Talk:Motorcycle history/Archive 2

Further reading section
So when I look at Further reading it's pretty clear that a further reading section should be a "reasonable number" of items, which usually means about 3 to 5. For a large and important topic like Motorcycle history I can see that being stretched to 10 or even 20, but right now we have 17 items and they are all concentrated in the period from 1899 to 1910. If the list grew proportionally to treat the whole history from the 1860s to the present it would contain hundreds of items.

The other problem I see is that most of these items are not histories. They are primary sources, period artifacts giving color and feel from the olden days. Further reading on motorcycle history should still be history, not historical document -- there is a difference.

I like the list of articles from Google Books very much, even if it looks little bit like a directory or collection of links, which WP is not. I think there should be a place for them, if not in a new article, such as 'list of motorcycle historic writings' or something like that, then on the talk page for future use as citations, or in the WikiProject Motorcycling references section. I think the best thing would be to use these as citations in articles rather than just list them.

To me the further reading section should be 4 or 5, at most, best books on motorcycle history, while the External links section should be at most 4 or 5 best web resources on motorcycle history.

A random sample of about 20 Featured Articles shows fewer than half have a further reading section, and those that do are not very long, and they are not primary documents:
 * Roman_Vishniac
 * On_the_Origin_of_Species
 * Daniel_Boone
 * William_Hanna
 * Michael_Jackson
 * AC/DC

There are notable exceptions, however:
 * Rufous-crowned_Sparrow
 * Parapsychology
 * Free_will

Generally you have to wonder, if a source in further reading is so great, why isn't it cited in the article? If it is a source that is a lot more narrowly focused than the article, then doesn't it belong on some other more narrowly-focused article?

Note that Motorcycle history has much worse problems than the further reading section. It gives undue weight to the year by year production figures and which brand had the #1 sales position for that year, and neglects social and cultural aspects of motorcycles, as well as developments in law, their role in transportation systems, and more. And the claim that the Daimler-Maybach Reitwagen was the first motorcycle is absurd on its face and should be presented as a falsehood, regardless of how many people insist otherwise. But I digress.

--Dbratland (talk) 15:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * One reason that an item might end up in the further-reading section instead of the references section is that someone read it once or has seen it being used as a reference elsewhere, knows or suspects that it is pretty good, but does not have a copy now to which they can refer. I certainly cannot vouch for any of the items in this further-reading section, but it might apply to some. -AndrewDressel (talk) 16:46, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Tractor motorcycle
Moved from Types of motorcycles
 *  Tractor motorcycle  was a design the Italian military tested in the early 1930s where the rear wheel was replace with a track system similar that on small tanks. The experiment proved a failure.

--Dbratland (talk) 17:19, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * The NSU Kettenkraftrad was not a failure though. Krontach (talk) 06:34, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Ian Chadwick, Mary Bellis, EJ Pennington and the Revisionists
It was Ian Chadwick's website that caused me to be interested in motorcycle history. Recently, after years of research, I now read his work and see in it numerous errors. I have written to him about those errors, and he has not to my knowledge responded.

The About.com website, is owned by the New York Times, a paper that I read daily. I have contacted them directly about the many errors on pages cited by Mary Bellis, and have not yet seen any evidence that they have any intention of correcting their errors. For example, according to Bellis as soon as Otto completed the 1876 Otto engine Daimler made a motorcycle with it. The time from 1876 to 1885 is not as soon as. While this may not be important in the overall scope I think it is important to be aware that too many "sources" regardless of their origins have little to no authority.

Another example: The Merriam-Webster dictionaries are the ONLY Webster's dictionaries with authority. The Webster name had not been copyrighted and is not protected. Webster's wife could not obtain a copyright on his original dictionary by his name. The MW dictionary was considered very scholarly (by whom?) in the New International Dictionary through the 2nd edition, but not the third which is considered to have had it's veracity damaged.

The point here is that Ian Chadwick is used as a reference, and while this is an extremely valuable resource, it does not appear to be as accurate as it should be (there are also spelling errors), and may be a bit biased as well.

The question then is this: What are valid resources? Well... I don't know about you but I tend to place my faith in museums, histories from older times (we can see in the scandals daily that too many modern writers have little honor), and a modicum of interpretation based on "common sense."

Common sense tells us that the tales of E.J. Pennington are to be dismissed as having no more value than snake oil or it's modern equivalent, defragging a hard drive. I am removing any references I find to Pennington anywhere that relate to the motorcycle.

Another revisionism that I am going to reverse strenuously is any claim that Otto had any knowledge of the Beau De Rochas patent when he developed his engines. Otto began his work the year prior to the Rochas patent. Rochas never built the engine, and there is no evidence that he even tried. The common engineering goal of the time was to build an engine with power on every down cycle, so the idea of the four cycle was a radical one. Otto and Langen would NOT have invested one single Gold Mark on developing their engines had they known that there was a patent on their work. There are detailed histories on Otto (Maybe fabricated recently?) that describe his life in detail that show that he had knowledge of the Lenoir engine, which he took care not to infringe on. Here's the best part of this.. Daimler worked on the Lenoir engine. He wanted to build transport engines, Otto did not. Daimler was behind the patent challenge. Even then, only 1 in 25 patents was overturned.

But... here's the best part of all.. the Otto method of charging the cylinder was completely new work which by it's self should have sustained the patent. The court got it wrong. Only the original work should have been acknowledged, not the unproven and unbuilt theory.

Another revisonism is the use of the word motorcycle in the 19th and early 20th century. This was not a common word and it was seldom used. The German word Motorrad translates to Motor Bicycle. The Japanese word Nirinsha, is essentially Motor Car. You will see throughout Japanese documents most often that the translation is to Two Wheeled Car. Moto bicycle is very common in English areas. We shouldn't be calling the motorized bicycles motorcycles. If they have bicycle pedals and are pedaled to start, they are moto bicycles. If they have cylinders that are not located in the frame they are motor wheels, etc. The moto bicycle doesn't really evolve into the motorcycle after the H&W motorcycle until about 1905 with the kickstarter on the Scott of 1905.

The inaccurate use of terms reflects both arrogance and chauvinism. Krontach (talk) 12:29, 28 May 2011 (UTC)