Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/303159
VOL. 51 ISSUE 17 APRIL 29, 2014 P131 in September of 1907. And won. He became a fac- tory rider for Merkel in 1909. A year later he joined Indian and began winning big events on a regular basis. By 1912 Balke was with Excelsior and he and fellow factory rider Jake DeRosier were consid- ered the top riders in the country. It was in a match race in Los Angeles between the two in March of 1912 where they crashed together hard. DeRosier was injured badly enough that he would not race again. It marked the loss of the most popular racer of motorcycle racing's first decade. In spite of DeRosier's loss, the sport moved for- ward. For the 1913 season Indian hired back Balke and he paid them back richly with a slew of wins, including perhaps the biggest race of the year, the 250-mile road race in Elgin, Illinois. The July Fourth Elgin International Road Race was a huge deal in 1913 and nearly all of the factories entered their best machines and riders to try to win the event. This was the first big road race in America. The circuit – using country roads on the northwest outskirts of Elgin, was 8.5 miles long and the top riders could average close to 60 mph on the gravel roads graded and prepped with 30 thousand gal- lons of sprayed oil especially for the event. A total of 45 riders, nearly all factory backed, were entered and 2000 gallons of gas was shipped in and stored in a farmer's barn in preparation for the race. With this being Chicago-based Exclesior's home race, the factory entered 14 riders in hopes of win- ning with sheer numbers. Indian had six entries, Merkel five, Yale with four, Harley-Davidson, Jef- ferson and Dayton had three entries each and Thor had two. There were also entries from Reading- Standard, DeLuxe, Silent Flyer and Pope. Trackside temperatures of 100 degrees kept the crowd down on race day and newspapers de- scribed the crowd as "several thousand." Elgin fans had their own rider to cheer on in local racer Snowdon Lonberger, who gave them great hope when he qualified second on his Indian. Excelsior's massive effort seemed to payoff, at least early on, when Bob Perry took the lead for the first 10 laps of the race. On lap 11 Balke moved up to take over the lead. He led most of the rest of the race, except for a brief period when he pitted and was passed by fellow Indian rider Charles Gus- tafson. Balke finished the 250 miles in four hours, 34.52 minutes; averaging 55.4 mph. Indian swept the top five positions, with Indianapolis' Cannonball Baker finishing second. Balke earned $500 (about $12,000 today) for his win, Baker $250 for second and Gustafson $100 for third. A few weeks later Balke won the big board track National Championships in Denver and in October Paul Derkum gave Indian yet another prestigious victory when he won the highly pub- licized San Diego to Phoenix cross country race - an event that lasted three days. Only the supreme riding abilities of Excelsior factory rider Bob Perry kept the almighty Indian from sweeping the biggest races of 1913. Perry won the season-ending 300-Mile National Road Race in Savannah over Merkel's Maldwyn Jones. Over the next few years America lost most of its motorcycle manufacturers. Cars became ever cheaper and, with improving roads, were a weather-safe alternative. Another factor not fre- quently mentioned was the effect Henry Ford (raising wages from $2.50 to five dollars a day in 1914) had on the labor market. Other companies had to respond and the narrow profit margins the motorcycle makers had vanished overnight. Within a few years only Indian, Harley-Davidson and Excelsior remained after America's Golden Age of motorcycle production and the glory days of 1913 became a distant memory. CN 1913: THE PEAK OF AMERICAN-MADE MOTORCYCLE RACING Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives