One Hundred Years of Harley

William S. Harley and Arthur Davidson created their first motorcycle in a Milwaukee shed in 1903.

When William S. Harley, age 21, and Arthur Davidson, 20, created their first motorcycle in a Milwaukee shed in 1903, they couldn’t have known they were launching an icon.

That first machine was little more than a motor mounted on a bicycle frame, a noisy, uncomfortable rig seemingly designed to spook horses and scare children. They crudely scrawled “Harley Davidson Motor Company” on the door of that shed, and so began America’s love affair with a motorcycle.

On Aug. 27, 2003—100 years later—some half million descendants of the machine they produced will roar into Milwaukee for an anniversary party at Harley-Davidson’s corporate headquarters. The riders will cross lines of culture, age, sex, and social status, but they’ll all share a common bond—they ride and love Harleys.

Bob Brodbeck, president of Dick’s Supermarkets, will be among them. A resident of Platteville, Wis., he’s perhaps representative of the 21st-century Harley rider—successful and affluent but, when he’s on his bike, he’s a world away from his corporate image. “I guess I’m in love with the romance of being a biker,” he says, taking a break from an 80-hour work week.

“I wouldn’t ride anything except a Harley,” says bartender Yvonne Jamnik, of Lewisville, Texas, explaining the almost visceral attraction Harley-Davidson motorcycles have for their riders. “I guess it’s the history, but I love the power and the speed, too. I work hard, but I’m only an outlaw when I get on my bike.”

It was love that put Barry Kotek in the saddle nine years ago, when he met his wife, Carlene Thissen. One of her first questions to him was, “Do you ride?” When he said no, her response was quick. “You’ll have to learn,” she said. And he did, riding as her passenger to his motorcycle road test.

Today, they ride their twin Road Kings together through the Midwest, the Carolinas, and in their Florida home base, which offers just about year ‘round riding. “I particularly enjoy riding just with him,” Thissen says.

“The people who ride Harleys are an amazing group,” Kotek says, “from pony-tailed grass-cutters to clean-shaven doctors and lawyers.” They’ve made their pilgrimages to Sturgis, S.D., and Daytona, Fla., almost legendary biker gatherings on the road warrior itinerary, events that draw hundreds of thousands of riders. “There’s a lot of American spirit in the folks who ride these bikes,” Kotek says. “I guess it’s an apple pie and motherhood kind of thing.”

But the mystique began slowly. The year 1903 would yield just three motorcycles for the partnership of Mr. Harley and Mr. Davidson. Between 1903 and 1905 they sold just 11 motorcycles. But in 1906, the first production bike, a 440cc, 4 horsepower single-cylinder, the “Silent Gray Fellow” rolled off the line, with advance sales of 50 bikes. It would lead the two-wheel wave rolling across the country.

By 1909, more than 150 manufacturers were building motorcycles in America, a number that would grow to 230 by 1920. In that year, the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle Co.—followed closely by Indian Motorcycle Co.—led the pack, unveiling its first V-twin engine, “The American Motorcycle,” the design that set the stage for 83 years of production. By 1921, Harley was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world, with sales in 67 countries.

By the 1930s, most of the competition Ace, Arrow, Cleveland and Cyclone, Eagle, Emblem, Excelsior, and Henderson—stars that shined brightly but briefly in the motorcycle galaxy—were gone. Only Harley and Indian remained, and the Harley-Indian wars began. The battle for the consumer’s heart—and money—was carried out on the racing circuits and cross-country marathons that captured the nation’s attention—and helped identify Harley with the notion of freedom.

Dot Robinson, already a successful racer, with her husband Earl, set the transcontinental sidecar record with a time of 89 hours, 58 seconds on their Harley in 1935. Dot also founded the Motor Maids Motorcycle Club and, as the First Lady of Motorcycling, eventually sparking the flames of motorcycling in a million female hearts.

A half century later, Thissen became one of them. She rode as a passenger for the first time when she was 13, and it was love at first ride. She bought her first Harley while living in Chicago in 1990, and says she was one of only eight female riders in the city at that time.

“I couldn’t imagine riding any other bike,” she says of her first Sportster. “It was the freedom,” she says. “I spent a lot of my life just trying to be cool, and with that bike, I was.”

But perhaps the biggest boost for Harley came during World War II, when the motorcycle company supplied 90,000 two wheelers to the battlefields of Europe and Asia. At war’s end, returning servicemen bought the surplus bikes and added a new word to the American lexicon—choppers. Cutting, welding, and stripping the machine to its bare bones, they rode across the American psyche on their chopped down bikes.

Wisconsin rider Bob Brodbeck eventually became one of them. “I wanted something unique and one of a kind,” Brodbeck says of the custom chopper he designed and rode in the 1980s. The ride on the stripped down machine was more pain than pleasure and he sold it to buy the first of his current three road Harleys. “I loved the feel and the sound, the mystique about it. It’s just a tremendous release. I can just let my hair down and be myself. Incognito.”

But as the image grew, there were embellishments and detours. In 1953, for instance, Marlon Brando starred in the movie Wild One, and the image of the motorcycle outlaw took form—reinforced in 1969 when Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda (riding his chopper, “Captain America”) hit the road in search of America in Easy Rider. The outlaw image seemed a natural one for the Harley, but Brando, ironically, road a British Triumph in Wild One.

It may have been that bad dude image that signaled a 30-year slide in Harley sales that saw market share plummet in the face of foreign competition. It was almost the death of the icon, but in a rejuvenation engineered in 1981 by Arthur’s grandson Willie G. Davidson—who more than anything loved motorcycles—the company began a phoenix-like rise unrivaled in American business history, today making it one of the best selling motorcycles in the world.

Why has Harley-Davidson done so well and virtually become America’s motorcycle? It may be the throaty rumble of an accelerating Harley. Or it could be the enduring “outlaw” image, embraced today, if only on weekends, by dentists, accountants, engineers, and business executives. It may be Fonda, and Brando, and a pack of 100 Hell’s Angels roaring down the road on “Hogs.” It may be a brother and sisterhood, and a wave on the road as bikers meet, and a slogan—however exaggerated—that says “Live to ride and ride to live.”

Whatever, the mystique is very much alive. It lives in millions of Harley riders putting on leathers, throwing their leg over the saddle, twisting the throttle, and following their front wheel on that endless road, roaring into open space under the big sky, through the twisting valleys and across mountain vistas. It lives in that escape from the everyday bonds that hold them, on the road that goes on and on and never stops.

Until Monday morning.

Freelance writer Warren Jorgensen occasionally hits the open road in New York state.

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