Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE W e take it for granted today. According to Google Maps if you lived in San Francisco, you could hop on your Honda Gold Wing catch I-80 east and about 42 hours of seat time later you'd arrive in New York. Now imagine doing that same trip in 1903. Motorcycles were only just invented; and roads to California? Hardly. Nev- ertheless in 1903 George Wyman became the first motorcyclist to make the transcontinental trip across America; in fact he was the first to make the trip by means of a motorized vehicle. Wyman's trip was made on a 1 ¼-horsepower, 5 5/8 th cubic inch (90cc) California motorcycle designed by Roy Marks. Wyman's arduous journey that started in San Francisco on May 16, took 50 days and ended in New York City on July 6. Wyman's 3800-mile journey (now thanks to more direct interstate routes that trip is nearly 1000 miles less) was sponsored and covered in a series of first-person accounts titled "Across America on a Motor Bicycle" by the short-lived Motorcycle magazine, the first magazine in the country devoted solely to motorcycling. Inexpli- cably the historic ride did not receive the kind of newspaper coverage it warranted along the route and was largely forgotten for decades until it was 'rediscovered' by a dedicated small group of writ- ers and researchers for Road Rider magazine in the late 1970s. George Adams Wyman was born on July 3, 1877 in Oakland, California. As a teen Wyman was caught up in the bicycling craze of the 1880s and '90s. He became a leading bicycle racer and at the turn of the century moved to Australia to race. He was one of the first to ride a bicycle around the perimeter of Australia. He returned to America in 1902 as a top-seed- ed rider for Bay Area bicycling clubs. It was during this time that he began riding motorized bikes. During the summer of 1902 Wyman took on the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountains and rode a motorbike to Reno, Nevada. It was during this trip that Wyman dreamed up the idea of riding a motorcycle cross country. Adams launched his transcontinental trek at Lotta's Fountain at the hub of Third, Market and Kearny streets, known then as Newspaper Square. The start of the trip got little coverage in San Francisco newspapers, perhaps due to the domination of the news of President Theodore Roosevelt's visit to the city. A photo of Wyman at the start showed him wearing a three-piece wool suit with a tie and cap. Wyman chronicled and photographed the journey for Motorcycle magazine and vividly described the countryside, towns and people he encountered along his journey. Passable roads were nearly nonexistent during this era and Wyman often found railroad ties the easiest and most reliable path for much of his journey. In the Sierra he encountered deep snow and was forced to take to the dark and damp wooden snow train tunnels that cling precariously on the side of step mountainsides. Once Wyman came upon a large heard of sheep, which scattered P130 CROSS COUNTRY BY MOTORCYCLE IN 1903

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