewhat, well , restrained. But once the track opens up you can wind the throttle o pen and the Megola will pull itself upright and head determin edly for the bush es, with the hapless rider heaving manfully on the bars to combat th e torque steer and mak e it head for wh ere you want it to go , rather than where it intends to go. Presumably if you corner in the approved fash ion, with the power on all th e time and the ba ck wheel rooster tailing a plume of dust as it broadsides a ro und behind you, that's not so m uch o f a problem, but after grappling with th e Megola's pig-headed deterrnination to have its own way exi ting turns, I promise never again to com p lai n about understeer on a modern GP racer I Till you 've wrestled with a front wheel drive bike, yo u don 't know th e meaning of the word. , . . The fact that there's no clutch and there fore no transmission means that the Megola's engi ne must be extre mel y su pple to accelerate from walking pace to Bauhofer's 90 mph top speed in a single ratio, a nd it is, bu t letting the rider o££ gear- selection duty doesn' t mean he has nothing else to do except hang o n and grapple with the steering. Lubrication to the engine is by totalloss gravity feed direct to the main bearings from the four -litre tank mounted on th e left-hand steer ing stru t, but while a corresponding tank o n th e o ther side holds a small supply of fuel , th is is only a priming tank and must be topped up regularly from th e' main su pp ly inside the pressed steel monocoque chassis by means of a plunger hand pump on the right of th e chassis. This involves taking yo ur hand off the throttle - but since this is of the lever variety you can simply pre-set it and maintain momentum while pumping gas from one tank to another. , Stopping the beast is something you don't want to do in a hurry, though - th ere 's no fro nt brake at all on the raci n g version, whil e the rear o ne is a curious dual o peration device wi th one in ternally expa nd ing shoe and o ne ex ter n a lly contrac t i ng o ne , both joi ntly con trolled by the linked lever and pedal sys te m . Squeezing a nd stam pin g for a ll you 're worth seems to have practi call y no retarda tio n effect wha tsoever, so hea vy use of th e decompressor is the only solution, a nd that means operating it in pl enty of tim e to allow your mo mentum to spend itself before tha t bric k wall hoves up too sha rp ly. . . . T he fro nt su spension is ha rdl y wor thy of the na me - th e sprung saddle is actually a lot more e££ective - a nd was a p pa rently a weak point of th e design, which saw too much weig ht in terms of the engine and fro nt wheel assembly sus pe nded on the end of a sma ll leaf spring whi ch was prone to fracturing over the bumpy roads of the era . Worked j ust fine on T ennis Avenue, Philad elph ia, Pennsylvania, though . . . . At th e end of the da y, though, you have to ask yo urself - wh y? Wh y build suc h a weird device, requiring so many compli cated - a nd ingenio us engi neering solutions to problem s tha t never existed ti ll th e designer presented h im self with th em? By 1920, the bas ic fo rm a t of th e motorcycle as we know it today was well established , even if detail design on th ings like for ks and brakes had yet to be finalized - well , evolved, let's say. Probably the only real reason for th e Megol a's existence is that Cockerell , who died in 1965 after a lifetime of inventiveness, was simply a crea tive sp irit who lik e so many such men could eq ually well go up blind alleys such as the Megola undoubtedly represents, as produce design s of lasting worth. At th e time, he probably thought the Megola was more likely to represent th e way ahea d for twowheeled design th an th e Mcc clip-on moped engine he made in 1923, or the water-cooled in-line four- cylinder bike he built around th e same tim e. Only tim e, a nd the Japanese, proved him wrongI CN Specifications 1923 Megola Sport Engine type ..... .. • .. . A ir-cooled · five-cylinder sidevalve rotary Bore x stroke • •.• .• . .. . 52x60mm Displacement .. •.......... 637cc Carburetor . ... Updraft carburetor - dimension and make unknown Horsepow er 25 bhp at 6800 rpm Igni tion .. . . . .. • • . Bosch magneto Transmission No ne - f ully engaged front-wheel drive Clutch None Frame Pressed steel mon ocoq ue w ith rivettsd' co nstruction Fro nt suspen sion Five·leaf quarter-elliptic spring Rear suspen sion .• . . . . . . . . . . None Wheelbase 1470 m m Front brakes None Rear brakes 150 mm single leadi ng- shoe drum with dual ope ration by right handlebar lever and left foot pedal . Front tire/wheel ••.. • . . . 25x3.00 Goodyear All-Weather on beaded-edge ri m Rear tire/wheel ••. . .. ... 25x3.00 . Dunlop Heavy DutY' on beaded -edge ri m Dry weight 242 lb . Top speed . • • • ••• ••••. ••• 90 mph lAw s. Berlin - 19241

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